LTM lenses on M Body?

[digitaldave]

Do many people here use LTM lenses on an M body? It seems to me that they would provide a cheaper alternative to M mount lenses, with the addition of the appropriate adaptor of course. My only problem with trying this is that the LTM lenses tend to be chrome (at least the Leica ones do, IIRC there are black ones made by Canon and maybe some others), and I got a black body, and I'm not used to seeing chrome lenses on black bodies, so it would look a little odd to me - unless someone can persuade me otherwise of course 😉.

Dave.

 

[Kim Coxon]

Plenty of black CV LTM lenses. 😉

I suspect that the reason that CV produce most of their range in LTM is that they are then dual purpose.

Kim

 

[like2fiddle]

I have used only one LTM lens on an M body. It's a 5cm summitar and I really like the lens. There's a thread around here entitled something like "anyone use a Summitar?" There are a few examples of pics there if you want to see what that particular lens can do. You can buy one of those for around $150. My M is a M2 so the chrome lens isn't an issue. Personally, I wouldn't let the difference between lens finish and body bother me if I had a black M and a chrome lens I liked, but that's just me.

good luck,

Roger

 

[Ash]

I use a black jupiter-8 on my chrome IIIc, and a chrome Industar-50 collapsible on a black Leica Standard. It isn't very odd at all, just means the camera is a little more conspicuous.

 

[sleepyhead]

I like to use screw mount lenses with adapters because i have both an M body and the Minolta CLE. This allows me to use the same lens, for example a CV 75mm Heliar, on the two bodies with different adapters, so the correct lines (more or less) come up: 50/75 on the M, and 28/90 on the CLE (since otherwise the 40mm lines would come up).

 

[jja]

If you are considering CV, keep in mind that the BLACK versions of some of their lenses (I'm not sure if it is most or all) have a reputation for easily chipping paint.

One of my first RF lenses was the CV 35/2.5 color skopar, in chrome. It is the least expensive lens in the line-up, yet it is built nicely and has great optical performance--very sharp and high contrast. I used this lens on an M2 and black M6, and it looked fine on the M6.

 

[jja]

Samples of the 35/2.5 color skopar:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31466

 

[jlw]

If you are considering CV, keep in mind that the BLACK versions of some of their lenses (I'm not sure if it is most or all) have a reputation for easily chipping paint.

On a CV lens, it's called "chipping"... on a Leica lens, it's called "patina!"

Seriously, lots of us use screwmount lenses on M-mount bodies and it usually works fine. Just make sure you get correctly-dimensioned adapters. We had quite a long thread on the R-D 1 forum about third-party adapters that are too thick -- there seem to be a lot of these. A correctly-made adapter will be 0.98-0.99 mm thick across the mounting surfaces.

If in doubt, haunt the usual used-gear outlets for genuine Leitz-brand adapters, which invariably are the right thickness (but watch out for forgeries; have been seeing some suspicious ones on eBay lately.) Or use a caliper to check the thickness of any third-party adapters you might buy; if they're off, exchange them.

If you've already got an adapter that's too thick (for some reason I've yet to see a too-thin one) you can thin it down a bit by rubbing it against a sheet of abrasive paper on a flat surface -- but it's not worth doing if you need to remove more than about 0.01 - 0.02 mm. You can take off more, but it takes a long time; also, the lens will thread farther into the adapter, and then the scales and pointers will be in the wrong place.

 

[venchka]

...WRT chrome on black, I like the "Panda look" 🙂

Cheers,

Roland.

I do like "Panda" better than my "Zebra" look. 🙂 I only own three black lenses. All but two of the rest are chrome LTM purchased long before my black M body. I did purchase two chrome Leica M lenses because the 50mm DR Summicron wasn't made in black (I think) or the 90mm Elmarit was twice as much in black.

I am very pleased with the LTM lenses on the M body. I use 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm and 135mm with adapters.

Your black body won't mind chrome lenses.

 

[Xmas]

Dave

Buy a pot of blackboard acrylic paint, but don't paint a collapsible barrel.

You will be up there with HCB, cause that is what he did, to his coll cron...

Noel

 

[peter_n]

Silver on black, black on silver; they are both OK. In some years time when you look at the beautiful pictures you made you won't remember what the equipment looked like.

 

[jkelly]

I use LTM lenses on my M3, because I also have a IIIa. Here's my M3 with Summitar. It's a fine lens.

 

[venchka]

I forgot to mention the I also own Canon LTM bodies. That explains why I had LTM lenses prior to buying the M body.

The Panda scheme looks very nice.

 

[Jason Sprenger]

I use LTM lenses on my M-mount cameras. In fact, most of my lenses are LTM be they Cosina, Leica, or Soviet ones. A couple M-mount lenses are sneaking in now but they are the exceptions.

Most of the Cosina lenses are LTM and give a modern alternative to the 40 or 50 year old LTM's out there.