Leica LTM Summar Color Photos

[jkelly]

My son and I went to New Orleans last weekend. Wandering around the French Quarter, I snapped a roll of Fuji Superia with my IIIa and uncoated Summar lens. Here are a few photos.

 

[xayraa33]

That Summar preforms amazingly well for a 70 something year old lens.

 

[Avotius]

very nice looking shots for an old lens, I would really like to get a nice old lens for my upcoming m camera just to play with a classic, love this

 

[triplefinger]

especially like the middle shot... i have a summar too... wonderful quality

 

[raid]

Nice photos. While most people use vintage lenses for B&W (based on posted comments), I find these lenses also do very well with color film, as you have shown here.


Raid

 

[jkelly]

Thanks for your compliments. I never understood why people get the idea that Summar images lack sharpness. The images are smoother than those shot with a modern lens, but not notably less sharp. For color, I think it renders a very pleasing medium-contrast image. My only problem has been flare, but since I've been using a UVa filter, flare seems to have diminished greatly, even though I know UVa filters aren't supposed to reduce flare. Anyway, here are a few more from the same day.

 

[leica M2 fan]

Lovely shots from the uncoated Summar

Lovely shots from the uncoated Summar

I like the look of old glass, very soft, but very sharp. Not the ultra sharpness of modern glass like the ASPH lenses but very pleasant and real.

 

[payasam]

The Summar suffers from some vignetting at large apertures; but these pictures were taken in sunlight and presumably with the lens stopped well down. Flare is a problem, as it is with my Summitar, and the correct hood would be a better solution than a filter, which may in fact produce more flare. The flare evident at some of the roof lines may well have spread across the entire frames and contributed to the somewhat muted colours.

 

[jkelly]

These shots were all taken at between f6.3 and f11. I've tried to use lower apetures and higher shutter speeds where possible. I know a hood would be a good idea, but I think they're a pain to use.

 

[John Shriver]

Lots of Summars have scratched front glass (very soft flint glass), som many folks have formed their opinions based on scratched up ones. I'm sure that there were also sample variation issues.

It's a nutty lens wide open, but stop down 3 stops, and it's crisp. I have the correct hood, but even with no hood, or just a FIKUS (round) hood, it has not given me flare problems. Great travel lens with a Barnack camera. Only issue is that you need 1/1000 shutter speed if you use ISO 400 film, given the minimum aperture of f/12.5.

 

[spark303]

My 1937 Summar has a pretty scratched up front element, but I've been impressed with it taking both colour and B&W. Two shots below taken with it. The first is wide open at about 1/15s, the second stopped down to about f9: