Guide to Leica and Third Party Lenses

[anyone]

Hi there,
I am frequently watching the nice Leica images posted here and am thinking since years whether I invest in the M system or not. The price is high, but the appeal of an ultra compact three lens kit is certainly there.

While I read a lot of praise about Leica‘s own offering, I am curious to read how they compare to Zeiss/ Voigtländer. Are there any guides available?

It‘s all hypothetical at this point, but I think a 28 - 50 - 90 kit may serve me well. I‘m mainly photgraphing landscapes.

Thank you!

 

[MGrayson]

All this is pure personal opinion.

I started to write a lengthy comparison. Then I realized that there were no rules and it's all an individual lens-by-lens judgement. Both systems have truly lovely optics of varying "looks". While there is some clustering, there are enough special cases to undermine any generalizations. Personally, I don't love any of the Zeiss rangefinder lenses. Their Contax lenses, both FF (the legendary CY 21mm) and 645 (most of them from 35mm to 140mm) and many of the Hasselblad V system lenses (110/2, 250/5.6 SA, 350/5.6 SA) are stellar. Leica M has a lot of beautiful examples. My favorites were the non-APO 28 and 50 Summicrons. The 70 Cron was too hard for me to focus. The oldest 50 Summiluxes had a dreamy character similar to the Zeiss 110/2.

But picking up a camera for 10 seconds is worth more than all the words ever written about them. Try them if you possibly can.

Matt

 

[anyone]

Hi Matt,
thank you for your thougts, very appreciated ! I use a lot of Zeiss lenses on my Hasselblad V system, but I was kind of looking for Leica M lenses from Leica themselves, Zeiss, and Voigtländer - there seem to be lots of nice options available so it‘s easy to get lost.

 

[Hausen]

I think the new Voigtlanders are great options. I have a hybrid system, WATE, VC35/2.8, VC50/1 and VC90/2.8 and am really happy with them all. The little VC35 is primarily on my M6 but I carry the rest in my LE kit. I got the 50/1 mainly as a special occasion lens but have used it quite a bit for landscapes where I want a little reach. Great value for money.

 

[dj may]

I think the new Voigtlanders are great options. I have a hybrid system, WATE, VC35/2.8, VC50/1 and VC90/2.8 and am really happy with them all. The little VC35 is primarily on my M6 but I carry the rest in my LE kit. I got the 50/1 mainly as a special occasion lens but have used it quite a bit for landscapes where I want a little reach. Great value for money.

I love the M, however I rarely use it because the Leica S3 is my first choice of all cameras.

I use Leica, Zeiss and Voigtländer lenses. I have Zeiss 50mm and it is very good. It was my second M lens and at the time (2012) I was still testing the system. I do not use it much. Because the S24 was my most- frequently used lens, I bought the Voigtländer 15mm; Leica does not have a 15mm. I like it very much.

Leica lenses are considerably smaller for the same focal length and aperture.

15mm Voigtländer with M Monochrom 246

 

[lookbook]

... supposedly there are over 300 lenses for the Leica (screw and m lenses) from all kinds of manufacturers.
from russians, japanese, chinese and so on.
in addition there are the possibilities to adapt.

i like to use all kinds of lenses on the leica with good success.

i think that the pleasure of working with this camera makes it easier to take good pictures.
the quality of the lenses comes much later ...

leica mp - trix - d76 - jupiter 9 russenlinse trifft deutschen : )

leica246 - canon fd 55mm aspherical - water and wine

 

[JoelM]

You really can't go too wrong with any of the lenses whether looking for sharpness on the latest sensors or your favorite rendering on film or digital. Nearly all of the lenses that will eventually fit your M camera will be plenty sharp enough once stopped down so you need to decide what is important with your style of shooting. Do you need wide-open sharpness or beautiful bokeh? That's why many, myself included, will have multiple lenses with the same focal length.
Joel

 

[anyone]

Thank you all for your replies and the images! While I initially was looking for a sort of comprehensive lens guide, I think this thread made an interesting turn into the lenses you like and why. I think this is fantastic and especially showing the qualities with a picture is a very nice approach. Please continue!

In my case, one special lens is tempting for years: the C-Sonnar 50mm 1.5.

 

[FloatingLens]

Another sleeper lens and hidden gem for that system of course is the ZM Distagon 1,4/35. YMMV.

 

[Godfrey]

There are few lenses made for Leica M mount which are actually of poor quality. It's hard to get a lemon. But there are performance differences between the various lenses, and between individual examples of any particular lens. Sometimes these differences are significant, other times not.

I've owned and used Leica cameras and lenses since the late 1960s, and I have had an amorphous lot of different lenses from Leica, Voigtländer, and Zeiss in the past decade and a half. Each has its particular personality: some work best well stopped down, others work best near wide open, some seem to take best to certain subject matter, etc etc. With my latest digital M ... the M10 Monochrom ... the lenses I tend to gravitate towards seem to be a 1972 Summilux 35mm f/1.4, a 2018 Summitar-M 75mm f/2.4, a 2006 Summicron-M 50mm f/2, and a very new Voigtländer Color-Skopar 21mm f/3.5. My favorite 28mm of the past decade ... the Voigtländer Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5 ...is not at its best on FF digital sensors (corner and edge fall-off, etc) so I'm considering a Summicron-M 28mm f/2 ASPH as a possible replacement. An ancient and often belittled 1960 Hektor 135mm f/4.5 also seems to work very nicely, and the rare Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Special is a delightful, fine performer.

Find a lens you're interested in, buy it, use it. Learn it. If it performs to your desires, you're done. If not, sell or trade it for another candidate.
That's how I work at it.

G

 

[JoelM]

Thank you all for your replies and the images! While I initially was looking for a sort of comprehensive lens guide, I think this thread made an interesting turn into the lenses you like and why. I think this is fantastic and especially showing the qualities with a picture is a very nice approach. Please continue!

In my case, one special lens is tempting for years: the C-Sonnar 50mm 1.5.

Yes, that's a wonderful lens. I had the opportunity to get a Nikkor s-c 50mm f1.4 that was M mount converted. Both lenses are similar and superb.
The lens that got away from me is the V2 35mm Summilux, tiny and awesome. Godfrey knows this.

Joel

 

[med]

Another sleeper lens and hidden gem for that system of course is the ZM Distagon 1,4/35. YMMV.

The Distagon 1,4/35 is a dynamite lens that has a large asterisk and is thus a perfect example of the old adage that you can have a lens that is small, cheap, or great quality, but you have to pick two. It is rather large for 35mm M lenses, but personally I think it’s optical qualities, and price compared to the Leica counterpart, more than make up for the size.

I think another diamond in the rough that is worth considering is the Voigtlander Ultron 2/28 II, which is nearly indistinguishable from the 28 Summicron optically, and is available in a really nice black paint finish.

 

[med]

I should add that I own both the Zeiss 35 1,4 and Voigtlander 28 Ultron II, and the 35 is pretty much glued to my M9, but the 28 doesn't get much use since I usually have my Q2 with me.

And some further thoughts regarding Leica vs Zeiss/Voigtlander... Looking strictly at optical qualities, there are many Zeiss and Voigtlander options than perform as well as, very close to, or even slightly better than their Leica counterparts, and you can certainly make amazing images with all of them. Furthermore, the Zeiss and Voigtlander build quality is, for the most part, exemplary, and they do not feel like cheap alternatives to the Leica lenses, even though that's what they essentially are. The only area that I think they feel like cheap alternatives is in the lens cap and hood department, where I think Leica really excels (although not everyone feels this way!). The Voigtlander APO-Lanthars are also worth considering, as they perform very closely to the eye-wateringly expensive APO-Summicron 35 and 50mm Leica offerings, but at 1/10 the price.

Where I think Leica (mostly) wins out is in the quality:size ratio, and consistency of handling experience and quality across multiple lenses. Their pricing is very tough to swallow, but if you buy used, it is extremely unlikely that you will lose money on Leica lenses as except for some rare cases, they only go up in value, even when they are replaced by newer variants. It's also hard to ignore the value of 6-bit coding and having the camera automatically recognize the lens that is mounted. It's amazing how hard it is for me to remember to set this manually when changing lenses.... of course you can manually add codes to Zeiss/Voigtlander lenses, but it is worth consideration.

 

[anyone]

The real challenge in this system seems to limit oneself (or well, the wallet helps of course). Even the effective focal range that is useful with a rangefinder is rather limited, there seem to be just a lot of good lenses around. I watched some images of the Zeiss 35mm 1.4 - wow!

 

[PeterA]

The Voigtlander Ultron 11 lenses in 28 and 35 mm are very small, light and very good performers.

If you want the extra zing of sharpness for landscape you might like to look at the 35 and 50 Apo lenses from Voigtlander - but they are larger than the ultrons in size and weight.
I haven't tried the wider Voigtlanders 21 and below so I can't comment although many use them on all sorts of cameras including M for the funky ultra wide outputs.

If you want the ultimate very wide and light portable kit I would say the Leica WATE 16-21 focal lengths in one lens is hard to beat - and I would also look for a Leica 24mm ( now out of production) but like its 21mm Super Elmar cousin - just magnificent and very small and lightweight.

I dont shoot longer than 50mm on a Leica M - but for landscape work pretty much any Leica lens is going to make you happy with the results - the 135 Apo is a great lens which I dont own or use.

Matched to an M10R or M11 - you will be able to print in native resolution I think up to A0 - and much much larger if required with too much degradation of printed IQ.

If you decide to buy an M11 - make sure you get the grip that has inbuilt arca type tripod mount very nice.

Leica M is about portability and hand holding - the larger sensor size also allows for significant cropping optionality whilst preserving enough data for large interpolated prints - but no IBIS - - at 60 MP I found the limits of critical sharpness hand held shooting to be manageable as long as you keep shutter speeds realistic YMMV.

Atb
Pete

 

[Godfrey]

The real challenge in this system seems to limit oneself (or well, the wallet helps of course). Even the effective focal range that is useful with a rangefinder is rather limited, there seem to be just a lot of good lenses around. I watched some images of the Zeiss 35mm 1.4 - wow!

I treat shooting with the Leica M in much the same way as I treat medium format cameras ... while I do have a dozen or so usable lenses that I can use on the M, accumulated over the course of 20-30 years, I tend to use just a couple nearly all the time. Because ... In the end, it's the photographers' eye that makes great photographs, not how many lenses you're using. Two or three lenses that do what you like are really all you need.

G

 

[Photon42]

The real challenge in this system seems to limit oneself (or well, the wallet helps of course). Even the effective focal range that is useful with a rangefinder is rather limited, there seem to be just a lot of good lenses around. I watched some images of the Zeiss 35mm 1.4 - wow!

The great thing of this mount is that it will keep you busy for years. So many different options to chose from.

I find that the recent Voigtländer lenses are actually extremely good and they often hard to tell apart from their Leica counterparts (I've got the 21/1.4 and the 50/2 APO). Zeiss doesn't seem to maintain their lineup well. Not sure where this is going.

Generally, if you look for the most compact lenses at the same performance level, Leica takes the cake almost always. Compare the size of the 1.4/35 Zeiss with its Leica counterpart - there is just an updated version coming out as we speak. The M system essentially is about compactness with excellent performance.

One thing to consider is coding: As a rule of thumb, lenses below 35mm benefit from coding. Non-Leica lenses are often coded with the codes of reasonably equivalent Leica lenses. I have my fair share of experience there. Modern Voigtländer and I think Zeiss lenses as well have a notch in their flange so coding is simplified.

If you really don't know where to start and like the 50mm focal length, buy a used 50mm Summilux ASPH. It works well with the rangefinder and it can be adapted to so many other systems. If you buy it used, you will lose little when selling it again. Then take it from there.

 

[bensonga]

“…I initially was looking for a sort of comprehensive lens guide…”

Sean Reid has written excellent “real world” and studio test reviews of many Leica, Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses for the M. Most of his reviews are only available to subscribers, but I highly recommend them. I have subscribed to his site for 5+ years. I really enjoy his writing style and the many high quality images he includes in every review. You might want to check out his article index at Reidreviews.

As an example, here is a brief description from Sean Reid’s website of a review he did of three M-mount lenses in 2021:
“On October 31 I published what is essentially two articles in one. It is a detailed full field and studio review of
the M-Mount Cosina Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 35/2.0 ASPH. Woven into that are new field tests of the Zeiss
ZM 35/2.8 Biogon C as well as side-by-side studio tests of the CV 35 APO, the Zeiss ZM 35/2.8 and the Leica
M APO 35/2.0 Summicron ASPH. This is a 16 page article with more than 110 illustrations.”

Gary

 

[anyone]

Since I'm now a proud owner of a Leica M6 TTL with 0.85 viewfinder I'm starting to look into lenses.
For 90mm, the Elmar-C seems like a reasonable and very affordable choice. For 50mm, I've admired the C-Sonnar 50mm 1.5 for quite a while.

 

[FloatingLens]

You can buy the C-Sonnar new from Jo Geier for 939,- EUR (not affiliated).