New 50mm lens hunt

A

AlexBG

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I've been shooting my m3 for a few years as well as cycling through a host of other cameras and lenses and now am pretty sure of what I need in a film camera. I'm going to be getting a konica hexar rf and need a lens to go with it. I have a canon serenar 50mm 1.8, jupiter 8, summaron 35 2.8 and elmar so have a lot of what i would say are classic rendering lenses.

Now I would like to match the hexar with a modern rendering 50mm. Leica lenses are out of my price range, roughly £600, last year when I was looking at the top of my list was a zeiss 50mm f2 but there seems to be a lot of new lenses being made and probably a lot that I have missed so wanted to ask. Would like my new lens to be sharpish wide open, modern rendering, faster than f2, would like peoples opinions.

Thanks
 
A Hexanon 50mm f2 would overwhelmingly be my choice for a Hexar RF. It is f2, not faster than f2, but it is my favourite M mount 50mm and it's made for the RF.

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The Hexanon 50mm f1.2 costs more than £600 and is fantastic too.

I have tried or own almost every M mount 50mm lens made, and all the faster than f2 lenses with modern renderings have flaws serious enough for me to have passed them on, but I found the 2018 Voigtlander 50/1.2 Nokton M Aspherical the best. The contrast is lower than Leica ASPH lenses, probably deliberately to avoid the lens having a lot of focus shift in a design without a floating element. I like it, but I've never tried it on a Hexar RF. I found it had some odd field curvature and coma, but tolerance of the effects of these in photos is a personal thing. I don't have any edited photos I took with it to show, unfortunately.

Marty
 
AlexBG said:
modern rendering, faster than f2, would like peoples opinions.

Thanks
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Hi, sounds like you have some fun 50s already. I would venture a guess that the only lens in your budget that meets the above criteria would be the CV LTM Nokton 50/1.5 with an M mount adapter. Can’t think of anything else modern and faster than f2 for 600 quid 🤔
 
Try also the LTM Voigtländer Color Skopar 50mm f/2.5. Balances very nice on the M3. The image quality is superb.

Leica M3, Vogtländer Color Skopar 50mm f/2.5, 400-2TMY, printed on Adox MCC 110.

Erik.

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10USD Industar 69 LD will do same image, same quality as above.

But OP is asking for faster than f2 lens. The only "cheap" and known to be good in OP price range lens I know would be Nokton 50 1.5 in LTM, used.
Here is 50 1.1 7a, but I'm not sure if it ever gets sharp in the corners.
 
Ko.Fe. said:
10USD Industar 69 LD will do same image, same quality as above.
Click to expand...

Yes, but the Industar is only f/3.5.

I did not know that the OP was asking for faster than f/2. But for true mechanical, ergonomical and optical quality the Color Skopar is the best.

Erik.
 
Erik van Straten said:
Yes, but the Industar is only f/3.5.

I did not know that the OP was asking for faster than f/2. But for true mechanical, ergonomical and optical quality the Color Skopar is the best.

Erik.
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61 LD is not f3.5. OP was not asking about ergonomics, but for faster than f2 lens with modern character.
It is hard not to get OK pictures as Skopar does with maximum f2.5.

I highly recommend always read and understand OP before posting. But nobody is perfect. :)
 
I think these days, unless you are buying new from the factory to increase your chances (and even then no guarantees), you just have to try different lenses until you find one that gives you what you want.

I can praise my lens all I want while trying to sell it, but you might look for another quality, and don't know how I have treated it.
 
Older, doesn't focus as close. The M-mount version also benefits from some tweaks to the optical formula.
 
AlexBG said:
How does the 1.5 compare to the new 1.2?
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It's about a half stop slower. :D *duck-n-run*

From the shots posted here and flickr, the Nokton 1.5 makes lovely images. Sadly, the copy I purchased had focus shift issues. No one else seems to have these, so I'm guessing I just got a bum copy. I sent it back and spent a lot more money for a Summilux pre-asph. No focus shift but it's arguably not any "better" than the Nokton overall and has a modest amount of distortion too. It's all a trade-off and honestly, I'm still looking for "my" fast 50 too.

I will echo oftheherd: ultimately, you'll end up trying something and deciding, for yourself, whether it works once you've seen the results you get. All the advice, chatter, and images from others won't avoid the process of trial and error, nor (in my experience) make it appreciably shorter either.
 
I'm not sure if the Canon 50mm f/1.4 LTM would be modern-rendering enough compared to the Canon Serenar 50mm f/1.8 that you already have, but it is a bit faster if that's what you're after. I find it to be decently sharp wide open, and can be had for well under your £600 budget. This thread has 10+ pages of image samples for your perusal:
https://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86792
 
I thought I wanted something faster than f/2 but have been very satisfied with the 50/2.5 Voigtlander, particularly as films have improved.
 
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