Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Whole Lotta Leica Lens for August - 35mm f2 Summicron Type 3

I recently picked up this Summicron 35mm f2, unplanned, for a very good price at a local camera store. I'll be shooting this lens a lot with my M9 in the month of August. In fact, I already posted one shot from it, on August 4.
 
Leica Summicron 35mm f2, Version 3, 1975
 
Leica's Summicron lenses are world-renowned for their quality. Earlier in the year, I picked a more expensive 35mm lens from the same approximate time period, the f1.4 Summilux, for my Whole Lotta Leica (WLL) series.
 
(Click Here) to read about the Summilux. It is a very nice lens, and the fast f1.4 makes it very flexible. However, that lens is known to be a little soft wide open. Not so with the Summicron.
 
If you haven't noticed, I've consolidated all of my WLL post links onto a single page, so it's easy to find a particular lens and the results from it.
 
(Click Here) to go to my WLL links page.
 
Back to the Summicron that I'll be shooting this month, it is the third version of the 35mm f2 by this name. Mine was made in 1975. There are at least five versions at this point. The version 2 and 3 Summicron 35s have six elements, as compared to eight in the earlier model 1. This reduces the number of glass-to-air interfaces, reportedly improving (increasing) contrast, at the cost of some resolution.
 
This is a gorgeous, tiny lens, that makes the perfect mate to a nice M body like the M9. We'll see how it performs this month. I'm thinking it's going to be good.
 
DMC-365.blogspot.com
 
 

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