Voigtlander no longer make LTM lens?

[dr owl]

Thanks for that, Chris. Most interesting.

Interesting first because I suffer from buildqualititis, for which I am being treated with camera robusta. Equipment which ordinary people think of as consumer-grade strikes me as being flimsy.

And interesting secondly because I had forgotten about the Japanese LTM Summicrons (and hadn't realized that there was a Japanese LTM Summilux).

My intention in buying a Barnack camera is to use it as a "classic camera". There is a quiet satisfaction in using superb, if elderly, engineering for its original purpose. So primarily I shall use the IIIc with its contemporary Summitar, and experience the tones of its single coating.

But I do want to see what the IIIc can do if it is given a modern, fully multicoated lens. And since the last LTM lenses of the classic-camera era were made by Canon when multicoating was in its infancy, I thought that meant Cosina Voigtlander.

If, however, Voigtlander lenses are of good, rather than excellent, robustness; and a turn-of-the-century 35mm Summicron Asph can be sought out; then I have more thinking to do. That's OK: having to think hard won't hurt me.

A 35mm Summicron Asph, it seems, costs about five times as much as a 35mm Ultron, so I shall have to be patient for some months while I save up. That's less OK: having to be patient probably will hurt me.

Later,

John

 

[ChrisLivsey]

Thanks for that, Chris. Most interesting.

John

Some of the later CV glass is much better, in particular for this niche the 50mm f2.5 Color Skopar in LTM, a brass lens which feels robust for it's size like a 35mm Summicron. Somewhat limited by f2.5 obviously but size and appearance wise a really good fit for a Barnack, I have two, don't ask. Performance is very good/excellent and it looks great with a discrete hood. Modest money and well worth seeking out, I bet you don't sell it when you buy a Leica lens.
As an ex lurker you will know TomA, he was a great fan of the lens.
Here is one of mine on a IIIc converted to f:

 

[Erik van Straten]

By far my most used lens since 2003. Incredible performance.

Leica M3, Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5, 400-2TMY, Perceptol.

Erik.

 

[dr owl]

Thank you again. 2.5/50 Skopar duly added to the thinking list.

Yes, I have read many posts by Tom A. Very sad; too soon. His RFF profile puts it nicely: "Tom A is offline."

requiem aeternam dona ei domine

I liked the picture, Erik. You managed to capture a more complicated expression on your model's face than most.

Your picture, Chris, shows how the Skopar does not dwarf a Barnack camera. Interestingly, it shows that you use (what I think must be) an SBOOI rather than the built-in viewfinder.

I already have a Leica-mount 50mm lens. The first lens I bought for the M6 was a Summilux-M Asph: the 1.4/50 Nikkor had been my walkabout lens for more than 15 years. Parsimonious by RFF standards, I have only four 50mm prime lenses, so I am willing to buy a fifth; but I think it needs to be small and light in the Barnack tradition. I guess that means either a 3.5/50 Heliar or a Skopar.

The other temptation is the 35mm Summicron. I do not have a Leica-mount 35mm lens yet, so could use this both as a mainstream lens on the M6 and as a modern, fully multicoated lens on the IIIc.

Thinking continues.

John

 

[traveler_101]

Thanks for that, Chris. Most interesting.

Interesting first because I suffer from buildqualititis, for which I am being treated with camera robusta. Equipment which ordinary people think of as consumer-grade strikes me as being flimsy.

And interesting secondly because I had forgotten about the Japanese LTM Summicrons (and hadn't realized that there was a Japanese LTM Summilux).

My intention in buying a Barnack camera is to use it as a "classic camera". There is a quiet satisfaction in using superb, if elderly, engineering for its original purpose. So primarily I shall use the IIIc with its contemporary Summitar, and experience the tones of its single coating.

But I do want to see what the IIIc can do if it is given a modern, fully multicoated lens. And since the last LTM lenses of the classic-camera era were made by Canon when multicoating was in its infancy, I thought that meant Cosina Voigtlander.

If, however, Voigtlander lenses are of good, rather than excellent, robustness; and a turn-of-the-century 35mm Summicron Asph can be sought out; then I have more thinking to do. That's OK: having to think hard won't hurt me.

A 35mm Summicron Asph, it seems, costs about five times as much as a 35mm Ultron, so I shall have to be patient for some months while I save up. That's less OK: having to be patient probably will hurt me.

Later,

John

Ultron 35/1.7 is a superb lens, but if you shoot a IIIc with its period lens, why not do the same with the Ultron? Team it with a Bessa R for compatibility of period and size. If you want a modern lens on the IIIc what about a colour skopar 35 or 50? Size works on the IIIc.

 

[dr owl]

Ultron 35/1.7 is a superb lens, but if you shoot a IIIc with its period lens, why not do the same with the Ultron? Team it with a Bessa R for compatibility of period and size. If you want a modern lens on the IIIc what about a colour skopar 35 or 50? Size works on the IIIc.

Hello traveler,

You’re quite right of course. The 35mm and 50mm Skopars are certainly ones for the thinking list. A Bessa-R would be more of a problem.

You see, before the Owl can bring a new camera home, he needs an import licence from the Pussycat. She doesn't believe that I need more than four cameras (rangefinder, SLR, TLR, and digital) and wants to know why I have cameras from every decade since the 1920s, some of which I hardly use. She has just about accepted the need for the IIIc.

A Bessa-R could be a good camera to own. At only 17 years old it is not a classic camera yet, but it likely will be. But, on my classic-camera dream list, it would fall far behind a Rolleiflex Automat 3, a Leicaflex SL2, an Alpa 11si, and a Contarex Cyclops. Those four may represent more years’ marital negotiations than I have left on this Earth.

Later,

John

 

[shawn]

But I do want to see what the IIIc can do if it is given a modern, fully multicoated lens. And since the last LTM lenses of the classic-camera era were made by Canon when multicoating was in its infancy, I thought that meant Cosina Voigtlander.

Nikon and Konica both had multicoated LTM lenses too and they have pretty modern color rendering, at least when shot on digital. Only shot B&W on the Nicca so far.

Shawn

 

[dr owl]

Nikon and Konica both had multicoated LTM lenses too and they have pretty modern color rendering, at least when shot on digital. Only shot B&W on the Nicca so far.

The development of lens coating is an interesting subject, but not one I’ve studied closely. There will be folk on the RFF who know the details better than I, but my understanding is that optics science and engineering has progressed steadily (standing on the shoulders of giants) while significant cumulative gains have been the subject of company marketing.

Two giants of the 1930s were Alexander Smakula at Zeiss in Germany and Katharine Burr Blodgett in the United States. But their successes don’t mean that nobody else, at Leitz, or in Japan, was working on the subject. And improvements to coating, and the first steps in multicoating were developed in parallel by many optical engineers.

So the Hexar/Hexanon LTM lenses of the 1950s, and the rangefinder lenses that Nikon was developing up until the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, had what I described as multicoating “in its infancy”.

Multicoating burst upon our consciousness with Pentax’s loud announcement in 1971 of Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lenses. Other lens-makers seemed a bit miffed by this since they all had some sort of multicoating — Nikon pointed out that it had announced, quietly, Nikon Integrated Coating the year before — but it is my perception that Pentax was one of the leaders in the field at the time. Certainly, Pentax made some lovely lenses in the 1970s, which I remember gaining stunning ratings in the late lamented “Modern Photography”.

Pentax had some sort of joint development agreement in the 1970s with Zeiss, whose T* multicoating was announced in 1974.

Gradual improvements in multicoating have continued ever since — ever more complex zoom lenses have become possible; binoculars have become ever clearer and optically more comfortable — and by the 1990s, when the Ultra Coated “L mount type” Hexanons came out, we had what I call “modern, fully multicoated” lenses.

The purpose of all this rambling is to explain that I expect more of modern lenses than I do of 1950s lenses, and —if I am to give the IIIc the best chance to show what it can do — I need something more modern. UC Hexanons assuredly are more modern, but they are also rather uncommon, which is why they haven’t been at the forefront of my thinking so far.

Later,

John

Leica IIIc, M6 & M240, Nikon F3, and Rolleiflex 2.8GX