Leica Note 1

Comparison Shots of restored 2.0/50 Summicron & 1.4/40 Nokton

This shot of a brick building on Church Street, Burlington,was taken with the 2.0/50mm Summicron, handheld

The following shot was taken from roughly the same position with the 1.4/40mm Nokton, handheld.

In both cases Fuji 100 ASA color negative film was used. Unfortunately, the f-stop was not recorded but it was most likely not wide open. Notice the somewhat more contrasty and brilliant colors in the modern Nokton design (very obvious in the proof prints I had made before scanning the negatives). The wider perspective of the Nokton is also an advantage for overviews in narrow streets, but perspective distortions (fleeing building lines) are clearly stronger. Both lenses appear equally sharp.

On this blog I am occasionally going to post notes and comments on experiences with camera gear I have been using and its optical performance.

1. Restored Front Element for Collapsible Leica M Summicron 2.0/50 mm lens


Here is my Summicron with the front element freshly restored by Arax (http://www.araxfoto.com/) in Ukraine still removed. My local camera repair service (LeZot Camera Repair) put it back together for me.


The picture below is a close-up of the front element showing the orange tinge of the (single) coating. Unfortunately I don't have a pictuure of the lens prior to coating but it had serious wipe marks on the front side.











In the next post I will show comparison pictures of this restored lens with pictures taken with a modern 1.4/40mm Nokton I briefly owned. I didn't keep it because I think it would be better matched with a black Bessa R3A or R3M (http://www.cameraquest.com./voigt4014.htm) which have the 40mm frame in the viewfinder. Too bad Cosina doesn't make this lens in chrome. The multi-coated Nokton (there's also a single-coated version) looks like this: