Do you mix and match your lens brands?

P

Palaeoboy

Joel Matherson
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Greeting All. I have always been the type to try maintain the same brand when setting up a particular lens kit. Generally I find that a lens line share a character to them so I try to achieve a consistency through the focal lengths for that kit. But there is always that one lens that isnt offered for whatever reason, maybe that focal length isnt offered, you want something smaller or matching a filter thread size or maybe just on price, so you look to an alternate brand for that focal length. It may even be age difference such as those who love the 40mm Summicron from the 70's using it with a set of modern ASPH Leica lenses. I have had to do this for my Nikon RF kit in that the Voigtlander 21mm was the best option in a range of classic Nikon lenses. I also had to do the same for my Leica kit to get 39mm filters across the board and I have seen many argent Leica users with a special Biogon-C 21 in the kit to replace the larger Leica offerings. So I thought it would be nice to hear from those how that odd lens fits in with the rest of their lens range. Do you see any character difference in your images? Do you cover the difference in post processing? Does that lens simply blend in flawlessly? I think quite a few people have second thoughts about that odd lens when in the market so I thought we could discuss those successes and those that just didnt work for you? Lets Chat.
 
Right now 3 Voigtländers and one Leica. Gonna swap my 35mm Nokton 1.4 for the 35mm Summilux Asph this week.

Im a student, so money is hard to come by. I tend to search for the best in the pricerange. The 35mm Nokton is an awesome lens, the lux 35 is a tad better in almost every department but certainly not that much better (as the price suggests).

I like to think that lenses are like cars. Putting a few extra horsepowers on an average car isnt that costly, but putting little extra oompf on a F1 costs ALOT.

Im a MA Math student, so I find the lenses I want and get the lens I can afford. If a lens like that does not exist, Ill start saving up.

I have no problems having lenses from different make, the lenses havent complained either, never seen my leica lens put up a grinny face when squished next to a Voigtländers lens in my bag.

To me the handling and optical quality is more important than the brand. If it gets me what I want, then its good.
 
I dont care if my lenses are different brands, I pick them based on characteristics not the name.
 
As long as it does not fall apart in my hands I'll shoot it.

I know a lot of folks say they have a limited budget for photo equipment and of course the meaning of "limited" can vary by a huge factor. My "limited budget" for lenses for my once in a lifetime Leica M body, a retirement present, is now in the FSU price range. I'm looking for a 50mm lens and it looks like the 50mm f2.8 Industar-61 is in my price range. But I might stretch it a bit and get a Jupiter-8. The rest of my photo spending must be reserved for film and paper.
 
I'm not adverse to buying third party lenses, as long as they are good performers, and within my budget. I did just put a kit together for my oldest brother, where I purchased only OEM lenses, but then that's because they were the best made for it, and it's for my brother.

PF
 
Mix, after learning here the wonders of the Zeiss offerings. My core set is now all Zeiss, 21, 25, 35, 50. I like the Zeiss colours and contrast. In the last week I have used 50 and 35 Summicrons and the Voigtlander Color Skopar 25 as it's so small.
 
Mix and match, I tend not to shoot wide open, so most character of a lens goes away at f/8. In fact, I tend not to want character at all, just a nice sharp lens.
 
I like my small collection of Nikkor LTM lenses, so I keep them together in the same kit. However, a Canon P works very well with 105/2.5 and 35/2.5 Nikkors :)

On the Leica side some Voigtlander lenses match my Leica lenses much better than anything Leica has to offer. For example the 35/1.4 Nokton is great with the 75 Summilux (character, close focus, etc). Or the 28/1.9 Ultron a great match to the 50/2 rigid/DR. When you like 28, until the 70s, Leica simply didn't have anything good.

I have to say that I don't really care for the modern Leica offerings. If I wanted "perfect", I wouldn't shoot film. When I say "Leica lenses", I mean the classic Mandler designs :)

Roland.
 
i have owned some leica lenses, many zm lenses and now have settled on the smaller, slower cv lenses.
i like small lenses on my rangefinder bodies. the cv lenses satisfy my 'quality' needs just fine.
i currently have the cv 25/4, the 50/2.5...the rollei 40 (not technically a cv lens but housed in a cv shell) and the cv 75/2/5...i also just bought a canon 50/1.4 for some speed and it was a local deal...though i'm not sure if i'll keep it.
 
I use primarily the same brand of lenses as mfgr. of camera. To me, this is important especially when the lens has to be coupled electronically to perform functions such as aperture & focus. When I'm at a paid gig I don't need to have on my mind whether or not a mis-match or some other short comings takes place. Perhaps this could happen when using same brand lenses as camera body but it hasn't with my stuff yet. However, I've had associate photographers work with me experiencing troubles because of using an other lens mfgr. with her camera just to save some money with the initial lens purchase.

For my Canon digital stuff it's all Canon lenses with the 24-70 f2.8 being used 90 to 95% of the time.

Same for other makes of cameras.

Works for me.
 
On the Leica side some Voigtlander lenses match my Leica lenses much better than anything Leica has to offer. For example the 35/1.4 Nokton is great with the 75 Summilux (character, close focus, etc). Or the 28/1.9 Ultron a great match to the 50/2 rigid/DR. When you like 28, until the 70s, Leica simply didn't have anything good.
Click to expand...

This is the sort of thing I was hoping to hear about! They are combos I would never have expected to share the same character. If there are others people would like to share others may try some of them out themselves.

I have heard a number of people have all Leica lens (both Mandler and modern ASPH) but they wanted the best 21mm they could get and chose the Biogon C. I would love to hear from those how that lens fits into their kit. Not having tried this lens I always curious how it fitted in with other lenses. Zeiss devotees love the unique rendering, so how does a lens like that fit in with Mandler Leica lenses yet others say it fits well with their modern Leica lenses. It seems a lens that has 3 sides to it?
 
My DSLR kit is a complete mix-match Canon 7D + Sigma 30mm and Tamron 60mm. Got the Sigma because I had the Canon F-2 before and wanted something that focused a bit faster, but didn't have the $$$ for the 35L. Got the Tamron because I thought 30+60 makes more sense then 30+50.
When I had it my M6 kit consisted a Leitz, a Canon and a Nokton.
My Bronica kits is 100% Bronica, but don't think that counts as I don't think anyone else made lens for that mount.
 
For Rf's, not a big deal - Leica, ZM, CV, Nikkors, etc... For DSLR's, I only use Nikons for AF/AFS lenses, but will use others for AI/AIS manual focus lenses. The "Nikon-only for AF/AFS" comes from the fact that sometimes the lens is not 100% compatible with a newly-released DSLR body, e.g., Nikon DSLR's and Sigma lenses (circa 2-3 years ago).
 
I mix, on my Nikon S2 I'm using a Voigtlander lens and on
my Nikon D200 I use Nikon and Tamron Lenses. It's just that
Certain company's have certain lenses and price that I like.

Range
 
I used to mix and match. Now I use only 6bit Leica lenses for my M9 so I never have to think about lens detection settings and they obviously work perfectly on my M6.
28/50/90 Summicrons
 
I used to have it mixed with different brands. Now I try to keep my lenses the same brand as my cameras. For my Canon I have all Canon lenses. For my M9, I have all Leica lenses except my 25mm f2.8 Zeiss. Hoping to someday replace that with the Leica 21mm f3.8 But the Zeiss is so damn beautiful and the Leica is expensive.
 
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