The followig article is a guest post by Murok Marci
The following lenses will be shown
Porst Color Reflex PK 50mm f1,2
On monday I took my chance and had a nice camera walk in the sunshine of Heidelberg. To challenge myself I took a lens with me that I barely use. The Ernst Leitz Wetzlar Summar f=5cm 1:2 (Leica Summar 50mm f2).
The little Ernst Leitz Wetzlar Summar was built between 1932 and 1939 and is still yet a really sharp and superb lens. Its made out of six elements and has six aperture blades.
Even on modern 42 megapixel camera the lens is really usable. When its open at f2 its sharp in the middle with a slight vignetting and really soft corners. When you stop it down it becomes a really really sharp lens.
The bokeh is bubbly and swirly really similar to the Helios 44 lenses.
The following article is a guest post by Jim Headley.
Battle Between Two Cult Classics, the Kyoei Super-Acall and the Soligor
A few years ago, I was rather bored and went onto the Internet for some entertainment.
I often type Leica in the auction website and just browse the closing auctions for a bargain.
I quickly located a Leica IIIC stepper and bought it for under $400, with a clean 50mm collapsible Elmar. During my browsing I also located two 135mm lenses for sale. Both were in 39mm Leica Thread Mount and the auction was about to end with no bidders. I slapped down a $27 bid, only to find out in a few minutes that I was now the proud owner of these two 135mm lenses for a paltry $19.99. I quickly paid for them ($24.99 with shipping).
I really didn’t care about these lenses as my big prize of the day was my fourth IIIC stepper to add to my collection.
The lenses showed up the same day as the coveted IIIC, so they didn’t get much attention until later that evening. I searched the Internet only to find that both the Kyoei Super-Acall and the Soligor lenses are very loved by their owners. Many call them “sleeper lenses.”
Okay, I did become excited at this point and even found one reference calling the lenses, “better than the Hektor 135.”
I could not sleep that night as visions of the two lenses danced in my head.
The weekend came around, so I decided to put the two “sleepers” to the test. I’ve always hunted for the perfect M-mount 135mm lens – even to go as far as cutting off the eyes of a Leica 135mm f:2.8 Elmarit. The eyes were scratched beyond use, so please don’t gasp.
My Elmarit performs well but it doesn’t focus accurately on the rangefinder patch of my M8. It’s great at infinity but difficult to focus on anything very close. I was using it on a Micro 4/3 camera and it was splendid.
I have always struggled to find a great 135mm lens and with the 1.3x crop of my Leica M8 chip, the 135 effectively becomes a 175mm. That is a “nice” focal length to use.
I took the two sleeper lenses down to the local dam on the Little Blue River as well as performing a test on the top of the local courthouse.
WOW! I am amazed by both the Kyoei Super-Acall and the Soligor. They are indeed sleeper lenses and better that all the 135mm Hektors that I have owned.
I first gravitated to the larger and heavier Kyoei Super-Acall but I finally relented and picked the less-impressive Soligor. I mean come-on with a name like Soligor it can’t be that great.
To my surprise the Soligor rated and tested as the best of the two when I went through a series of detailed head-to-head quality tests from wide open at f:3.5 to f:22.
The Soligor was tack sharp at f:11 while the Super-Acall was a little softer. Both lenses had fantastic color retention but I found the little Soligor was a little warmer while the Super-Acall had nicer blues and cooler tones. At f:16 and 22 both lenses were sharp with great color retention but the Soligor was just a little better.
So if you have been hunting for a reasonably priced 135mm lens to snap onto your digital (or film) Leica, please take a look at the Kyoei Super-Acall and the Soligor 135mm f:3.5 lenses. They are sleepers and many are discovering their unique charm and quality, so they are beginning to rise in price a little.
I was incredibly lucky to find them together in one auction for $19.99. The Kyoei Super-Acall normally is in the $200 to $400 range while the “better” Soligor is $200 to $300 if you can find them on the used market.
They both make a great telephoto on an M-mount Leica with a good adapter.
The following is a guest blog by Jorgen Guldmann:
Everyone needs at least one GOOD 50mm lens (I got a fair amount). In my opinion a good 50mm lens must be versatile, with a nice bokeh, fast to accommodate for less available light, and sharp when stopped down to aperture below f2. There are a lot of 50mm prime lenses on the market, both old and new. In this little blog i am comparing 6 different pieces.. I hope you enjoy their attributes and expressions.
Actually im not a huge fan of Christmas Markets. Expensive food, headache causing glogg and masses of people walking between either more or less beautiful little shacks. Nevertheless I really enjoy going to Christmas Markets. Equiped with my camera, a gorillapod tripod and several lenses which I wanna do some experiments with.
For me Christmas Markets with all their colourful lights, the hats filled up with candles and twinkling odds and ends are the perfect oportunity to live out my imagination. Taking photos on a Christmas Market is really varying and wont get boring. Besides all the light sources there are aswell some moving objects like carousels and christmas pyramids.
In the end I want to show you my latest experiment. The exploding bokeh of a slightly modified Carl Zeiss Flektogon 35mm f2.8 lens. I love it.
Feel free to comment and tell me your opinion about taking photos on a christmas market. Maybe even share some examples.
The Meyer Optik Görlitz Trioplan 50mm f2.9 was the first ever soapbubble bokeh lens I discovered and I like to call it a gateway drug. With its price about 150$ its not that expensive and way cheaper than the newly released version. The most common mount is the EXA Mount. It is easy to adapt to digital cameras without a mirror (Sony E, Panasonic, Olympus, Fuji, Canon EOS EF-Mm […]) . To use it on a digital mirror reflex camera you either have to accept loss of quality or infinty focus or buy a more expensive M42 version of the Trioplan 50mm f2.9.
The Trioplan 50mm f2.9 is for sure neither the sharpest nor the most colorful lens but with its characteristic bokeh bubbles its definetly awesome. Everyone should have a copy of this lens in the cupboard.
Because of my instagram posts of photos I shot with the trioplan 50mm several of my followers asked me about it. After I had some requests i decided to buy the Trioplan in Germany and ship it to friends all over the world.
All of my friends who received a copy of the Trioplan became vintage lens addicts and bought many more lenses.
Ian C. (@sackofsoul)
The Trioplan is the lens many people first fall in love with when they discover bubble bokeh. When my first one arrived I took it on holiday with me, and spent a day in the mountains photographing the sunlight through the leaves of trees, laughing to myself, gasping at the difference between what my eyes could see and what the Trioplan 50 could see, whilst getting eaten alive by mosquitos. Totally worth it.
Ricardo B. (@rbayon)
Ahhh, the Trioplan 50! Even if it isn’t the first vintage lens you buy, it is the first one you really, really want. You see all that wonderful bubble bokeh and you think to yourself “what sort of wizardry is that”. Often that bokeh is the result of a Trioplan —most of the best bubbles come from this Meyer Optik beauty. So you go on e-Bay, you look for the Trioplan. At first you look at the Trioplan 100, but that is too expensive for a first vintage lens (unless you have more money than sense), so you look around. You find out there is a Trioplan 50. You see that it gets you 95% of what you want (those bubbles!) so you take the plunge. If you are smart, you buy one from Daniel (like I did). And then it arrives: beautiful, silvery, with that solid mechanical feel like no lens you’ve ever seen. And it seems small at first… small that is until you take your first photos. Then you download them to your computer and you are blown away. You can’t stop giggling at all those bubbles. But what surprises you is that even those photos that don’t have bubbles. Even the shots of people, or buildings, or whatever, they are ALL magical. The way this thing captures light is like nothing you’ve ever seen. You are hooked. You want more. Your appetite for vintage lenses becomes insatiable. Truly a vintage lens photographer’s life can be defined in two eras: Before Trioplan (BT) and After Trioplan (AT). It is just that transformational. Like coming of age. Sure, after the Trioplan your budget takes a hit from buying every vintage lens you can get your hands on, but on the inside you can’t stop smiling, and your photographic world is the better for it.
Melissa L. (@petitcanard)
My first experience with vintage lenses was the Trioplan 50 (bought from Daniel) and what an introduction! One look at the gorgeous bubble bokeh and I was hooked! The Trioplan takes the ordinary and transforms it to extraordinary There’s no going back!
At the time I wrote this blog, I have three Trioplan in my cupboard which I would let go. Feel free to contact me if you want one.
Today I took some test shots to compare the Zeiss Flektogon 20mm f2.8 and the Zeiss Flektogon 20mm f4.
Both of these old vintage lenses have the m42 mount and can be adapted to every modern camera (Sony, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Fuji etc.). The M42 mount is the best to adapt.
The design of both lenses is almost indestructible. They are completely made from metal and glas.
When it comes to the price, the f4 version (160€ at ebay.de) is about 100€ cheaper than the f2.8 version.
When you compare the optical quality of the lenses, you soon realise that the Carl Zeiss Flektogon f2.8 is the better lens.
click the image to enlarge it
The Flektogon f2.8 is sharper even wide open at f2,8 compared to the f4 version at f4.
This better sharpness continues through all apertures.
The vignetting is almost the same when you compare f2.8 with f4. But when you stop down the f2.8 version to f4 its almsot gone.
The sharpness in the corners and with subjects far away, the Flektogon 20mm f2.8 is better wide open compared to the f4 version. From f8 there are no significant differences between the both. At f16 the f4 version is almost a little bit sharper.
click the image to enlarge it
Last but not least a comaprison of the “star” both lenses create.
Its hard to tell which of these two lenses is the better one. In my opinion the Carl Zeiss Flektogon f4 is a really good lens for landscape and architecture photography for all Sony, Nikon, Canon, Fuji, Panasonioc (and all others) photographers. When you use a tripod and can stop it down to aperture 8 or 16 there is almost no difference to the f2.8 verison.
Because the f2.8 version is way way better wide open, i recommend this version for astro photography.
As this is my first “lens review” I would kindly ask you to leave a comment how you liked it. I’d love to read some lines of wishes, criticism and suggestions.
Daniel
