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Old lenses on new Leicas

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
I thought that it would be interesting to start a thread sharing experience shooting old lenses on Leica digital Ms or film By old lens I mean 40 years or more old with a preference for even older.

I bought the following oddity on e-bay which sparked my interest in this topic.





It turns out that it is a 1945 vintage Zeiss Jena 5cm f1.5 Sonnar set in a Leica screw mount by an unidentified third party.

I'm posting a few images which I'm cross posting from the Monochrom thead to get things started.
 
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Vivek

Guest
Good initiative, Woody! :thumbs:

I do not have any digital Leica cameras at the moment though I cherish many of the old lenses on other fine cameras. Perhaps i will join in with pics if/when I find/buy a Leica MM.
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Good initiative, Woody! :thumbs:

I do not have any digital Leica cameras at the moment though I cherish many of the old lenses on other fine cameras. Perhaps i will join in with pics if/when I find/buy a Leica MM.
Vivek - feel free to share film images! The idea is to get a better knowledge of these lenses. I've edited my first post accordingly.
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Any views on the 21mm Super-angulon f4.0 for digital B&W. I'm aware of the color shift issue which shouldn't affect my MM. Is there any evidence of "smearing" - another artifact associated with non-retrofocus very wides?

They've gotten expensive on eBay.
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Now that I've had a chance to work with my new old 1945 CZ Jena 5cm f1.5 Sonnar I'm coming to the conclusion that it totally unreal - presence that just knocks me out. The day started gray so I did some test sort of shots. We got brilliant sunshine later in the day which presents dynamic range challenges given the recent snowfall here. Taken with my MM so I'm posting some images here and some on the MM thread.

To start a focus test. I was focused on the volume closer than MFK Fisher - both it and MFK Fisher appear to be in focus at f1.5, so focus may be a slight bit off.



A crop:

 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Out the window at f1.5 or so. The lens has minor linear distortion which is "tame" in that it can be fixed with a +3 correction in Lr as demonstrated here.

 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Now it gets good. Three frames stitched. More over on the MM thread. Some minor work in LR taming the flare in the top center.

 
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Vivek

Guest
DN, Iam envious of your age if you consider any ZM lenses "old"! :p
 
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