LEITZ 50cm LTM 2,8 ELMAR

I have purchased this lens for use on my 1955 LEICA M-3 after having used another since 1967 that acquired fungus however had not read reviews until recently. I have always been satisfied with the results. Various reviews state that it is mediocre while others praise it. I would like opinions from PHOTRIO members because I trust that they will have used it and can offer experiential views rather than opinions of those who have never used it.

anthonym3 said:

I have purchased this lens for use on my 1955 LEICA M-3 after having used another since 1967 that acquired fungus however had not read reviews until recently. I have always been satisfied with the results. Various reviews state that it is mediocre while others praise it. I would like opinions from PHOTRIO members because I trust that they will have used it and can offer experiential views rather than opinions of those who have never used it.

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If it is good enough for you, why should you care what others think?

It's 50mm and that ticks my box.
It's an Elmar and that ticks my box.
I have never used a 2.8 Elmar, but if is anywhere near as good as the 3.5 Elmar, that also ticks my box.

cliveh said:

It's 50mm and that ticks my box.
It's an Elmar and that ticks my box.
I have never used a 2.8 Elmar, but if is anywhere near as good as the 3.5 Elmar, that also ticks my box.

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I concur. If the lens is working for you, who cares what other people think? As with any lens, you'll likely get best results stopped down a couple stops below wide open. Rockewell (he's supporting a growing family, you know) says more or less the same thing here:

https://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/50mm-f28.htm

P.S. I have an uncoated collapsible 50mm f/3.5 Elmar from 1945 that is still a superb performer. The optics are razor sharp and the lack of coating gives is an amazing glow look around light sources and specular highlights. I've never used it with color, though.

Dan Fromm said:

If it is good enough for you, why should you care what others think?

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DAN, it's not that I care it's merely to gather others opinions.

chuckroast said:

I've never used it with color, though.

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I have : -

I have an M mount version, I think they are the same generally. The Lanthanum glass element were used in most and gives a nice look. My problem with the lens is the 'set aperture first then focus' workflow, kind of drives me batty.

cliveh said:

I have : -

View attachment 387357

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Yours is the uncoated one? That's lovely.

Saganich said:

I have an M mount version, I think they are the same generally. The Lanthanum glass element were used in most and gives a nice look. My problem with the lens is the 'set aperture first then focus' workflow, kind of drives me batty.

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Yeah, I keep forgetting to set the aperture on my old Elmar. It would drive me batty, except that, in my case, it's more of a short putt...

anthonym3 said:

DAN, it's not that I care it's merely to gather others opinions.

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How do you expect them to change what you do?

Dan Fromm said:

How do you expect them to change what you do?

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Perhaps through learning something new as a result of the shared experience of others?

anthonym3 said:

after having used another since 1967 that acquired fungus

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Those lenses are prone to haze. If it's fungus, it's easy enough to clear that up.

Ignore reviews of old lenses, unless the reviews were from when the lens was new. Anyone who gets one now is getting a used and possibly beat up, scratched up, hazy copy. They base their useless opinions on the lens as it is even when it's not at all like all other examples.

It's simple. Leitz didn't make bad lenses.

MattKing said:

Perhaps through learning something new as a result of the shared experience of others?

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Dan Fromm said:

How do you expect them to change what you do?

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With all due respect Dan, why doyou continue to ask irrelevant questions?

Back to the topic of the 50mm Elmar. I used a late-production ƒ/2.8 for over 20 years. I loved the color and "look." For subjects with a lot of very fine detail (like cityscapes), my 50mm Summicron had marginally better resolution, but really, it made no difference whatsoever. This Elmar is a lens that I should have never sold. It had superb mechanical construction. Mine was just beginning to develop a bit of haze when I sold it.

Note: YYE warned me that many of these 2.8 Elmer's have a fogged and etched front element. We had a long discussion about it. He thought it had to do with the aperture being so close to the back of the element. I assume this would also affect the 3.5 Elmars in the newer style housing, the one that looks like the 2.8 lens.

I got lucky. I bought it from an EBAY seller who described it as excellent. It is actually very nearly mint, in fact I cannot find a blemish, the lens is crystal clear with no scratches or blemishes and the coating is perfect. I paid $525.00

Don_ih said:

Those lenses are prone to haze. If it's fungus, it's easy enough to clear that up.

Ignore reviews of old lenses, unless the reviews were from when the lens was new. Anyone who gets one now is getting a used and possibly beat up, scratched up, hazy copy. They base their useless opinions on the lens as it is even when it's not at all like all other examples.

It's simple. Leitz didn't make bad lenses.

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This one is actually in nearly mint condition. It doesn't appear to have been used much if at all. Glass is crystal clear, the coating has no marks, the body has no blemishes that I can find even at magnification.

Memories of the f/2.8 Elmar. Should I try to find a nice example?

Galveston Beach, Texas, 1983, scan of a Kodachrome slide, probably K25, Leica M3 body.

anthonym3 said:

With all due respect Dan, why doyou continue to ask irrelevant questions?

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Well, when I go on line with a question, I want to get information that will lead me to a decision or that will help me understand something that puzzles me. I don't initiate discussions that won't, I hope, lead to action or better understanding on my part.

That's what you seem to have done here. This puzzled me so I sought enlightenment. You've enlightened me more than I expected.

Learning to live and work with a lens that is problematic for some shooters is all part of the skill set we should all learn, especially if you're in a competitive environment where others are using first quality kit, fresh off the best of sales counters vs the local boot sale, last week.

Often times, knowing where 'flare' occured is ⅔ the battle in making a lens, film, camera and lens filters shines, IMO.

anthonym3 said:

This one is actually in nearly mint condition. It doesn't appear to have been used much if at all. Glass is crystal clear, the coating has no marks, the body has no blemishes that I can find even at magnification.

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Sounds like you got lucky, which happens every now and then.

Kodachromeguy said:

I assume this would also affect the 3.5 Elmars in the newer style housing

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Yup. I have one that was etched to the point of bathroom-window quality. I actually ground it off and the lens is usable, now, but flares to a massive degree. It will need a bit more polishing but I got fully irritated doing it. Maybe I'll get back to it someday.

Erwin Puts on the 50/2.8 Elmars (source: https://web.archive.org/web/20130310125550/https://furnfeather.net/books/pdf/llcforweb.pdf):

6.3.3 2.8/50,Elmar,1957
This lens was redesigned with the new Lanthanum glasses, used also in the
Summicron version and the LaK9 glass can be found in the first and last element.
Analysis by modern computer based design programs of the original Elmar
configuration show that the basic design is difficult to improve upon. A tribute to the
old masters no doubt.! If advances are to be made, the only route is the glass
selection. Inevitably, older glass types were removed from the catalogues and so the
designers were forced to adapt to these circumstances. But modern optimization
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analysis also shows that the gains are relatively modest and so it may be no surprise
that the image quality of this lens is quite stable over the years. Of course newer
glasses and specifically the coating of surfaces give a modest gain under adverse
conditions. In many situations, the use of new glass types will not improve the basic
performance of a lens, as the designer will adapt the lens specifications to the
characteristics of the new glass in order to preserve the original image quality. The
classical four-element/three group design of the Elmar can just cope with the most
important aberrations. And we know that doubling the aperture will increase the
effect of aberrations by at least 6 to 8 times. The designer has however limited
optical means to correct this higher level of optical errors. The Leitz designers used
the new glass to improve the lens, but the progress is modest. The moving tube for
the collapsible mount made the lens mount a bit unstable and Leitz indeed designed
a newer rigid version with much better image quality. This elusive Elmarit
1:2.8/50mm never went beyond prototype status, but should have been an excellent
design.
Figure 88: diagram 47
At full aperture the lens has a low overall contrast, lower than that of the Summicron
and the Elmar 3.5 version. Coarse detail is reproduced with soft edges and finer
detail is blurred in the outer zones (beyond image height of 8mm). The aperture of
1:2.8 does overstretch the design and spherical aberration and flare (due to coma) do
lower the contrast. It delivers however an even performance over most of image
field, which improved rapidly when stopping down. At 1:4 the performance is very
good and better than that of the original Elmar 1:3.5/50mm at 1:4. Overall contrast
becomes medium and now we have a very good centre quality, with he outer zones
still trailing behind. Compared to the Summicron (I), there is an interesting
difference in fingerprint. The Elmar has the edge in the centre of the picture and the
Summicron is better in the field. At 1:8 we find very fine imagery (as good as that of
the Summicron (II) from 1957). The performance characteristics show the limit of a
four-element design with the glass types then available. Vignetting and close-up
performance.
6.3.4 2.8/50,Elmar-M, 1994,
Introduced in 1994 as a special lens, only to be sold in combination with the M6J
body, it has evolved into a normal , but underrated, catalogue item since 1996.
Production however was continued during 1995. The image quality of this
completely redesigned lens is amazingly good and now the position of the stop is
between the second and third element. One might assume that the 4 element design
has been fully explored and in a sense that is the case. Still the Leica designers could
extract more performance out of the design, showing that improvements are always
possible, . The ergonomics of the Elmar-M do limit its use. The external design very
closely resembles the previous version, and inherits its small aperture ring and
distance ring, presumably necessary for the compact size when collapsed. The lens
mount is non-rotating.
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Figure 89: diagram 48
At full aperture the Elmar-M adds medium to high overall contrast to the image.
Fine detail is rendered crisply over most of the film area and fine detail is recorded
with great clarity and sharp edges. This behaviour is interesting when compared to
the Summicron (III) from 1969, at aperture 2.8. The overall performance is
comparable, with the Summicron having an advantage in contrast. But in the field
(zonal areas from image height 9mm) the Elmar has clearly the edge. The
Summicron has better imagery in the centre (contrast and rendition of fine detail),
but the Elmar records fine textures with greater clarity in the field. Stopped down to
5.6 or 8.0, the Elmar improves visibly with a higher contrast and consequently better
rendition of (now) very fine detail. The fingerprint difference with the Summicron
holds at these apertures too. Only in the extreme corners the Summicron has an
advantage. Compared to the older Elmar, we see the progress when we look at the
capabilities of recording fine detail, which is excellent with the new version and
moderate with the previous version. Vignetting is more visible with the Elmar-M
than with the previous version and identical to the current Summicron (IV), stopped
down to 1:2.8. Close-up performance, even at full aperture is excellent with the
Elmar-M, but less so with the previous Elmar-version.

Dan Fromm said:

Well, when I go on line with a question, I want to get information that will lead me to a decision or that will help me understand something that puzzles me. I don't initiate discussions that won't, I hope, lead to action or better understanding on my part.

That's what you seem to have done here. This puzzled me so I sought enlightenment. You've enlightened me more than I expected.

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I see those kind of questions as "thinking out loud" type of questions, and brain waves don't always interconnect.

"At 1:8 we find very fine imagery (as good as that of the Summicron (II) from 1957)" That is serious praise from Mr. Puts. The 7 element Type 2 Summicron is famous for its overall performance. I love my Dual Range on color and b&w film. It has a certain look and clarity (I don't have other terms to use, and I won't go down the sharpness rathole.).

Kodachromeguy said:

"At 1:8 we find very fine imagery (as good as that of the Summicron (II) from 1957)" That is serious praise from Mr. Puts. The 7 element Type 2 Summicron is famous for its overall performance. I love my Dual Range on color and b&w film. It has a certain look and clarity (I don't have other terms to use, and I won't go down the sharpness rathole.).

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My lens is serial #1453607 circa 1956. It is amazing to have found a model in it's condition that is almost 70 years old.

It's all I used on my M2 and never felt that I was lacking in lens quality at all. I had an M3 with a DR Summicron before the M2 with the f2.8 Elmar and I actually preferred the Elmar. Like many Tessar type lenses it was a little better stopped down, but still rather nice for some types of shooting at wide-open aperture. Just me of course!