I suspect that some of the bokeh (out of focus) effects of these old lenses will be influenced by the number of scratches/blemishes on the lens elements.

The older Leica lenses have their own characters. This picture shows, I think, the characteristic 'Summitar glow' (1942 lens)

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This is with a 1935 Summar

[IMG][/IMG]

For those wishing to try the Summitar or Summar don't be put off too much by the mention of haze. It is fairly easy to unscrew the front elements and then clean the inner surface of the lenses with a quality cleaning system. I have done this quite successfully using a Carl Zeiss cleaning kit.The thing to watch out for are those that have been coated on the outer surface, this coating can be fragile.

I'm sure Brian S will be able to offer more experienced advice on these old lenses.

I have a Nickel Summar that is early, and have used it on the M8, and an even older Elmar. I have a Black-Faced 1931 5cm F2.8 Tessar in Contax mount, going by the SN it was one of the first. That is my oldest interchangeable lens for 35mm. I can use it with the Amedeo adapter on the EP2. Have not done so yet. My oldest Nikkor is a 1948 5cm F2 collapsible in Leica Mount.

Still some sun outside...

Nice, I have an old Hektor from 1938 but have not really used it enough, too many lenses competing with it... I always liked the thought of playing with an old Summitar or Summar, but prices for the good ones are pretty high for my standards. I'm not exactly sure how old my uncoated Cooke Kinic 25/1.5 c-mount is but that might be older than the Hektor.

Stefan

I have a 1957 Hektor 13.5cm . I've only tried it a couple of times on the G1. The lens is pretty sharp but as it is an effective '270mm' it is difficult to hand hold.

I'll fish it out this weekend and if the weather stays fair I'll take a few test shots.

One of the queries that I toyed with was that the early, 1933, Leitz Elmar 50mm f3.5 that I have, number 184xxx is marked 50mm and not 5cm - when I originally got it I thought that it was a later lens because of this, (i.e. the 50mm marking), - they only ran the mm very early on and then, maybe in 1934 went over to 5cm, etc., only returning to mm for the "modern" lenses - I think anyway, (perhaps Brian S knows the full story?)

I have a very similar Elmar 5cm f3.5 no 305xxx from 1936 - some of these lens were coated at a later date at the factory - I am not sure if any were originally "coated" but I think not

Cheers


Bill

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Bill

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/billn_france/

Uncoated Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 1:2 f=5cm manufactured in 1936 ...

Taken with a 1917 VPK Meniscus Achromat lens adapted to my GH1:

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-Dragos
Panasonic GH1 + various lenses

I suspect the Elmar in the 300K SN range was coated after being built. I looked at my Elmar in the 200K SN range, marked in cm. Same with the post-war lens in the 640K range, coated but marked in cm.

On the early Elmar marked in "mm", check the aperture scale and the DOF scale. They should both be the old F-Stop progression.

1937 5cm F1.5 Sonnar on the M8, at F4.

This lens is converted to Leica Thread Mount using a Russian J-3 focus mount.

Subject moved during exposure.

Brian

on the 1933 50mm and the 1936 5cm both the aperture scales and DOF scales are the same

top is 184xxx = 1933
bottom is 305xxx = 1936

AFAIA

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Bill

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/billn_france/