Category Archives: Hardware

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90mm f/2.8 Tele-Elmarit – some results

Film, Leica, Lenses, Photographs

A fine performer.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.

I wrote about the ‘thin’ Tele-Elmarit here. This is an optically improved version of the earlier and heavier ‘fat’ model, with most being made by Leitz Canada. With the exception of the modern ridiculously expensive collapsible (a feature no one wants or needs) 90mm Tele-Elmar this is the smallest and lightest 90mm lens Leica has ever made, and it proves to be a fine performer. It’s also affordable. Into the light it’s flare prone but the ‘Dehaze’ slider in LRc does wonders for that defect. To keep bulk down I do not bother with a lens hood.

While it’s a tad on the long side for street photography the lens is adept at picking out architectural details and at a light 8 ozs. in a very small package it’s easy to pop it in a coat pocket on the off chance it could come in useful.

Here are some early results, all on the Leica M3 with Ektar 100 film, JPGs scanned HQ on a Noritsu scanner.








As one of the very few affordably priced and reasonably modern Leitz lenses, assuming you can find a copy without haze or fungus, the 90mm f/2.8 Tele-Elmarit is recommended. Mine cost $454 shipped and absent some minor wear on the barrel has untarnished optics, with smooth focus.

Canon 50mm f/1.4 – some results

Film, Leica, Lenses, Photographs

Not half bad.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.



M3, 50mm Canon f/1.4 LTM and a BIG print.
I added the red lens alignment index dome.

After the interminable wait for the scans to come back from the photo lab – sometimes I just hate film – they finally arrived 9 days after mailing in my Dropbox account and I duly downloaded the Noritsu HQ scans into LRc and immediately added EXIF data. I generally search the LRc catalog by lens used as that seems to work best for my memory.

What makes a lens ‘good’? For me I care little about resolution charts, coma tests, distortion measurements, you name it. What I want is a high resolution print at 13″ x 19″ in size, often cropped from just 50% of the original. Using that criterion the Canon 50mm f/1.4 LTM lens adapted to my Leica M3 is a fine lens indeed.

Here are some results, all on pokey 100 ISO Kodak Ektar. It may be slow but the grain is very fine indeed and the reds are the closest thing to Kodachrome since Kodachrome.



Barista girl. 1/15th, f/1.4. Ektar is sloooow!


Bench. f/8.


Local barber’s shop.


I couldn’t but think of Stieglitz’s famous Wall Street image.


Near-Kodachrome reds. Click the image for a larger version.


In the style of Keld Helmer Petersen.


More Keld.


Hard hat place.

If you do not want to spend megabucks on a Leica 50mm lens, the affordable Canon 50mm f/1.4 LTM optic is recommended.

Adding indexes to LTM lenses

Film, Leica, Lenses

Tricky.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.

Having added two Canon Leica Thread Mount lenses to my little Leica M3 outfit, I found it difficult to easily align the lenses properly when fitting them to the M3. There’s a small red index line on the LTM-to-M bayonet adapter but it’s very hard to see when the adapter is mounted on the lens.

What I was missing was the red index hemisphere (“dome”) found on all Leitz M mount lenses, like on my 90mm Tele-Elmarit. These are absent from LTM lenses from any manufacturer:



The indexing dome on the 90mm Tele-Elmarit

In addition to providing visual indexing when mounting the lens, these domes also provide ready tactile guidance so that you can literally change lenses in the dark almost as easily as in daylight.

A couple of minutes on eBay and I was hosed down $10.23 for two minuscule red plastic indexing domes, arguably the costliest plastic per ounce on Planet Earth. Still, watcha gonna do? (I searched for “Red Dot Marks for Leica Lenses”). Be sure to clean your lens’s mounting surfaces with some isopropyl alcohol before proceeding.

The domes measure 3.2mm in diameter (0.1255″), identical to those used on Leitz rangefinder M-mount lenses.



The domes with the 35mm and 50mm Canon optics.
Miniature tweezers are essential for easy placement.
Red circles indicate correct locations.

As you can see these are very small and you must use a pair of miniature tweezers to place them in position. The red circles indicate the installation points.

While some use cyanoacrylate glue I find it’s far too runny and impermanent for this purpose. Those domes are going to get knocked about in use and CA glue just does not cut it. What is needed is two-part epoxy and there’s none finer than regular JB Weld. Avoid the quick setting version (weaker), go for the real thing:



One rivet for mixing, the other for application.

Next it’s time to mask the rear rings on the lenses to avoid unnecessary and ugly over-application of the mixed epoxy:



Scotch tape masks. The adapter has been removed
from the 35mm as it overlaps the rear lens mount.
This makes for better Scotch tape adhesion.

You have two choices. Apply the epoxy to the dome (high risk of dropping the dome as you hold it in the tweezers) or apply the epoxy to the lens (far lower risk, and the Scotch tape mask further mitigates error). After applying the smallest amount of epoxy to each lens, the domes are placed in position using the tweezers followed by light finger pressure for a good seal. This is why you want to use as little epoxy as possible. Squeeze out is ugly. Maybe lay off the coffee before these steps?



The domes in place.

Yes, the dome on the 35mm lens overlaps the far f/22 depth of field index but I’m not about to use that optic at f/22 where diffraction ruins resolution. So it’s a non-functional issue.

JB Weld two part epoxy takes 24 hours to fully cure at 70F. Not 20, not 16 not anything lower. Put the lenses aside and come back a day later. You can hit the coffee now.

Keks M-meter for Leica M

Cameras, Film, Leica

Finally!

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.



Finally!

If you like to use an exposure meter for light readings and use a film Leica M1, M2, M3, M4, M4-P, M4-2, MA, MD, MDa or MD2, you will be ordering one of these unless you are lucky enough to have a functioning Leicameter M/MC/MR/MR-4.

Finally someone has crafted an accessory shoe meter for the film Leica M which couples with the shutter speed dial.

By way of background I suggest you read my comprehensive piece on the Leicameter first.

Then if accessory shoe mounted meters are of interest read this. I have been using that minuscule Reflx meter with success but I would be the first to admit that speed is not its forte. As with all other accessory shoe meters it is not coupled to the Leica’s shutter speed dial. Decide to change shutter speed or aperture and you must first dial in the new shutter speed/aperture on the meter (slow), then take your light reading (fast) and transfer the indicated aperture/shutter speed to the lens (even slower). It takes time. And you have to struggle with that too small shutter speed dial on the Leica with its even smaller shutter speed engravings. This gets to be less fun and more challenging as anno domini kicks in.

By contrast the coupling Leicameter models attach to the shutter speed dial so you set your shutter speed using the knob on the meter (fast), take your light reading and transfer the aperture to the lens. That knob is large and easy to handle and the Leicameter’s engraved shutter speeds and apertures are large. Pretty speedy if you work in shutter priority mode.

Well, Keks has updated the Leicameter with a 1.3 inch OLED display while retaining the shutter speed dial coupling feature. With the Leicameter MR/MR-4 the angle of measurement is equivalent to that of a 90mm lens, which is 26 degrees diagonally. Thus you can use the 90mm frame selector lever for ‘aimed’ exposure measurement. The pidgin English on Keks’s site states: “30 average metering (Approximately 50mm Lens view)” which is wrong as 30 degrees is closer to the field of view of a 90mm lens. If it is 30 degrees that’s a good thing. (The diagonal angle of view of a 50mm lens is 46 degrees).

The battery, while rechargeable (ugh!) is said to deliver a 10 hour life after a one hour USB-C charge. Assuming that the display is set to stay on for 30 seconds – the period is adjustable – once a reading is taken that translates to 1200 ‘on’ cycles or 1200 exposures – call it 33 rolls of film. For me, with a 50% ‘keeper’ rate, that’s a long time and a lot of film. And Keks claims the battery is user replaceable, and while I see no hatch for the replacement, this is promising. See below for an image of the base retaining screws.

Eventually all batteries, rechargeable or not, die. Ask owners who laid down $7,000 for their Leica M240 digital not so long ago for which no replacement batteries are available. That’s a costly paperweight and Leica should be damned for no longer making the batteries. (The market is too small for Chinese aftermarket manufacturers). With the Keks M-meter, maybe you have to undo four screws in 5 years’ time? And they claim it uses a common rechargeable cell. It’s unclear from their images whether the four retainers for the base of the Keks meter are rivets or screws. Hopefully the latter, if their claim about the battery being replaceable is true.

This is not Keks’s first foray into light meter manufacture. B&H lists a couple of models in a variety of finishes, so there’s some reason to think Keks know what it is doing. Here are the specifications for the Keks M-Meter from their site:



Keks M-meter specifications.
That ‘Max/Min aperture’ customization setting is interesting.

Using images from Keks’s web site, here is my forensic analysis with thoughts and questions:



Keks’s meter is less wide (70mm) than the Leicameter MC and MR/MR-4 at 71mm.
At 17.3mm front to back it’s 2.7mm slimmer than the Leicameter.

That’s good news. It means more clearance for an aftermarket rapid rewind crank which I consider an essential enhancement to the stock M knob rewind. While the paper specifications suggest a 1mm width difference it’s clearly more like 5mm, looking at the above and top plate images.

It looks great:



On a Leica M2.

The display is big and clear. Lets hope Keks programs a black-on-white option:



The buttons on the right are for ISO setting.
If you use EVs those are also displayed.

You recharge it using USB-C:



Recharging. The rear button is for taking a light reading.
One press for instantaneous reading, two for continuous.

And you don’t even have to remove it from the camera. And there’s no funky specialized 1.35 volt battery considerations like with the Leicameter MR/MR-4. Looking at the images on the Keks site it’s clear that the socket at the meter end is USB-C, not the awful and fragile Micro-USB. Good:



USB-C recharging socket on the meter.

And here’s a surprise:



British (design) and Best.

It looks like the retainer, lower right, is a hex head Allen screw, but it’s hard to tell. Here’s another image – the same goes for the accessory shoe retainers. I have increased the contrast in their image to make things clearer:



Hex head Allen screw retainers?

The coupling pin for the Leica’s shutter speed dial is there – let’s hope they got the length and location right:



Coupling pin.

The various Leicameters had five screws in the accessory shoe – three to attach it to the meter and two to tilt the meter left to right to ensure proper coupling of the pin with the camera’s shutter speed dial. The Keks appears to have the three attachment screws only, no provision for tilt, but I imagine one could easily shim the shoe in the event of incomplete pin coupling with the shutter speed dial. It looks like they are using Allen head hex screws (hard to tell from their images), so this has to be determined in practical use.

And it looks like exposure compensation is a feature:



Exposure compensation setting.

If this meter functions well, Keks will sell a lot of these. And I will be one of their first sales. With a functioning Leicameter MR-4 selling for $200 and up, and they are all end-of-life, this is a bargain. Keks offers variants in black chrome or shiny black paint for those thus inclined. The black paint version is on brass for fetishists who like the worn/war zone look. The other two are on an alloy base.



My order.

The final icing on the Keks cake? If your early M3 has the 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50 etc. shutter speed progression you can set it up so. How cool is that? And you can limit the aperture and shutter speed ranges displayed to your specific hardware. For example, the aperture range in the Keks goes down to f/128 whereas the smallest aperture on any Leica lens that I am aware of is f/32. And you can switch between full stop, half stop and one third stop intervals. The same applies for ISO settings. Shutter stops are at full values only. Display brightness is adjustable in four steps (25%/50%/75%/100%) and Auto. The display ‘live’ time is adjustable from 30 seconds all the way to 5 minutes in seven steps. Hard to see using anything other than 30 seconds. A 15 seconds lower limit would be better. You can calibrate the shutter speed to correctly match that set on the camera in case it’s off. Nice.

The only drawback I can think of, compared with the MR/MR-4 Leicameter, is that you have to turn the Keks on to change shutter speeds. Not a big deal as you will be taking a light reading before doing that in any case.

You can download the user manual by clicking here. It’s silent as to battery replacement.

Canon 35mm f/2 LTM

Film, Leica, Lenses

Small and highly regarded.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.

I wrote at length about the Canon 50mm f/1.4 Leica Thread Mount lens here. I was so impressed with the build quality and finish of the 50mm lens that I added the 35mm version to my Leica M3 outfit. Stylistically the design of the 35mm f/2 is identical, though the aperture ring and the focus distances have been switched to black backgrounds:



Identical ergonomics to the 50mm f/1.4 lens

The lens sports the same gorgeous, black, scalloped focus collar as the 50mm, a non-rotating focus mount, equally spaced apertures with whole click stops and a non-rotating focus cam at the back. Strangely, the infinity lock of the 50mm optic is missing from the 35mm lens which is very compact and weighs in at just 139 grams with a protective filter and bayonet adapter in place. This makes it a tad harder to mount or remove on the Leica though there is substantial knurling on the mounting ring to help with grip. (The 50mm has no knurling as with the infinity lock no additional grip is needed). I am mystified why Canon deleted the infinity lock from this lens.

Whereas the 50mm lens has a 180 degree focus throw from 1 meter to infinity, that on the 35mm optic is far shorter, just 90 degrees for a like range. This lens is better suited to the M2, M4, M5 and M6 with their included 35mm frame lines in the viewfinder. My Leica M3 has 50/90/135mm frame lines but rather than use a shoe-mounted auxiliary finder I use decades of memory about just how a 35mm lens captures images and can largely make do with the 50mm finder plus some imagination. The big benefit of the Canon over the Leitz 35mm Summaron, of course, is the absence of those clunky ‘goggles’ which rather take away from the ‘small camera, small lens’ concept of the Leica. That and it’s 1.5 stops faster.



The Canon, with bayonet adapter, alongside the 35mm Summaron RF

As is clear from the above image my version of the Canon is in beyond mint condition. After some 5 decades it looks as if it was just removed from its original box, and the functions are as good as the appearance. The optics are crystal clear and the diaphragm looks new. It’s as if the lens had been stored away all those years and never used, with pristine white and orange paint filling the engravings. Comparing the optical designs you can see that the Canon’s is a bit more complex than the Summaron’s, having added a 7th element to the simpler symmetrical Gauss design of the Leitz lens. Hardly surprising as the lens was computed a decade later.



The design of the 35mm f/2 LTM Canon.



The Leitz Summaron for comparison.

Purchasing considerations are identical to those I set forth in the earlier piece on the 50mm Canon. That means you will likely be buying from Japan, where there are dozens available on eBay, and most will have fungus (excuse me, “pinpoint fungus, does not affect image” as listing after listing would have it), haze or scratches. Many show the white lettering faded to a disgusting yellow and while the engravings can be cleaned and refilled there are probably better things to do with your time. As you can see mine has none of these issues but I had to screen many examples before finally paying $385 with tax and shipping for my mint copy. That’s a fraction of what even an f/2.8 Summaron costs (half a stop faster than my f/3.5, reckon on $1200) and if you start looking at f/2 Summicrons or f/1.4 Summiluxes well, there goes a couple of months’ rent money. Mine came from Japan and took a scant 4 days to arrive, just as with the 50mm, for a reasonable shipping cost of $35.

Canon actually had two different optical designs for this lens. The first had serial numbers from 10041 through 36967, made 4/62 to 12/70. The second was 37237 to 45064, 1/71 to 3/75. Mine is the second design and is reputed to be marginally improved in the corners wide open. An earlier f/1.8 version is reputed to be softer.

I had to add an LTM-to-Leica-bayonet adapter from Fotodiox for $16. This time I chose one which would bring up the 135mm frame in the M3’s finder to remind me that I have the 35mm mounted; that same adapter will bring up the 35mm frame, correctly, on an M2 and subsequent rangefinder body. Thus, should I receive a severe blow to the head and spring for a digital Leica M body down the road, I will save all of $16 on yet another adapter. An $8 multicoated UV filter in the strange size of 40mm (not the more common 40.5mm) completes the ensemble, for a total outlay of $409. Yes, Amazon carries the odd sized filter. As with the 50mm optic, the red lens mounting index on the adapter is very hard to see and I will be adding a big red plastic blob, epoxied in the appropriate location on the rear of the lens barrel.

I checked focus accuracy at infinity – perfect – and at 1 meter using a laser measure, where the rangefinder was just 0.3″ out. Not a material error. That’s the second under $20 Fotodiox adapter I have installed and both are well nigh perfect. Save your money and don’t spend more on used Leica or other brands purporting to be better. Cameraquest is asking $79 for the allegedly superior Rayqual. Well, there is one born every minute, I suppose.

Here is the Canon on the Leica M3. Can you spell ‘gorgeous’?



On the M3, with a slimline 40mm UV filter fitted.

Finally, here’s how the lens balances on the camera.



Balance on the M3.

Early results appear here.