Elmar 90/4 - Disappointing Results

[hoot]

On the other hand, I often meter manually for tricky shots when I don't trust the onboard meter.

So do I; the J-12 is attached to a Zorki-1. It's really very strange. No other lens does that.

 

[bmattock]

Flare can indeed be a problem, and a hood should always be used, but I doubt that any amount of flare can cause what you describe as up to four stops over-exposure. If it's black and white film, you might try printing on soft paper in diluted developer just to check.

Is the Leitz Ektar a product of collaboration with Kodak and is the Yaschica made in Austria? I thought the spelling was Kreuznach. That's what my Xenar said anyway. Sorry about this. Teacher and editor equals nit-picker.

I have a couple of Steinheil 135 f4.5's in LTM, they flare if you even look at them funny. And to me, it looks a lot like overexposure, mostly in the middle of the image. So that was my first thought.

As to the Elmars - I'm no Leica expert, but I do recall reading that Kodak was offered the chance to make Leica lenses during WWII for use by US military forces, but declined - I believe B&L and Wollensak picked up those contracts. So no Leitz Ektars as far as I know. Schneider is made in Krueznach, as far as I know.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[raid]

Not overexposure. Lens flare. Overexposure not possible on Bessa R if the meter is functioning correctly and the lens is properly screwed on. The sensor is at the bottom of the camera, well out of harm's way from say an rangefinder tab.

Aperture leaves don't close down during shooting on a rangefinder, that's SLR shooting only. They stop down when you stop them down.

Presuming you are stopping down until you get a center-dot reading with your Bessa R, it is not overexposed. If it looks overexposed, that's a type of lens flare.

Use a lens hood. Mandatory with old lenses.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Who can argue with Bill's logical explanation ... I won't even try to.

 

[rbiemer]

Dumb question here: I don't know how you're doing(or having done) your processing but any possibility the problem is the processing?
In my case, I am using one of my local 1 hour places and most of the time everything's fine but occasionally they screw up and I have gotten some bizarre results.
If it's not the processing, then I would lean towards the flare suggestions as the cause.
Rob

 

[payasam]

Bill, I've recently got hold of a Steinheil 85 from which I expect the moon and the stars. Be kind to an ageing dreamer.

While I did know that early Hasselblad lenses (no leaf shutters) were made by Kodak, this offer of Leica mount lenses is news to me. Thanks. But if two other firms picked up the contracts, why is it that their products seem to have disappeared?

Schneider, family name. Kreuznach, place name. Combined in hyphenated form, trade name. A simple matter of transposing the "u" and the "e".

Rob, if the problem had been bad processing, there would have been some sort of pattern: four good frames, four bad ones, something like that. Here it's a clear case of Lens A versus Lens B.

 

[marknyc]

Thanks to everyone for the help. I am concluding that this is apparently a lens flare issue. I am also finding as I work with the negatives that they are more salvageable then they first appeared on my contact sheets, so I am a little less vexed than before, but still believe I need to get a lens hood.

Thanks again.

-- Mark