Another funky lens.

Templeton sunset. Leicaflex SL, 400mm Telyt f/6.8 with adapter #14127,
1/125, f/6.8, Kodak Gold 100, handheld with shoulder brace.

Continuing the saga of odd lenses, here’s another one I used for years before it gave way to modern automated technology.

This one is at the opposite end of the range to the 20mm Russar profiled the other day and is none other than the magnificent Leitz 400mm f/6.8 Telyt.

Leitz has a long and storied tradition of making great 400mm lenses, starting with the 400mm f/5 Telyt made for the 1936 Olympics – you know, the games where Jesse Owens so disappointed German hopes for white supremacy. Indeed, you can bet there are many images documenting his four gold medals taken on this very lens. The pre-war model was uncoated and once America had recapitalized them on the sound principle that a fat German was safer than a hungry one, the Germans updated it post-war with a new mount and lens coatings to reduce flare. While the lens was fairly special for its time – f/5 at that length was really fast – it used a conventional rotating helicoid to focus and was a handful to use owing to its great weight. Handling was hardly helped by the fact that the Leica screw mount body user had to first fit a mirror box, the Visoflex, to permit focusing and viewing. This device did Rube Goldberg proud. To make matter worse, Leitz also offered a simple mounting tube and an optical viewfinder, though how on earth you focused or, for that matter, composed accurately with that remains a mystery to me.

So Leitz went back to the drawing board and conceived a handy follow focus mount with a trigger. The user held the grip and, on pressing the trigger, could change focus with a trombone sliding action, with fine focus being accomplished with a turn wheel under the thumb.

The focusing device, the Televit, came in Leica M and R mounts for use on the fine Leicaflex cameras and accepted the lens heads from the 200 f/4 and 280 f/4.8 existing lenses plus two new head units designed specially for the Televit.

These were the 400mm and 560 f/5.6 Telyt lens heads, which could only be used with the Televit, unlike the 200mm and 280mm lenses which came with a traditional, and detachable, helicoid focus mount. The Televit was a big improvement in the focusing department but the whole thing still weighed a ton.

So Leitz tried yet again and, in the 1970s, released their best effort yet, the 400mm and 560mm follow focus Telyts with a modest maximum aperture of f/6.8. These used a simple two element construction and were long focus not telephoto, meaning the 400mm lens really was 400mm (16 inches) long. Like the Televit, the heads for the two optical units were interchangeable and the lens came with a shoulder stock. This was a nice idea but in practice was a pain to assemble, so most dispensed with it. I always preferred a monopod with a QR base with mine and mostly used the lens at f/6.8. Sharpness did not improve on stopping down and you generally wanted to avoid doing that as the aperture control was as rudimentary as on the pre-war f/5 predecessor, meaning click stops with no preset mechanism. Ugh!

I used my 400mm f/6.8 Telyt first on my M2 and M3 with a Visoflex 2 or Visoflex 3 mirror box (much improved versions of the earlier Visoflex 1, but still Goldbergish), then on my Leicaflex SL film body with an adapter where it worked well if slowly – exposure metering was a match-the-needles affair. A nicely balanced outfit. But it really came into its own when the Canon 5D came along and one more adapter ring now allowed use of the lens on a modern high definition full frame body with aperture priority exposure automation.

The 400mm f/6.8 Telyt dismantled for transit.

Assembled.

Built-in filter slot.

The focus release button for the trombone movement.

When I first bought the lens it had been sitting unused for many years and the grease in the trombone slide had dried out. $80 later it was relubricated and working superbly. You really needed no fine focus control as it was so nicely balanced that achieving fine focus just using the sliding motion was easy. This was probably as good as traditional manual focus technology every got with a lens of this length. They can be found for a song on the used market; just prepare to have yours relubricated before use.

As you can see the lens was no slouch:

Egrets off Highway 1, California. Canon 5D, 400mm f/6.8 Telyt with #14127 Leica-M to Leica-R
and Leica-R to Canon EOS adapters, 1/125, f/11, ISO 200, monopod.

The Telyt was sold (as it was in mint condition it went to a collector, needless to add – what a waste) and replaced with the Canon 400mm f/5.6 ‘L’ which is superior in every way – sharper, auto aperture, superb autofocus. Technology had moved on and it’s the reason you will never see a pro using a Leica at a soccer game – they still do not make autofocus long lenses to this day, and without autofocus you cannot compete. That Canon lens has, in turn, been largely superseded by the magical Panasonic 45-200 (90-400mm FFE) which offers 400mm equivalent length at the long end at f/5.6 and – here’s the magical bit – fits in your jacket pocket and weighs under one pound. And did I mention that it includes anti-shake technology?

The latest in spin from Cupertino.

Traditional rechargeable batteries have a short shelf life. They self-discharge quickly and cannot handle many charge cycles before dying.

Apple has introduced a charger with six AA rechargeables using enhanced technology rechargeable batteries. At $29.95 it’s not a bad value as things Apple go, though you are limited to recharging only two batteries at a time and have to avoid the gag reflex when reading the usual hype on their web site. Still, given the low self-discharge rate, that’s not a big deal. Charge two, charge two more, etc. They claim that the recharger has very low static current draw but it would seem to me that any sane person would not leave the charger plugged in unless it was actually charging, so hardly a feature.

The Apple device actually uses Sanyo Eneloop batteries which have been around a while. You can read about the technology here.

And, needless to say, you can do much better on the price by buying the Sanyo four battery charger which comes with eight AA and 2 AAA batteries for $29.45 from Amazon. It also comes with C and D size adapters which take your AA batteries but that’s dumb as small AA batteries will not run long in a high drain device like a flashlight (English: ‘Torch’, which is far more accurate) which typically uses C and D cells. So you get more batteries and a four cell charger for less than the Apple device. No surprise there. Plus the recharger will also charge AAA cells; at least one of my remotes uses those.

Additional AA/AAA Eneloop batteries are very inexpensive at Amazon if you need more than the eight/two supplied. Eight AAs sell for $20 with 4 AAAs at $9, meaning you are getting the charger for all of $5 in the kit.

The model of Sanyo recharger is 110 volt only, but there are multi-voltage versions out there is you look. I cannot tell from the hype on Apple’s web site which voltages their charger works with.

What’s the downside? These batteries can deliver no more than 2000 mAh of current, compared with 2700 for fresh, throw away alkalines. So if you have very high current draw devices, they will seem weak. On the other hand typical uses – Bluetooth wireless keyboards, computer mice, TV remotes, clocks, etc. – will pose no problem.

The upside? Less toxic waste and you always have a battery handy when needed. These will work fine with the Apple wireless keyboard (four in the white original, three in the first aluminum one, two in the current aluminum one) and, best of all, with Pentax DSLRs as Pentax seems to be the only manufacturer out there with the common sense to use regular AA batteries in its fine SLR cameras.

Once my supply of disposable AAs is exhausted I’m buying this little kit. And you can bet I’m not falling for the Apple recharger hype, a device marketed by a company which increasingly regards its customers as stupid.

Major league strange.

The Unfinished Church, Bermuda, 1999. Leica M6, 20mm Russar, Kodachrome 64.

Mention of the quirky Leitz Stemar stereo lens yesterday got me to thinking of some of the stranger lenses I have owned. Without a doubt on of the oddest was the 20mm Russar-M f/5.6.

Mine came in black – the Russar 20mm f/5.6 ultra-wide angle lens.

This was a super wide angle Leica thread mount lens without rangefinder coupling. Not that any was needed as at 20mm pretty much everything was sharp all the time. I got mine shipped from the UK for under $200 and it came with the best wide angle viewfinder I have yet seen. Not only was the image clear and relatively undistorted in the finder, the field of view was accurately defined and the whole thing was superbly made using light alloys. None of these atrributes apply to the awful Leica 21mm finder, now in plastic and costing a ridiculous $750 today. Further, the Russian finder had a swivelling foot which allowed you to tilt it down for parallax correction at close distances. A masterpiece.

But the lens was even better. When the Russians took possession of eastern Germany in 1945 one of the priceless properties there was the old Zeiss, Jena factory. I cannot confirm this but am fairly certain that the 20mm Russar was optically identical to the 21mm Zeiss Biogon and like designs, meaning a deeply protruding rear element which rested very close to the camera’s shutter and required a deep rear lens cap for storage. The oddest ‘feature’ of this lens was the aperture ring which was deeply recessed within the front of the lens so you had to stick your finger almost into the lens to change f-stops.

This placement, of course, precluded the use of a filter as with one in place you could not adjust the aperture.

Viewfinder and Russar 20mm on the Kiev copy of the Contax II. The lens also came in a Contax bayonet mount.

The definition was excellent at all apertures and best at f/8. In practice you would simply take a wild guess at the correct focus distance (in meters, not fun for one brought up to estimate in feet!) sight through that wonderful finder and bang away. I kept it permanently mounted, using a screw to bayonet adapter, on my Leica M6 which had such a poor viewfinder (can you say flare? – I shoot into the sun a lot) that it made a natural mule for the Russar. What’s more, it amused me no end to have a Russian lens mounted on what was then Germany’s finest.

The lens was an inexpensive alternative to the Leitz Super Angulon f/3.4 (the earlier f/4 was a real dog) and later Leitz Elmarit and Aspherical Elmarit f/2.8 designs which cost and arm and a couple of legs. The Aspherical variant remains in the catalog at $4,400, so you get the picture. When my Russar-M finally moved on, replaced by that same unbeatable Aspherical Elmarit (it was one of my ‘more money than sense’ moments, I confess) I found myself missing the Russar’s compactness and built-in ‘hood’. The Elmarit was gargantuan by comparison, and the even larger hood an object of ridicule. I never used it. When the Aspherical Elmarit was finally sold I did at least have the pleasure of doubling my money on it, Leica gear prices having gone through the roof.

The equipment pictures above are from the excellent USSRPhoto site which has masses of information on all sorts of Russian camera gear.

Bermuda Sky, 1999. Leica M6, 20mm Russar, Kodachrome 64.

A 20″ x 16″ print of the above over the mantlepiece at home testifies to the quality of the Russar.