Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 05:21 AM 11/22/1999 -0800, Mark Langer wrote: >I was wondering if anyone >had experience with the various non-Leitz wide angle lenses. Which are >the ones to keep an eye out for? Being on a limited budget, I'm >interested in value for the money, which made the price of the Canon f2 >more attractive to me than the $750 for the Voigtlander 35mm f1.7 or the >Summicron or Summilux 35s. If I were to look for a 28mm, 25mm or around >20mm lens, what should I be considering? Hmm. There IS a book floating about on non-Leica lenses, but I cannot recall the name of the author or the title right now. <he smiles thinly> Any Angenieux or Rodenstock or JSK or Zeiss lens will be a fine performer - -- I have, for instance, a Carl Zeiss 4.5/21 Biogon converted from Contarex to Leica M which finally got me away from my 5.6/20 Russar MR-2, though I still use the latter on my LTM cameras. The Russian lenses (5.6/20 Russar MR-2 and 6/28 Orion-15) are slow but optically quite nice -- and quite inexpensive. The 19mm Canon is a good performer, but has unfortunately become a collectible -- when Nikon RF gear went through the roof in the early and middle 1980's, the collectors began to work on the Canon RF stuff, which is why all of the Canon RF lenses are now going up, up, up in price. The Steinheil lenses are great, but all are slow. Schacht lenses are good and get better as time progresses. In general, ISCO lenses are not worth it unless the price is quite low. Enna lenses are pretty damned good, and they made some neat focal length/aperture combinations. And, a little tighter than you want, the 40mm Kilfitt is a great lens, though it was never offered in LTM -- but one in M42 and it can easily be adapted to LTM. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!