[Leica] Give old Leica lenses a new life.

[lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)]

More rainy day ruminations.

Give your old Leica lenses a new lease on life. Cheaply.

Olympus EPL-1 cameras are being sold at near giveaway prices by various 
distributors. Last year I bought two, one body and one with a 14 to 42 
mm kit lens from Cameta Camera in NYC, both for substantially less than 
$200 each. The sensor and much of the internal electronics is the same 
as in later models offered by the troubled Olympus company.

I have had no problem using old film camera lenses on an Olympus EPL-1 
provided I have the proper eBay sourced adapter. So far I have used 
Leica screw lenses (35 mm f3.5 Elmar, 50 mm f3.5 Elmar, 50 mm f2 
Summicron and 90 mm f 3.5 Elmar), Robot lenses (32 mm f2.8 Zeiss, 40 mm 
f2 Biotar), Canon screw lenses (35 mm f2.8 Serenar, 50 mm f 1.2 Canon, 
100 mm f3.5 Serenar and 135 mm f.3.5 Serenar), Olympus OM lenses (35 m 
f2.8 Zukio, 50 m f1.8 Zukio), and Olympus Pen F lenses (38 mm f2 
Zukio). That's a lot of lenses and I still have a drawer full more. I 
have little problem focusing with the camera on a tripod. An Olympus 
eye level digital finder even lets me focus with the camera held to my 
eye. Its more trouble than focusing a Leica M3 but easier than a Leica 
IIIf.

Now that I proved to myself that I could do it, I've mostly stopped 
using these lenses. The kit 14 to 42 mm Oly zoom works fine for most 
purposes and autofocus and auto exposure makes it dead easy. The three 
lenses I still use on the EPL-1 are the old 35 mm Elmar, mostly because 
it is so tiny that the camera will easily slip into a pocket, the Canon 
35 mm f2.8 because of its needle sharp quality, the Pen F 38 mm Zukio 
f1.8 because it is a small fast lens, and the Canon 50 mm f1.2 as a 
short telephoto to take pictures of black cats in coal cellars.

I've read all the Olympus and Panasonic propaganda about how specially 
computed lenses with wide rear elements are necessary for adequate 
performance with the 4/3 sensor. I have not found much difference 
between the digital 4/3 lenses and the old film lenses. Indeed picture 
quality is sometimes better than on film since the 2:1 reduced sized 
sensor uses the "sweet spot" in the center of the image circle. Edge 
fall off and distortion is minimized. This is certainly true for the 
f1.2 Canon. Olympus has just released a combination body cap and 14 mm 
f8.0 lens for the camera. I have one. The lens itself is just a tiny 
blob of glass with a clear opening of no more than 3 mm. This seems to 
violate all the warnings. Yet performance of the body cap lens shows it 
to be adequately sharp with even illumination over the entire frame.

How come?

Larry Z