Which are the sharpest contrasty LTM Lenses?

[Robert Vote]

What do you think are the sharpest and most contrasty lenses in LTM?
Which one can pull the best out of efke25 and velvia?

To cut long things short: Which lens makes the film the limiting factor?

Do the cv lenses have a resolution that makes the film the limiting factor? Or do I have to move to zeiss lenses (Which I cant do by now beause of the price 🙄 and because most of them have M-Mount) ?

What are your experiences?

Thanks for your attention
Robert

 

[edodo]

Costwise the jupiter 3 made either before 1951 or after 1980 in good shape is a sharp glass.

 

[John Shriver]

Probably the 1999 limited edition Leica LTM lenses: 50/2 Summicron and 50/1.4 Summilux. Also the Cosina/Voigtlander 50/3.5 Heliar.

Without a tripod, it's going to be very hard to tell the difference from cheaper lenses.

 

[John Robertson]

The question is academic, its the picture quality that counts, and sharpness and contrast are not always what you want. Unless you want to waste film photographing test charts 🙄 .

 

[Ronald M]

The best affordable screw mount glass is CV brand. They are equal to the 1980 generation of Leica glass in general except for the 50 1.5, which is better.

Notice I said afordable and you can get it easily and you won`t have to get it repaired or cleaned.

I use a lot old Leica glass, but I put up with a lot to do it. CV is a better value.

 

[FrankS]

I agree that you would have to be using a tripod in order to see a difference in sharpness in LTM lenses (other than the exotic limitied editions mentioned.). The limiting factor in most cases will be camera shake.

 

[JJW]

Old Leica lenses were pretty mediocre.

Zeiss was the quality leader of the day during the golden era of rangefinders. The old Zeiss lenses are still pretty impressive. The reason why Nikon took off in the 1950s was the fact that they produced LTM lenses which were superior to Leica.

Leica didn't really start making exceptional lenses until the late 50s and early 60s with the 50mm Summicron. Then they switched to the M mount.

Anyhow, to get back to your question, without a doubt the Cosina Voigtlander LTMs are what you want. They are a tremendous bargain and offer exceptional performance. Really unbeatable.

 

[ZorkiKat]

How about the Russian Industar 61 L/Z?

 

[Mike Kovacs]

Zeiss was the quality leader of the day during the golden era of rangefinders. The old Zeiss lenses are still pretty impressive. The reason why Nikon took off in the 1950s was the fact that they produced LTM lenses which were superior to Leica.

Ha! Nikon copied the Zeiss optical designs, presumably when the USA gave many Japanese companies the German patents.

The Nikkor HC 50/2 I have is an extremely well made copy of the rigid postwar Zeiss Opton Sonnar 50/2 with 6 elements in 3 groups 1-3-2. I quite like the click stops on it too - no grease in the aperture mechanism required hence much less likely to get oily blades.

 

[FrankS]

How about the Russian Industar 61 L/Z?

Yes. An I61 has got to be the lens with the highest sharpness/contrast to cost ratio of any lens.

 

[Bertram2]

What do you think are the sharpest and most contrasty lenses in LTM?
Which one can pull the best out of efke25 and velvia?

Thanks for your attention
Robert

Two questions IMHO, resolution and "look" ?

1st: film as a limiting factor. Unless you take TechPan and dev it to "black-or-white" (about 320lpm then ) film will always be the limiting factor, or your own perception will be. Most people can't perceive more than 80 lpmm on a 20X30cm enlargement of a 135 film neg, , some up to 120 best case. So far about resolution. If you want to print 60X90cm better use MF, it can't be beaten.

2nd: a more contrasty lens type for the EFKE 23, that is sometimes (landscape ?) a good idea. Compared to the Leica lenses CV is more on the contrasty side, Zeiss too.
CV 3,5/50 coll. Heliar is one of the best lenses ever built, super sharp, contrasty , 3d look is perfect. The CV 4/25 gives a strong contrast , the 35 and 50 Skopars are quite similar, glass clear, sharp and contrasty . And even the faster 1,9/28 , 1,7/35 and 1,5/ 50 are more contrasty than the the 2/50 and 2/35 Leica crons.
and so are Industar 61, Jupiter 8 or a Taylor Hobson, if you are rich enuff to afford one.
The modern Summiluxes are also more on the contrasty side, at least as I could see it on the monitor , haven't seen prints or slides tho.

There is no general recommendation, the lens-film combo should be adaequate for the issue ! You can shoot very nice pics with a low contrast lens and EFKE 25 too, depends all on WHAT you shoot I'd say.

bertram

 

[edodo]

Of the Ten Jupiter-3 lenses that I have shot with, the best was made in 1956 and the worst was made in 1950. The 1950 lens had decent glass, but was off. I believe that it was a "transition" lens, made from a mix of German and Russian parts. Quality control is a factor on FSU lenses.

I believe too that 1950 is a year when the factory finished the zeiss glass stock. I read that jupiter 3 from 1950 have Zeiss glasses and the difference in sharpness is seenable wide open till f4. I read it on the web due to a french photog who made a test of russian lenses online that is quite interesting because there are two leitz lenses on the bench. Here is the page, on the left side there is a traduction in the tongue of Shakespeare
http://www.collection-appareils.com/avoscrayons/html/50mm.php

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I had read many times on this forum that the CV Color-Skopar 35 f/2.5 is very sharp and contrasty. And it's LTM. I'm sure that's a sharp contender...

 

[SDK]

The 35mm/2.8 Leica Summaron was made in LTM (and M) mount and is supposed to be very modern in that it is high contrast/low flare lens. They have an MTF chart that looks better than a lot of the 35mm/2 Summicrons. I've never used one. They are very expensive used.

 

[Mike Kovacs]

Actually Brian, that is consistent in terms of the Nikkor HC sharing a non-linear aperture spacing with the prewar Zeiss. But the optical formula didn't change. Actually, the postwar CZJ 50/2 would be the closest fit in terms of rigid barrel, chrome on brass construction, aperture spacing, and coated 6/3 design.

The Nikkor is impressively built, certainly equivalent to Zeiss standards.

 

[VinceC]

>>Ha! Nikon copied the Zeiss optical designs, presumably when the USA gave many Japanese companies the German patents.<<

That old chestnut again? Nippon Kogaku was importing German optical engineers as techical advisors in 1922 and by 1937 had a line of 50mm f/3.5; f/2.8; f/2 and f/1.5 lenses for the Canon Hansa and S. The U.S. Navy in a December 1945 technical assessment determined that Nippon Kogaku had some of the best optical coatings in existence (for submarine periscopes). The report found that "In the past five years Japan has made a phenomenal growth in optical glass manufacture" with "a tendency toward large size (aperture) visual optical instruments, particularly in the field of binocular telescopes (80, 120, 150 mm apertures). This tendency may represent a futile attempt to offset deficiencies in their radar development."

As Brian noted, the postwar 5cm f/1.5 lens was commercially available for just a few months ... selling 800 copies ... before being replaced by a much improved lens. In that short time, the lens -- allegedly a copy of a Zeiss -- was found by LIFE magazine and the bulk of the photojournalism community to have surpassed any U.S. or German lens in overall quality and quality control. The Japanese companies had no particular need for the Zeiss patents. Leica designs went to England and were slavishly copied for years. Zeiss designs went to Russia and were slavishly copied for decades. If Zeiss designs went to Japan, an economically devastated country that had also unconditonally surrendered to the allies, they were surpassed and improved upon within a matter of months.

 

[raid]

Of the Ten Jupiter-3 lenses that I have shot with, the best was made in 1956 and the worst was made in 1950. The 1950 lens had decent glass, but was off. I believe that it was a "transition" lens, made from a mix of German and Russian parts. Quality control is a factor on FSU lenses. However, once shimmed and cleaned, 9 of the 10 that I wroked with were quite good. I could not say "Avoid such and such years, it just did not seem to correlate.

The 5cm F2 Nikkor in LTM is very sharp.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12266&highlight=collapsible

As is the 5cm F1.4 lens.

N

Brian: Which model J-3 is mine?

 

[raid]

I have used, as many of you know, over ten 50mm LTM lenses, and most gave very acceptable results. Personally, I like to use the Rigid Summicron 50/2 for sharpness and excellent contrast, followed by the Nikon 5cm/2 lens. For moody photos, the Collapsible Summicron is hard to beat, if you can find one in clean condition. The pre-war Zeiss in LTM is also very nice for such situations, and after having it shimmed twice and then cleaned during the third visit to DAG, now it is an excellent lens. The old Elmar 50/3.5 should not be ignored since it also has its signature but is slow and low contrast. For the money, I would support that statement that an adjusted J-3 is hard to beat. Brian did an excellent job in adjusting and shimming a not-so-nice-looking J-3 that ended up being sharp. The Canon 50/1.8 is a super lens for its cost. Its built is first-class and so is its optical design.

 

[VinceC]

Soviet-era lenses are hard to beat from a price/performance point of view.

I haven't used Canon LTM lenses, but several of them have such strong reputations that they're very hard to ignore. Canon kept building and developing LTM lenses well into the SLR era of the mid-to-late 1960s, so their later lenses are especially worth looking at.

 

[Rob The Waste]

I don't have any experience with the "big name" lenses like Leica or Nikon, but I've been quite happy with the films I've shot with a Fed 5C using an Industar 61LD. Very sharp to me.