Am I the only one who takes Summitar over Summicron?

momus said:

The Nikkor H 50 2 is a great lens, but it sure doesn't image like a rangefinder Summicron lens. All of my H Nikkor 50's made nice photos w/ nice bokeh, but Summicron 3D imaging and beautiful, smoooooth bokeh? No, none of them did that.

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That may be true of the M mount versions, but bokah differences aside, its certainly not true of the pre-aspherical Leicaflex/R mount versions between f5.6 and f11 where their performance is identical.

And I am referring to the H.C. version specifically here.

It's been a long time since this has been active but I just found it and felt like I wanted to reply (even if no one ever sees it).
On these types of discussions I sure would like folks to include their personal definitions of "better than" and allow everyone the curiosity to have their own definition. I suspect Ansel Adams would have a completely opposite definition of what makes a good lens than Daido Moriama or Fiona Lark. Kind of depends on what kind of genera or camp you fall into doesn't it?

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About 67 years ago, the U. S. Navy ship I served on visited Singapore for R&R. I promptly scouted all the major camera stores and put in an order at the biggest for a Leica M-4 (which had just been released) and other Leica lenses, including a Summicron. I used that lens intensively until changing to digital cameras 12 years ago. After 55 years of hard usage from above the Artic Circle to the equator, it showed signs of abuse, but still delivered fine images. Indoor sports were shot at f/2 with distinctly better results than faster Nikkor lenses on LTM cameras and SLRs. Simple but critical comparisons between the Summicron and a variety of lenses from other makers confirmed its excellence.

Notes on the previous post: the test I used consisted of a microfilm with the entire Bible on a single slide. This was projected through the test lens onto a movie screen. After careful focusing, this shows any defects in the projecting lens. Of course it does not provide numerical information for comparison with other tests, but it immediately reveals problems with an image instead of numbers from a chart

Jim Jones said:

Indoor sports were shot at f/2 with distinctly better results than faster Nikkor lenses on LTM cameras and SLRs.

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Nikkor primes hit their sweet spot between f/4 and f/11. One needs to keep this in mind when testing them against other lenses.

Nitroplait said:

If it has “the glow” it has haze

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Don't think this is true. My Summar glows nicely wide open.

I've found that, in general, my Leica lenses are a bit sharper and more consistent than Japanese glass, but not as contrasty. I prefer sharpness over contrast - contrast can be adjusted in the darkroom.