How can you tell which lenses are good?

[MacDaddy]

Being new to RFs, where can we go to find out which lenses are good ones for our cameras? (Particularly Leica!) I see Summicoms and Summicrons, etc. How can you tell the difference? Is there a chart or list of lenses with the differences somewhere?
It would be nice to have some idea so that we could know when one comes up for sale on the forum if it's worth going after or not.

 

[jlw]

Among equipment that's currently available new, it's easy: Since the RF camera market doesn't include any plastic-barreled, ultra-zoom lenses made to be sold at bargain prices, ALL the lenses are good. Seriously! All the current Leica lenses are fabulous, the Zeiss lenses are sensational, the Cosina-Voigtlander lenses are terrific.

You read a lot of hair-splitting debates on this forum (and even more elsewhere) about whether Lens A is "better" than Lens B -- but you need to understand that when you're talking about currently-produced RF optics, what these discussions are trying to do is draw a distinction between "superb" and "slightly less superb," or else dealing with individual matters of taste such as contrast and the rendering of out-of-focus areas.

In short, if you had the money to buy and try every RF lens currently made, you'd undoubtedly find some you liked better than others -- but you'd be hard-pressed to find ANY of them that didn't produce images of a very high technical standard.

Once you get into older lenses, it gets tougher. There are plenty of old Leica, Zeiss, Canon and Nikon lenses the performance of which isn't up to modern standards in terms of sharpness, contrast, and freedom from flare. If you're into old Soviet lenses, you've also got to factor in sample-to-sample variation, which can be fairly huge in FSU gear. That doesn't stop a lot of us from cherishing these lenses and loving the imagery they produce -- it just means that your personal taste becomes the decisive factor in deciding whether or not a particular lens' performance is "acceptable."

One example we've discussed a lot recently is the Canon 50mm f/0.95 lens for the Canon 7 and 7s cameras. Some of us who own these lenses absolutely love the unique image quality they produce at full aperture; other people, who either don't own them or used to own one but got rid of it, think they're simply "mushy" and not worth bothering with. Who's right? You are -- for the purposes of your own photography. You have to look at what the lens can do and decide for yourself whether or not you like the results.

If you're determined to have the technical, test-lab interpretation of the absolute "best" lens in a given category, don't forget the old wisdom that unless you're using a very sturdy tripod, the finest-grained films, etc., most lenses have a lot better quantitative performance than your technique will allow them to display!

 

[richard_l]

There's a lot of information about Leica lenses at Erwin Putz' site , and just ask about them in the Leica forum. They are always an interesting topic, IMO. Also you can use the search engine to find threads about specific lenses.

Richard

 

[Alec]

Among all the Leica resources available on the web, this one imho pretty much summarizes what you need to know before taking a (probably big) decision :
http://www.cameraquest.com/mlenses.htm
with more detail here :
http://www.kbcamera.com/mreviews.htm
and a caveat here :
http://www.cameraquest.com/lenstest.htm

We all know here that it is not the lens that makes the photographer, but afaik we nevertheless are all busy piling up glass high.

Welcome to the brotherhood!

 

[Poptart]

The better lenses take the best picture, obviously.

 

[Bertram2]

Being new to RFs, where can we go to find out which lenses are good ones for our cameras? (Particularly Leica!) I see Summicoms and Summicrons, etc. How can you tell the difference? Is there a chart or list of lenses with the differences somewhere?
It would be nice to have some idea so that we could know when one comes up for sale on the forum if it's worth going after or not.

JLW said it all, a absolutely perfect description of the RF market today. Don't go to Erwin Putz' site, he is obviously a part of the Leica marketing and thus always ends with the result , that all other brands are "slightly less superior" than Leica lenses. The cheaper they are the less superior they are, his "tests" are hardly more than mirroring the pricelists. That is absolutely no relevant information for somebody who has to decide how to spend a limited budget on RF lenses.

True however is that many lenses have very individual "visual footprints" and my advice would be rather to watch photos shot with the lenses you are interested in, this will give you more help than a chart with numbers which are the result of a pseudo-sScientific test not earning that name. Ask photogs, not lens testers .

Bertram

 

[MacDaddy]

Let me expand a little further on this topic: I've seen many great lenses come up on the forum, but is there a way to tell if they will work with various cameras OTHER THAN those of their manufacturers? I.E.; is there a way to get, say a Canon 50/2 or 2/8 to work correctly on a Bessa R3a or another brand? What about Jupiters, etc? See where I'm going with this?
I'm reasonably sure most of us are on budgets that don't permit Leica purchases all day long and we need to alleviate GAS attacks within sane restraints and without incurring The Wrath of The Missus, so is there a logical way to tell or is it simply a matter of absorbing that knowlege over a period of time of being on this forum? (Which rocks, BTW!)
Thanks for all the great replies thus far; they've helped. I'm not into having constant GAS attacks, and Bertram said it best when he pointed out that the photographer makes the shot, not the equipment. But at some point, when the budget permits, I DO want to acquire more lenses (and maybe cameras!) and am not in love with "only" new glass! So, for the sake of us noobies, please continue to expand our photographic horizons please, folks.

 

[peter_n]

Rob you sound like a really sane bloke, if I may pass a personal comment. 😉 I came into the world of RFs a bit over two years ago and was equally overwhelmed by the array of choice. To be honest, there is a learning curve and the archives both here and at the photo.net forum are just chock full of useful information.

Having said that you do need to read with caution because it is mostly opinion and the lens "tests" and MTF graphs are a statistical joke. Only you know what you like in the way a lens draws a picture, so my advice is that when you've learned the product information use the search engines to look at pictures taken by the lens(es) you are interested in, as Bertram suggests above. You have to take even those with a grain of salt but if you are able to look at a number of pictures from different samples of the same lens you will probably get a fair idea of whether it will work for you or not.


To just reinforce jlw's marvellous post above, most fairly modern RF lenses are of excellent quality. Leica, Zeiss, CV, Konica all will give you excellent results. But you do need to see how they draw the picture so that you can get something that will give you prints that you like. Some people will only put a Canon lens on a Canon body, or a CV on a CV, others (myself included) mix and match. In most cases lenses and bodies from different manufacturers will work just fine together and you have a lot more options if you are willing to be flexible. 🙂

 

[ErnestoJL]

JLW pointed it the way it is, but the most important IMO is personal taste about lens performance. It doesn´t matter if the lens you have can resolve n lines per mm, as long as the picture you get is what you wanted. The compatibility of lenses in regard of the different bodies available is mostly non critical with CV and Canon, but FSU lenses would place some problems in a few cases.
Any technical test can tell you that lens A is better than B in terms of resolution, colour rendition, aberrations, illumination, etc. but it would mean nothing as long as the lab conditions aren´t met in everyday use.
Price is also not the best way to ascertain lens quality. Think of this: I bought many years ago a Kiev 4 with a Jupiter 8M (regular supply for the time) for about USD 50. Both camera and lens are fine performers still today, but lens is far better than you may expect for its price. In fact it´s a good lens at a bargain price, not a lens designed with price as the main target. There are no plastic barrels or helicoids inside, so it will last for a long time and even tolerate some abuse.
Leica lenses are excelent as well as many others in either M or thread mount when new, but when buying used lenses check for abuse marks or scratches and fog. Also check if the lens was disassembled or not. A good lens badly reassembled can be worst than a cheap lens.
Hope this will help a little more.
Regards
Ernesto

 

[ray_g]

Let me expand a little further on this topic: I've seen many great lenses come up on the forum, but is there a way to tell if they will work with various cameras OTHER THAN those of their manufacturers? I.E.; is there a way to get, say a Canon 50/2 or 2/8 to work correctly on a Bessa R3a or another brand? What about Jupiters, etc? See where I'm going with this?
.

I think I see where the confusion is coming from. You will need to understand the RF lenmounts. As opposed to SLR's were each manufacturer uses a proprietary lens mount, things in RF world are actually much simpler.

Contax/Kiev and Nikon RF's are on one side. Since you are interested in Leica's, you only need to know about two: the original Leica Thread Mount (LTM) or Leica Screw Mount, and the newer Leica M mount.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Short answer: it depends on what you are looking for for your pictures.
Shorter answer: tabbed 50mm Summicron-M.
Even shorter answer: $ummilux A$ph.

 

[JoeFriday]

it's funny how just a few short months ago I had the same exact questions as Rob.. what lens is good, what hierarchy, what's compatible, what's the best focal length for....? I remember asking one or two very vague questions on here and got the same responses.. essentially saying "we can't tell you.. you'll have to figure it out yourself".. of course I thought "these guys aren't trying to be very helpful"

I believe the biggest problem I had was that I hadn't developed a shooting style yet (altho it's debatable still).. so I couldn't say "what's a good lens for this situation?".. whether you want a good portrait lens or a good low-light setup.. or a lens with creamy smooth bokeh and a sharp center.. or natural color rendition.. there are a lot of variables that will determine what you want

and it doesn't help when you're looking at many years and variations of the same manufacturer and focal length.. the Summar/Summarit/Summicron/Summilux/Summaron.. it would be helpful if Leica came up with names that didn't start with the same 4 letters once in a while, eh?

I'd suggest first figuring out what focal length you want to investigate.. then a price range.. that'll tell you what lenses to compare.. then go to pnet or flickr, or just google that lens and see what sample photos pop up

it's pretty overwhelming at first with all the brands and variations even for one focal length.. but eventually you'll figure that one out.. then branch out and check out the next closest focal range.. ie, start with 50mm.. then look at 40mm.. then 35mm, etc

 

[bmattock]

Let me expand a little further on this topic: I've seen many great lenses come up on the forum, but is there a way to tell if they will work with various cameras OTHER THAN those of their manufacturers? I.E.; is there a way to get, say a Canon 50/2 or 2/8 to work correctly on a Bessa R3a or another brand? What about Jupiters, etc? See where I'm going with this?

Yes.

Leica created a lens mount that used a threaded screw - 39mm x 26 tpi (threads per inch) with a 27.8mm flange-to-film distance (space from the back of the lens to the film plane). It is known as LTM (Leica Thread Mount) or sometimes LSM (Leica Screw Mount) or sometimes (and incorrectly) as M39 (M39 was a soviet SLR mount that was physically identical, but had a different flange-to-film distance).

The LTM mount was widely copied, and many companies made lenses that conform to this standard.

Leica later improved their lens mount by making it into a bayonet type (M-Mount or Leica M) - but they did not sacrifice backward compatibility. There are simple adapters that allow any LTM lens to be used in place of M-Mount lens on a camera designed to accept the M lenses. Generally you buy one adapter for each lens, and keep the adapter on the lens thereafter, but you can remove the adapter and switch lenses that way - sort of a pain in the butt.

There are a few gotchas, but for the most part, any LTM lens will fit any LTM camera, regardless of make. Any LTM lens will fit any M-Mount camera, with the appropriate adapter. And with a couple of gotchas, any M-Mount lens will fit any M-Mount camera.

Gotchas that I know of are these:

* FSU (Former Soviet Union) Leica clones (Zorki's, et al) use a rangefinder sensing tab that is not a 'roller' but a 'pad' and it will not work well with *real* LTM lenses or ANY LTM lens that has a 'foot' sticking out the back for rangefinding instead of a 'collar' sticking out of the back. I don't have a photo of a ready example, but one look at each and you'll know what I mean. If you try to put a lens with a foot onto a FSU camera, you'll knock the rangefinder out of adjustment, assuming you can get the lens on at all.

* Some wide angle lenses (I believe all are FSU, but I could be wrong) extend too far into the camera body to be used on non FSU cameras. Someone should help me out with that one - I don't know enough about what will and won't work.

* Konica made a nominal M-Mount camera (Hexar RF) that used an M-Mount, but it is said that the flange-to-film distance is different. Not by much, but apparently enough to make mounting the otherwise well-regarded Hexar lenses on non-Konica camera a bad idea. They'll fit, but they won't give good results, is what I hear. No personal experience, and some people claim this is all hogwash, so your mileage may vary.

There was a German-made camera called the Braun Paxette that used a 39mm 26tpi lens mount as well, but it had a VERY different flange-to-film distance and will NOT work on a LTM camera under any circumstances. Many eBay sellers advertise 'rare' and 'unlisted' LTM lenses that are actually Paxette lenses. Worth about $5, the lot of 'em - but I've seen them sell for hundreds. A lot of companies made Paxette lenses, and there were some manufacturers who made lenses for both Leica and Braun - so one must use caution or be a Paxette expert (which I am, I love the dratted things).

I'm reasonably sure most of us are on budgets that don't permit Leica purchases all day long and we need to alleviate GAS attacks within sane restraints and without incurring The Wrath of The Missus, so is there a logical way to tell or is it simply a matter of absorbing that knowlege over a period of time of being on this forum? (Which rocks, BTW!)
Thanks for all the great replies thus far; they've helped. I'm not into having constant GAS attacks, and Bertram said it best when he pointed out that the photographer makes the shot, not the equipment. But at some point, when the budget permits, I DO want to acquire more lenses (and maybe cameras!) and am not in love with "only" new glass! So, for the sake of us noobies, please continue to expand our photographic horizons please, folks.

In general, one may say that there are many 'good' lenses out there, and some few 'excellent' lenses, but if you are after a particular look to your photos, the technical quality rating may not mean much. For example, there are pre-WWII uncoated lenses that are cherished by some for the distinctive 'glow' they give their subjects - which some of us call 'lens flare' and try to avoid (just kidding, guys). Some may prize a slightly soft look to the lens instead of ultra-sharpness and high contrast. It just depends on what you're after.

All Leica lenses tend towards excellence if they are otherwise in good mechanical and optical condition. Same for Canon and Nikon LTM lenses (they did not make M-Mount lenses). That is not to say they're all lovely, but they are more often found to be good than bad, and prices can be somewhat more appropriate to the low-budget shooter.

FSU lenses, when in good mechanical condition, are often the pick of the litter, it is said, as they are often direct copies of famous Leica lenses and sell for very little. However, despite protestations you'll hear here when I say this - they are often badly-made, poorly-assembled, piles of crap. I've had lenses fall into pieces when I removed them from the packaging, and some that were of such low optical quality that I was never sure where the focal point was - Saran-Wrap (tm) would have been better as a lens. But I do believe that there were some good lenses made, and there are places to get those that have been tested by people who know the difference between them. Me, I tend to stay away, but that's just me.

There were also a host of LTM lenses made by other companies. I like to buy them for $5 and explore brands like Accura, Steinheil, A. Schacht, Soligor, Acall, Komura, and so on. There are a bunch of them - even Minolta and Yashica were making LTM lenses for awhile (rare and tend towards expensive). Good? Hard to say - I've found that the quality varies very much. And they made more 135mm f3.5 lenses than anything else, it seems. I've got twenty or so - I think I have enough finally.

I hope you find that helpful. In general, the more you spend, the higher quality the lens is, but that can be skewed by collector prices for rare (but not necessarily good) lenses, general rarity, weird cult reputation (recent FSU prices going up), and condition. I try to limit myself to $20 on a LTM lens, but I have spent more than that on my A. Schacht and Canon lenses.

I have no 'high-end' lenses and only one actual Leica lens (135mm f4.5 Hektor), but I can tell you what goes into my bag with my Bessa R when I go out to 'do my best work', meaning what I think are my best LTM lenses:

1) Canon LTM 50mm f1.4 (black not chrome) - possibly one of the best 50mm LTM lenses ever, until recent times with high-end Leica glass. I paid something like $145.

2) Canon Serenar LTM 85mm f1.9 - oh, baby. I paid $80 or so, prices have gone up. These used to be a dime-a-dozen, nobody wanted 'em. This is a bokeh machine, something like 19 aperture leaves or some ridiculous number. Nothing like it, and solid brass and glass - weighs a ton. Best portrait lens I have for RF, period.

3) A. Schacht Travegon 35m f3.5. Not the best 35mm lens I've ever seen, but the best one I have. I also have a Canon 35mm f3.5 which is good, and smaller. A toss up, but in general, the Travegon gets the nod most times.

4) Arco Tele-Colinar 135mm f4. Small, heavy, well-made, and a great performer. I don't know why people keep saying you can't focus a 135mm lens on a LTM camera - I don't have great eyes, and I do it all the time. No external viewfinder needed, just mentally crop inside a 90mm frameline. I've done portraits down to 6 feet away, perfectly focused. But YMMV - some say it just can't be done. By them, I think they mean.

If I have to leave one lens out, I leave out the 135 and bring the rest. If I could only bring two, it would be the 50 and the 85. If only one, the 50. Best lens I have for RF. Second best 50mm is also a Canon - the chrome 50mm f1.8 with 40mm filter size.

Strangely - my personal choice for SLR lens in 50mm is also Canon - the legendary 50mm f1.4 SSC in FD-Mount. But I shoot all brands, not just Canon.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[richard_l]

Having said that you do need to read with caution because it is mostly opinion and the lens "tests" and MTF graphs are a statistical joke. Only you know what you like in the way a lens draws a picture, so my advice is that when you've learned the product information use the search engines to look at pictures taken by the lens(es) you are interested in.....

As the much maligned Mr. Putz sez:

"Currently we are in the stage of extreme number fetishism, driven by photo magazines that are claiming that the more numbers you crunch, the better should be the result. A test result, produced by a computer program that evaluates two million measurements, is always better than a result, produced by a modest 25 measurements. That at least is the claim!

"If you cannot relate the figures and facts to the requirements of the working photographer, no amount of number crunching will improve the assessment of a lens and its practical validity." http://www.imx.nl/photosite/comments/c015.html

Richard

 

[djon]

Assuming coated glass in excellent condition, in my limited experience the only actually bad-from-the-get-go rangefinder lenses with Leica or Canon labels are 50 1.5. The rest all have character that seems worthwhile.

In 50mm most might suggest Summicrons, but the old LTM versions are mostly in bad condition now, and sold for twice what they're worth photographically. Condition's key.

In 35mm Leica, some say the 3.5 Summaron is a risk due to haze, but I can say that mine's probably better than my new Nokton 50 1.5 and may be equal to my 35 f2 Canon, except for speed and some convenience factors. I've never seen a Canon 35 3.2, but it doesn't get good reports online.

 

[bmattock]

As the much maligned Mr. Putz sez:

"Currently we are in the stage of extreme number fetishism, driven by photo magazines that are claiming that the more numbers you crunch, the better should be the result. A test result, produced by a computer program that evaluates two million measurements, is always better than a result, produced by a modest 25 measurements. That at least is the claim!

"If you cannot relate the figures and facts to the requirements of the working photographer, no amount of number crunching will improve the assessment of a lens and its practical validity." http://www.imx.nl/photosite/comments/c015.html

Richard

With all due respect, the only thing less interesting to me than the minutia of line pair p/mm or scrutinizing 1950's USAF targets for signs of aberration is reading a thread that has Erwin Puts' name in it. I don't know the man - I have no opinion one way or another about his lens tests. But I do know he is the conversational equivalent of napalm. One mention of his name and the Optically Religious get out their Holy Scripts and Authoritative Tests and begin to pound the table, and the rest of us head for tall cotton, because we just don't care. How about we all just pretend THE NAME was not mentioned in this thread?

And as an aside - I never understood why people who hate a particular person have to tear his name apart when they can't find anything else to criticize. The man's name it Puts - not Putz. Yours may have been a mistake, Richard, so please do not take this personally - but in many threads here on RFF and elsewhere, the author insisted on writing Puts' name incorrectly as a form of insult. They pay close attention to his website, so that as soon as he posts an opinion, they can race from forum to forum tearing his opinion apart, trashing his ability to take photographs, and calling him names again. Childish in the extreme. Frankly, I lose all respect for those who feel they have to tread that path - hatred that palpable makes me a bit ill - they may even be right about Mr. Puts' opinions, but their point is lost when they display the contents of their diapers to all and sundry online. And the person I am writing this about knows for whom the bell tolls.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[back alley]

'Some people will only put a Canon lens on a Canon body'

i read that is how it's supposed to be, in the bible i think. 😉

there are some great words above and i doubt i can substantially add to them however...i will say - don't be afraid to buy and try many lenses and choose the 'look' you like and then just sell the rest that don't 'do it' for you.
i have mostly stayed with canon lenses but have also tried some russian gear and i actually started back into 35mm with a bessa r with cv glass.
the cv stuff is great but contrasy. i have discovered that i prefer a lower contrast lens, knowing i can boost that contrast in photoshop if i choose later on.

i love this place.

joe

 

[StuartR]

Telling which lenses are good is something that just takes time and burning film. One important thing to remember when you are actually shooting is that ergonomics can be just as important as optical quality. So while you may be shooting an optically phenomenal old summicron, but the focus might be stiff and the aperture ring might be too loose or too tight etc, and it makes the lens hard to work with, thus squandering its usefulness. Don't get me wrong, I love old lenses, but sometimes they are in need of some help, or just a little awkward to work with (like when you have to focus just inside infinity on a lens with an infinity lock -- the bump gets in the way...).

From a shooters standpoint, you want a lens that is optically excellent, easy to handle, and of appropriate focal length and fast enough for your intended use. I think most photographers would agree that 35mm and 50mm lenses are the most versatile for rangefinders, so you probably want to get the best lens you can here. It is relatively hard to go wrong with 50mm lenses. There really aren't many lenses better than the Leica 50/2 summicron, the Zeiss 50/2 planar or the Konica 50/2 Hexanon. Any one of these will perform better than almost any other lens you can shake a stick at. One of them would make a great foundation for your rangefinder kit. If you like to shoot in low light a lot, your best bet for an inexpensive modern lens would be the Voigtlander 50mm f/1.5 Nokton. If you don't mind spending 2200 dollars or so on a lens, then by all means get the 50mm f/1.4 Summilux ASPH. I have worked with many 50mm lenses (including the summicron), and the summilux ASPH really is the best.

If you prefer wider angles, something which only shooting can tell you, then get a 35mm lens. These are a bit trickier, but the Voigtlander 35mm f/1.7 ultron is said to be quite good, and inexpensive. Again any 35mm f/2 from Leica, Konica or Zeiss would probably be more lens than any of us need. If you want speed and superb performance, the answer is the same as above...the Leica 35mm Summilux ASPH. The Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 is also superb, but it is a bit of a monster...its quite large and heavy.

Anyway, that's my advice. Others might direct you to older Canon, Nikon, FSU or other rangefinder lenses, but I would recommend getting a modern optic as the foundation of your kit. I have used many of these older lenses and they are a lot of fun -- they can give you beautiful images with a vintage look, and they are a great addition to your kit, but they are usually not as versatile or as reliable as the best modern lenses. They often have a tendency to flare, and their lower contrast can be a problem if you shoot slide film. With the modern 50mm or 35mm lenses you get very smooth operation, great flare control, lifelike colors and superb imagery. The lenses will be able to deliver whatever you ask of them.

Ok, that was my extremely longwinded answer.

As was said above, the short answer: 50mm Summicron (latest or tabbed), 50mm Hexanon, or 50mm Zeiss Planar (modern).

 

[SolaresLarrave]

If I may intervene... I think Rob's question was to the tune of whether we, as shooters, can tell if a lens is good or bad. To me... it can be an easy call in the world of SLRs.

I had an SLR 70-300 zoom that claimed to double-up as macro. It was the entry-level Sigma zoom. After reading reviews, I bought it because a lot of people said it was decent and good and excellent and great value and sharp as a tack. I wanted it most for its macro than its telephoto... and it just let me down. The slides showed only a sharp spot in the middle, and the rest was just soft all the way to the edges. I blamed it on my shooting technique and flimsy hands until I used a tripod. The softness disappeared... but not completely. This time it wasn't my unsteady hand, so I decided to get the lens I wanted: a macro. Sold the Sigma zoom, got me a Sigma macro and now I'm really happy.

In sum, Rob, if the lens doesn't do what you expect, it's not good. And if it doesn't perform up to your reasonable expectations, probably won't perform to higher, loftier goals. Sell it.

However... in the RF world, JLW is right. You get simply different levels of excellence, which, in turn, ups the ante and forces you to be more critical of your shots. Sometimes it doesn't take long. I had a Leica LTM Elmar that was very contrasty and nice in B & W, but a bit too cool in color... And it also had a slight tendency to flare unexpectedly. It gave a weird quality to one of my shots, and my color slides ended up looking a bit strange. To me, it wasn't a good lens, but it probably will be for the fellow who purchased it from me.

In other words... you're the judge! 🙂

 

[MacDaddy]

Quote: 'Some people will only put a Canon lens on a Canon body'

So, Joe:
(Oh, please forgive me for I have sinned the punster's sin!) can we say that was a Canonical statement? (Sorry, i COULD NOT resist!) I am simply overwhelmed at the outpouring of generosity from you folks in helping to clarify some of these points! While I lust after all things Leica someday, I must buy only things affordable on my measly budget and choose wisely my GAS attacks. In case it went unsaid or unknown, I currently have and shoot a Bessa R3a with a CV Nokton 40mm/f1.4 and hope by late January 2006 to supplement that lens with a 25, 35, 50 and 75/85. I will undoubtedly be back to ask your too generous assistance again as I cruise the forum's classifieds for that One Great Lens Buy.
As for those who mentioned lens tests, etc., silly me, I do what several of you have already suggested—I look at large numbers of photos from various galleries taken with a specific lens to get a better idea of the capabilities of the lens. Real world photography wins for me every time!
Thank you all again. Your eloquence and generous sharing of ideas and information is truly awe-inspiring.