Ladies At Lunch - Leica IIIc + SMC-Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Special

[Godfrey]

Continuing through photos made with the second roll of film I shot using the Leica IIIc body... I was testing some lenses on the camera. This one is made with the SMC-Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Special: A wonderful lens, I've been using it on a variety of digital and film bodies fitted with an LTM to M-bayonet adapter for some years now.


Ladies At Lunch - Santa Clara 2024
Leica IIIc + SMC-Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Special
Fujifilm ACROS 100

The 43 feels a little bulky on the little IIIc body, and it occludes a bit much of the built-in viewfinder ... for me, it works best with the M bodies ... but it's always a lovely lens for its imaging qualities.

Enjoy! G

 

[David Murphy]

Nice shot. This is an interesting lens for sure, so thanks for showing us this. I imagine it was taken fairly wide open in this light?

 

[raid]

Thanks! The image looks great and the used lens is special. I have the same version. I once compared it with the Summicron-C 40mm/2. Both did very well. The Pentax is more exotic and rare.

 

[Godfrey]

Thank you both for commenting.

Yes, with ASA 100 film, I went wide open at 1/20 second.

The SMC-Pentax-L 43/1.9 Special has a more "modern" look than the Summicron-C 40/2, but they do have similarities. What I find is that, because the optics were originally designed as an SLR lens and stand a little further from the film plane than many RF 35mm lens formulae, the illumination across the field is a bit more even. It also makes the 43 in LTM mount a little more bulky than a typical RF lens, somewhat like the more modern Summilux 35 and other APO/super high end lenses (the APO Lanthar 35mm f/2 is similarly builky).

Its sibling ... the SMC-Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Limited in SLR mount ... was without a doubt my all time favorite Pentax lens from my years of shooting with Pentax gear. I very nearly kept one Pentax body specifically so that I could keep shooting with that lens on a native-mount body, and then I finally found one of the Specials in LTM mount so I could use it with an M-bayonet adapter on my Ms and have the benefit of proper RF focusing. I've often fitted it to the M4-2 and left it on the camera for long periods of time: it's a very versatile lens and renders so beautifully on film. (I use a 35-135 M-bayonet adapter on it as I find it better to see with the 35mm framelines and just 'shoot tight' with it, most of the time.)

G