oscroft
Veteran
With my main focal lengths, I like to have several examples with different characteristics.
To that end, my main 50s are a newest-version Elmar-M, a CV 50/2.5, and an uncoated Summitar (with a number of FSU 50s for some extra variety). The Elmar and the CV are amazingly sharp, with the Elmar having very high contrast, excessively so for bright conditions but excellent in overcast UK lighting, and the CV having contrast/tonality more suited to the tropical lighting that I am often shooting in. The Summitar, by comparison, in the right lighting produces beautiful mid-tones (with much lower contrast at the highlight/shadow ends of the scale) - it has that older look about it. So all told, I think they make a nicely complementing trio.
But my 35s are different. I've recently been comparing the three that I have - a CV 35/2.5, a goggled Sumaron 35/2.8 (from 1959 going by the s/n) and a 1984 J-12. I expected quite different characters from the three, but the results are surprisingly similar. All have similar contrast and sharpness (with the J-12 having poorer sharpness fully open, but doing very well when stopped down). The most obvious difference between the three being that the J-12 has noticeable pincushion distortion - though I haven't tested it enough to know how stopping down affects that.
The big surprise was the Summaron. I was half-expecting something of an older look from it, but I can't really distinguish it from a modern lens (which says quite a lot about the quality of Leitz lenses in 1959, I guess).
So, to my point... I think I'd like to have a 35 that has an older look to its images - the subtle mid-tone "glow" that people talk about, and which I get from the Summitar 50. Does anyone know of any 35s that have that kind of look? It would have to be something relatively inexpensive (£150 to £200 ish - $300 to $400 - would be about my limit, though I'd love to hear of anything cheaper). Anything in M or crew mount would be fine.
(It would also be nice to think I could get an older-looking 28 to complement my CV 28/3.5 - which I think is probably the closest I have to a "perfect" lens - but with the exception of weirdies like f/6.3 lenses, RF 28s seems to be modern phenomenon)
Thoughts would be appreciated.
To that end, my main 50s are a newest-version Elmar-M, a CV 50/2.5, and an uncoated Summitar (with a number of FSU 50s for some extra variety). The Elmar and the CV are amazingly sharp, with the Elmar having very high contrast, excessively so for bright conditions but excellent in overcast UK lighting, and the CV having contrast/tonality more suited to the tropical lighting that I am often shooting in. The Summitar, by comparison, in the right lighting produces beautiful mid-tones (with much lower contrast at the highlight/shadow ends of the scale) - it has that older look about it. So all told, I think they make a nicely complementing trio.
But my 35s are different. I've recently been comparing the three that I have - a CV 35/2.5, a goggled Sumaron 35/2.8 (from 1959 going by the s/n) and a 1984 J-12. I expected quite different characters from the three, but the results are surprisingly similar. All have similar contrast and sharpness (with the J-12 having poorer sharpness fully open, but doing very well when stopped down). The most obvious difference between the three being that the J-12 has noticeable pincushion distortion - though I haven't tested it enough to know how stopping down affects that.
The big surprise was the Summaron. I was half-expecting something of an older look from it, but I can't really distinguish it from a modern lens (which says quite a lot about the quality of Leitz lenses in 1959, I guess).
So, to my point... I think I'd like to have a 35 that has an older look to its images - the subtle mid-tone "glow" that people talk about, and which I get from the Summitar 50. Does anyone know of any 35s that have that kind of look? It would have to be something relatively inexpensive (£150 to £200 ish - $300 to $400 - would be about my limit, though I'd love to hear of anything cheaper). Anything in M or crew mount would be fine.
(It would also be nice to think I could get an older-looking 28 to complement my CV 28/3.5 - which I think is probably the closest I have to a "perfect" lens - but with the exception of weirdies like f/6.3 lenses, RF 28s seems to be modern phenomenon)
Thoughts would be appreciated.
