1950s Excellence: the Leitz 50mm ƒ/2.0 Type 2 Summicron-DR lens

Leitz 50mm ƒ/2.0 dual range Summicron lens in original box. 

Introduction 

Leica's 50mm Summicron lenses have been famous for optical and mechanical excellence for over 60 years. Leica's term Summicron means a lens with maximum aperture of ƒ/2.0. They have been improved over the decades and are still in production - how many other consumer products have lasted over a half century? Even more amazing, a new lens will fit on a 50-year-old Leica M body, or a 60-year-old lens will work on a brand new film or digital body. When you consider the longevity, Leica lenses are reasonable price, despite the hatred (= envy) from many modern digital users.

A convenient summary with photographs of the different versions is on Ken Rockwell's site.

5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens in extended (ready to photograph) position

Summitar

Ernst Leitz produced the predecessor lens, the 5cm Summitar, from 1939 to 1953, with 170,761 units total. War-time lenses were uncoated, but from 1946 on, they were anti-reflection coated. Eastman Kodak and Zeiss had coated optics for military use during World War II, but coating all air-glass surfaces on general civilian optics became widespread only after the war. The Summitar had a complicated design of 7 elements in 4 groups. Human computers using mechanical calculators and trigonometry tables must have made a heroic effort to compute the ray paths. The Summitar's central sharpness is superb, but the edges fall off and there is field curvature. This can be used creatively, and regardless, "sharpness" is not normally the factor that makes a photograph successful. For examples, please look at some of my 2017 Nepal articles. In 1953, the Summitar lens cost $158 in USA.

Summicron Type 1

E. Leitz introduced the first Summicron, the Type 1, in 1952. It was an update of the Summitar, also mounted in a collapsible barrel. This lens was also manually computed, although surely the workers used electrical tabulating machines. The first electronic computers after World War II were used for ballistics analysis, atomic weapons research, rocket trajectories, and military optics. The 1953 USA cost for the Summicron was $183.

A note on collapsible lenses: When the E. Leitz company introduced its first camera in 1923, it used perforated cine film but doubled the frame size to 24×36 mm. All other cameras then used much larger roll film or individual sheet film. So the new small image surface became known as miniature format. The cameras were intended for travel or adventures like mountain climbing. Therefore, the manufacturers wanted to make the cameras compact and portable. One way to do that was to build a lens in a barrel that could collapse into the body. As the years went by, cameras grew larger and heavier (like automobiles or, most grotesquely, American SUVs). The Zeiss Contarex of 1960 had grown to 910 grams for just the body. The Nikon F with its metering head was a big package, as well. And today, the digital single lens reflex (DSLR) in "full frame" size is a bulbous thing graced with a protruding penile lens that points at its subject like a cannon. Just tell DSLR users that they really have the miniature format.

1963 Type 2 Summicron lens with single focus range.

Summicron Type 2

E. Leitz introduced their Type 2 Summicron in 1956. It was in production until 1968. To improve the precision of the glass alignment, Leitz mounted Type 2 optics in a rigid barrel. It was a masterpiece of mechanical precision and elegance, but the construction of brushed chrome over brass made it heavy. This lens was also hand computed.

Leitz began computer-aided lens computations after about 1960 at their factory in Midland, Ontario, Canada, under the guidance of Dr. Walter Mandler (from Erwin Puts). It is an interesting history of international competition about this time. Japanese optical companies such as Canon, Nikon, and Topcon were also exploring new lens designs with the aide of early computers. They were able to market lenses with almost as refined optical characteristics as Leica but at lower price. The brilliance of the Japanese companies was to bring superb optics to a wide audience at reasonable price.

Leitz made two versions of the Type 2 lens. One had a single focus range covering 1m to infinity. The photograph above shows a 1963 lens that I bought from a friend in town. It was available in M-mount  (63,055 units) as well as the 39mm thread mount (1160 units; now a rare collector item).

1967 Dual range Summicron without goggles.

Dual range Summicron with goggles attached on the flat plate. The lens has been extended to its closest focus distance.

The second version had a dual focus range and is known as the DR. The normal range was 1.0 m to infinity. But if you wanted to focus on a closer object, you slid a spectacle viewfinder attachment onto a flat plate on the top of the lens. The goggles depressed a button, which let the lens focus from 0.48 to 0.88 m. The goggles correct the parallax of the rangefinder view. It was a clever way to let a rangefinder camera focus more closely than the normal 0.8 or 1.0 meter. A reflex camera does not have these limitations, but in the 1950s, most miniature camera photographers were still using rangefinders. Total production was 55,145 units.

Note: the goggle units varied slightly in design over the production period. You must have the correct unit for your lens for it to mount and focus correctly.

My stepdad bought the DR in the pictures above in 1966 or 1967. This lens and M2 camera took family pictures in Greece and traveled to Asia, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and North America. Now it photographs urban decay in Mississippi and Louisiana. This one has pristine coating.

I could not find a complete Leica price booklet from the 1960s, but I found a few prices in US $ for M2 body and lenses:

• M2 w/50mm ƒ/2 rigid Summicron 423.00
• M2 w/50mm ƒ/2 DR Summicron 465.00

Optical unit and focus mount of Summicon-DR lens. Serial numbers must match.

Special note: the optical unit can be unscrewed from the focus unit. If you buy a used DR lens, the serial numbers must match. Do not accept an unmatched lens. 

I also have a Type 4 50mm Summicron from 1984 or 1985 production. I will write about it in a future article. It is mounted in a lighter weight black alloy barrel as opposed to the gorgeous brushed chrome of my DR unit.

Examples with Kodak BW400CN film

On a recent day trip through rural Mississippi south of I-20, I grabbed a roll of Kodak BW400CN. I have had mixed results with this film in the past. Sometimes it looks muddy, but sometimes I like the tonality. Could there be differences in the C-41 chemistry? Regardless, here are a few samples from my Leica M2 and the 50mm Summicron-DR. I was surprised how the film renders green as quite light, but only for long exposures in settings such as dense underbrush. I do not recall seeing this before. The BW is pretty grainy, but I like the effect. (Click any picture to enlarge it.)

Abandoned farm house, Rte 18 in Brandon, Mississippi.

Remains of a gasoline station, Raleigh (with polarizer filter).

Big Smittys, MS Hwy 149, Mendenhall. This is a former Pan-Am filling station. 

Main Street, Mendenhall. Polarizer used to darken sky.

Shop on MS 28 east of Georgetown.

Historic Crossroads Store on Old Port Gibson Road, Reganton.

References

Laney, D. 1994. Leica Camera and Lens Pocket Book, 6th Edition revised and updated, Hove Collectors' Books, East Sussux, UK, 142 p.

Other

An interesting 2007 article about Leica cameras is in The New Yorker, September 24, 2007 issue, Candid Camera, The cult of Leica.

Update Dec. 2020: Here are silos in Delta, Louisiana, taken with long-expired GAF Versapan film. Click to enlarge.

Silos, Levee Road, Delta, Louisiana (GAF Versapan film, Summicron-DR lens, orange filter)

Good Things in Small Packages: Leica IIIC Camera

My Leica IIIC with its original 5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens

English language instruction manual

At the Parthenon, Athens, Greece, 1953. Photograph on Kodachrome film with this Leica IIIC.

Background

This is my Leica IIIC rangefinder camera made in Wetzlar, West Germany. It uses the standard 35mm perforated film with frame size of 24 × 36mm. My dad bought this IIIC in 1949 when he worked for the US Navy on Guam. It came with a 5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens. He had owned an American-made Perfex 35mm camera during the war years but had wanted a Leica for a long time. During World War II, a few Leicas were exported to the Allies via Sweden, but they were reserved for special uses (spies or well-placed generals?).

Advertisement from Olden Camera & Lens Co., New York, January 1947. Note Leica IIIB and Summitar cost  $385.00, a major investment in the late-1940s.

Modern Photography advertisement, September 1953. The IIIF was the contemporary model, selling for $368 with the Summitar lens. The superior Summicron lens cost $25 more. (Click to enlarge picture)

After the war, one of the ways a war-ravaged Germany began to rebuild its economy was to export precision optical equipment, such as the famous Leica cameras. Leica's advertising emphasized excellence and sophistication. My dad took the opportunity of low prices at the post exchange on Guam to buy this body and lens. As I recall, he said they cost $150. He used this little Leica for many years, taking family photographs when we lived in Greece and southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s. I used it in the 1970s and 1980s and still do.

Operation

On modern standards, this camera is a bit fiddly to use. First the viewfinder has two windows. The way I use it is to first look through the right finder, which shows the complete scene covered by the 50mm lens. If I like the scene, I shift my eye to the left window and focus on the object that is most important. By the way, it is a remarkably accurate focus arrangement considering the short base length. Then I shift back to the right window, do the final framing, and take the picture. Really, it is easier and faster in practice than to describe in text.

With permission from The Online Darkroom.

Instructions for trimming film before loading

Second, the film needs to be trimmed with scissors to have a long tongue before you insert it in the take-up spool. Then you slide both the 35mm cartridge and take-up spool into the body from the bottom. Leica once sold a trimming guide, but you do not need it. Just use your Swiss Army knife to trim about 8 or 10 cm from the tongue, and it will work. Once loaded, turn the rewind knob gently to remove slack. Then, when you advance the film, make sure the rewind knob is turning in the opposite direction to be certain that the film is truly advancing. Again, it is easier to do than to describe. I carry a spare take-up spool with me, but I have never lost one.

As the photographs show, the camera has almost watchmaker precision in the fittings. The chrome on mine is pitted because in the early post-war era, chromium was hard to buy, and many German cameras had poor plating.

Lenses and filters

From Popular Photography, approx. 1950

With permission from The Online Darkroom.

Leica marketed lenses ranging from 21 to 400 mm, all the best quality available at the time. Oddly, my father never bought any more lenses.

My dad's IIIC came with a 5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens (the prestige lens as opposed to the less expensive 5cm ƒ/3.5 Elmar). Mine is the Type 1 version with 10 aperture blades. The Summitar was in production from 1939 to 1953. It was designed by E. Leitz's genius lens designer, Max Berek, in 1937. The war-time production lenses were uncoated, but Leitz applied anti-reflection coating from 1946 on. The construction was a complicated design of 7 elements in 4 groups. It must have taken a heroic effort to compute the ray paths by human computers using mechanical calculators and trigonometry tables. The central sharpness is superb, but the edges fall off, and there is distinct field curvature. This can be used creatively, and regardless, "sharpness" is not normally the factor that makes a photograph successful.

A few years ago, Sherry Krauter in New York cleaned and checked the Summitar lens for me. Mine is pristine and never suffered the scratches in the soft coating that plague so many 1940s lenses (old-time photographers cleaned their lenses with their neckties).

These older Leica bodies have a screw mount for the lenses. The thread is 39mm × 26 turns-per-inch or threads-per-inch (tpi). This was a Whitworth threading standard, which was common in microscope manufacture in the early 20th century. German, English, and Japanese companies made hundreds of different lenses for this 39mm mount. Focal lengths other than 50mm require an auxiliary viewfinder to show the correct frame. Soviet companies made lenses for 39 × 1mm, but this was close enough to usually fit on the Leitz bodies. The Japanese company, Canon, continued to make superb thread-mount lenses up through the 1970s, when they finally discontinued their excellent thread-mount rangefinder S7 cameras. Note that this is a different 39mm than the 39 × 0.75 thread used for large-format Copal 1 and many other shutters. And it is different than the 39F pitch (39 × 0.5) used for 39mm filters that screw into the front of many Leica lenses. Confusing? Yes, of course!

The shutter in my IIIC body had been troublesome for over a decade, but Don Goldberg (known as DAG) in Wisconsin did a fantastic job overhauling it mid-2017. This is the main roller, on which Mr. Goldberg marked the areas that were badly worn. He replaced it with a new-old-stock main roller, the genuine Leica part. For how many other consumer products that are seven decades old can you still get factory replacement parts (possibly some fine watches or Rolls Royce motorcars?)?

The Summitar lens requires filters with a unique 36mm tapered thread. These were known as Type L filters (see Appendix 1 below). When I used filters on my Nepal trip, I had Leitz Series VI filters and a Tiffen 606 retaining ring (see Appendix 2). It is a bit clumsy but manageable, and the series filters will fit other lenses with the appropriate adapter rings. A polarizer is the most clumsy, but Leica made a brilliant fold-out polarizer just for this task (model 13352). I finally bought genuine Summitar yellow, dark yellow, and green filters, which are faster to handle than the series filters and do not block as much of the view through the viewfinder.

As for a hood, the rectangle folding unit known as a SOOPD fits over type L filters and causes minimal blocking of the view through the viewfinders. 

The Summitar lens is a bit quirky. My example (and maybe all of them?) has a lot of field curvature, so the edges of a flat object will be fuzzy. But a typical scene with the subject near the center has smooth out of focus area away from the central subject. 

Areas outside the zone of focus look smooth and innocuous. This out-of-focus appearance is known as bokeh. Thirty years ago, almost no one thought about it, but now, "photographers" are obsessed with the topic (even though most of them just consider anything out of focus to be bokeh). The newer Type 2 and Type 4 50mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron lenses for my Leica M2 body are "better", but I rather like the old Summitar. It feels good to have my dad's camera in operation again. He would be pleased.

Examples

Village Elders, Siran Danda, Gorkha region, Nepal.

School girls, Dhulikhel, east of Kathmandu.

Young ladies of Nepani, Gorkha District, Nepal.

For a trip to Nepal in October of 2017, I decided to use this little IIIC with black and white film and skip the obligatory digital imaging device entirely. It was a great success. Many Nepalis were amazed that I was using a mechanical camera almost 70 years old. It was a tension-breaker to let people look through the viewfinder, but I had to explain that there was no LCD screen for them to see the results. Surprisingly, some of the camera stores in the Thamel area (the main tourist zone) of Kathmandu still stock fresh Ilford and Fuji film in 35mm size. But you probably could not find any 120 or large format film. These examples are on TMax 100 film, developed by Praus Productions in Rochester, New York. I had only used TMax 100 once before and I'm impressed by the fine grain. Nice stuff. To measure exposure, I used a Gossen Luna Pro Digital meter, usually in reflected mode but sometimes in incident mode.

Cooking pots at Thubten Choling Monastery, Solu Khumbu region.

Tools at Serlo Monastery, Solu Khumbu region.

Hanging around in Kathmandu. Note: most mannequins in Nepal are European ladies (but may be made in India??).

Nepal is a fabulous photographic destination. The people are friendly and welcoming. The country is developing and changing quickly. Go soon to see remnants of an earlier era before they are torn up and replaced with the new commercial world. The same warning applies to Cuba: Go before the developers pillage and ruin it, especially if American developers ever move in.

Summary

A few reasons to buy one of these ltm Leicas:

1. As time goes on, the remaining stock of these thread mount Leicas will be more and more beat up and will diminish in total number.

2. They will be repairable in the future.

3. They don't make them like this any more. Definitely not!

4. They will be usable as long as 35mm perforated film is made and sold.

5. You will enjoy occasionally using one as a substitute for a more sophisticated newer 35mm camera or digital unit.

6. These ltm Leicas are compact and great travel cameras, especially with the collapsible Elmar lens.

7. They are technologically elegant.

8. People stop to admire it when you are using a ltm Leica. It can be an ice-breaker.

9. It is definitely not a spray and pray photon capture device: you need to think with one of them and know a bit about what you are doing (i.e., you can't just push a button).

10. They are unlikely to depreciate.

11. Thread-mount lenses can be used on modern digital cameras.

12 The lenses are appreciating in price, especially for clean examples without fungus, scratches, or haze.

These little Leica thread-mount cameras are still available at reasonable acceptable prices. They are fun to use and have a precision feel that most modern cameras do not replicate (other than Leica M film bodies, which, as of 2022, are still in production). Just go buy one and return to the basics of photography. I know your creativity will blossom.

Other articles

For an earlier article about how I have used Leica cameras to record urban decay, click this link. 

Mike Johnston, former editor of Camera & Darkroom magazine and now author of The Online Photographer, wrote an excellent article in 1992 about Leicaphilia. He also wrote about The Leica as a Teacher. "A year with a single Leica and a single lens, looking at light and ignoring color, will teach you as much about actually seeing photographs as three years in any photo school, and as much as ten or fifteen years (or more) of mucking about buying and selling and shopping for gear like the average hobbyist."

35MMC has a useful article titled 7 Reasons You Should Own a Thread Mount Leica. I agree with the author that these cameras slow you down and make you think. You just can't spray and pray and then doodle around with Lightroom for weeks culling files, doing the "workflow," and hoping that you might have "shot" a meaningful photograph. Film does not work that way.

Johnny Martyr wrote a detailed review of the Leica IIIC, titled Tempered Indulgence. Also, check his review of the Summitar lens.

Phoblogger has an interesting interview with the manager of Richard Photo Lab (Los Angeles, California) about how film most definitely is not dead and is reviving among many age and skill groups.

Andrew Yue wrote a nice introduction to the Leica thread-mount cameras titled, "- Leica Screw Mount Cameras - the 1930's through the 1950's -"

Update 2019

I bought a Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 ltm lens and have had very nice results with it.  Click the link to see examples. I also have a 50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens from the Soviet Union.

 

Appendix 1, Summitar Filters

The Leitz Summitar used a unique tapered 36mm filter thread. As far as I know, only Leitz and Walz offered this size. This note from the Leica Users Group (LUG) by Marc James Small describes the Leitz filters:

In any event, here is the best listing I can produce for the Summitar filters.  These were known at Wetzlar as L filters (by comparison, the E39 range were O filters). 

Very Light Yellow       GBOOM   13080

Light Yellow            GBWOO   13085

Medium Yellow   GCOOL

Green #1                GEYOO

Green #2                GCYOO   13095

Graduated Yellow        GHOOF   13105

Graduated Green GILOO

Orange          GDOOK   13100

Light Red/IR            GECOO   13115

Medium Red/IR   GFEOO   13120

Dark Red/IR             GFOOH   13125

Blue                    RQPOO   13097

UVa                     GHIOO   13130

Blank Filter Holder     FOOXC

Haze                    FIHAZ

Skylight                GCSKY   13150

Type F          FKDSUM  13137

Type FP         FPKSUM  13147

Type A          FIDAY           13135

Photoflood              FIFLO           13140

Flash Conversion        GCHEO   13145

Swing-Out Polarizer     FISUM           13395

Rotating Polarizer      POORE   13355

Filters which only have a catalogue code-word and not a catalogue number did not survive into production to 1954, the first year for the universal use of the numbers.  Many of the 

Summitar filters had dropped out of the catalogues by 1960 and all were gone from the Leitz catalogue by 1962.

If you are a Summitar user, buy the genuine filters when you see examples in good condition. 

Appendix 2, Series Filters

The most comprehensive description of series filters and the various adapter rings made for hundreds of lenses is from photographer Robert Allen Kautz in Vermont. 

• Summitar adapter: Tiffen model 606
• Jupiter-8 lens (40.5mm thread): Tiffen 602 

40.5 mm was common on many German lenses in the mid-1950s, and you can find 40.5mm filters that screw into the lens directly. Beware that Tiffen, Ednalite, and Enteco adapter numbers are different (Confusing? Of course!). 

Photographing Decay with the Leica Camera

Introduction

Long-time readers know I used (and still use!) film cameras, and especially Leicas, for decades. Here is a short review (note: no urban decay in this article, just Leica history and photo notes).

Background

The Leica Camera was invented by a brilliant technician, Mr. Oskar Barnack, at the optical firm of Ernst Leitz Optische Werke, in Wetzlar, Germany, in 1913. He wanted a compact camera to use on outings in the woods and mountains and decided to use the newly-introduced 35mm movie film with sprocket holes. By advancing the film sideways in the camera, he used an image area of 24×36mm, introducing a standard that has remained in use for over a century. Leica cameras were a sensation and were soon used by correspondents, spies,  and wealthy amateurs around the world. Mike Johnston, former editor of Camera & Darkroom magazine, wrote an excellent summary about Leica on his blog, The Online Photographer.

Rare 1920s Leica advertisement (Courtesy of Dan Tamarkin, Tamarkin Camera, Chicago, Illinois)

This a 1932 advertisement for the Leica model D camera from Central Camera in Chicago. By the way, Central is still in business, and I stopped by their store on Wabash Avenue only a month ago. (Update May 31, 2020: Central Camera was burned and looted during the George Floyd riots on the night of May 30, 2020.) 

Leicas were always expensive. In 1932, an engineer (then considered a relatively prosperous profession) earned about $2500/year or about $200/month. So this Leica D with lens was about one half or one third of a month's salary. I listed some 1960s prices in Appendix A.

Ernst Leitz based its success on precision manufacturing with almost no expense spared (similar to its German competitor, Zeiss). The Leica and its lenses were superior to any 35mm cameras from American manufacturers before and during World War II. During the war, some Leicas were smuggled through Sweden for use by Allied intelligence services (and an occasional general and wealthy industrialist?).

My Dad's Leica IIIC

My father had wanted a Leica for years but was only able to afford one in 1949. It was a model IIIC and is still in use. The one he bought had a coated 5 cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens. The coatings on these post-war lenses were soft, and many were badly scratched over the years, but our example is pristine. I use it on my digital cameras occasionally because the coma and aberrations produce interesting effects. Surprisingly (or not so surprising after all), stopped down to ƒ/5.6 or ƒ/8, it is almost equal to many contemporary lenses.

This is an example of a Kodachrome taken with this camera in 1952 or 1953. Guess the location.

This is the famous Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma, a Kodachrome from 1957 taken with this IIIC.

Lenses and Clever Accessories

Leitz sold many of their earlier screw-mount Leicas with the 5cm ƒ/3.5 Elmar lens, which was similar to the Zeiss Tessar lens. The Elmars were in production until the early 1960s and then re-introduced for a few years, an amazing, long-lasting optical design. Tessar-type lenses had a characteristic of emphasizing edge contrast, so black and white photographs look contrasty and sharp. The one I had was a coated post-war model. The hoods and filters had a clamp arrangement (Leica was famous for making hundreds of semi-unique hoods, clamps, filters, and other profitable gadgets, all of meticulous craftsmanship.). 

Leica M3

Leica M3 with 50mm ƒ/2.8 Elmar-M lens

Leica M3 with 35mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron-RF lens

One of the most sophisticated and brilliant mechanical Leicas was the M3, introduced in 1954. It had a larger and much brighter finder than the older screw-mount models. Many people say this was the brightest and clearest finder that Leica (or any company) ever made. This finder included the rangefinder patch in the overall viewing scene along with white frame bars that showed the coverage for 50mm, 90mm and 135mm lenses. It also introduced the new Leica M bayonet fitting for quick lens attachment. Many experts still consider the M3 to be the finest M camera ever made. Mike Eckman wrote a fine summary of the M3 and its history. 

I had always wanted one of the M models, and in 1981, I saw this well-used late 1950s example in Optica Lutz Ferrando in Buenos Aires. Argentina was going through one of its bouts of devaluation, so three $50 bills efficiently arranged for transfer of the M3 to its new owner, along with two lenses. This M3 was a late dual-stroke model which Leica in New Jersey converted to single stroke. It had the newer geometric progression of shutter speeds, like all 1970s and 1980s cameras. 

Spanish instruction manual for the Leica M3

Leica marketed their products worldwide. They supplied advertisements and instruction manuals in most European languages. I am not sure about Asian sales in the 1950s and 1960, but in recent decades, Japanese photographers have been major buyers.

Leica M lenses

The lens on the M3 in the above photograph is the superb first generation, 8-element 35mm ƒ/2.0 Summicon-RF lens. The one I had was specifically for the M3 camera. The finder of the M3 has frame lines to show the field of view for 50mm, 90mm, and 135mm lenses. If you mounted a wide angle lens on the M3, the photograph field was larger than shown by the bright lines in the finder. Therefore, you could not frame accurately. To mitigate this problem, Leica made the 35 Summicron in a version with goggles. The goggles fit over the camera's finder and reduced the magnification. In this way, the former 50mm frame bars now showed the correct field of view for the 35mm lens. It was a bit complicated but quite effective. Note that some of Leitz' best lenses, like this 35, were made in Midland, Canada. The Midland factory supplied some of Leica's most famous lenses as well as special optics for military use.

For many years, I used a 50mm ƒ/2.8 Elmar-M lens. This was a post-war refinement of the original ƒ/3.5 Elmar with lanthanum glass to improve performance. Notice the round iris. At ƒ/2.8, it was a bit soft and perfect for portraits. I bought it at a swap meet in Houston, Texas. That was one of those social events where old geezers rented tables in a hotel for a weekend, opened trunks full of camera odds and ends, gossiped, talked camera, and maybe made some money (and maybe drank a bit?). The Internet and eBay largely killed off these meets.

One of the finest lenses from the 1950s was the 50mm ƒ/2.0 Dual-Range Summicron (the Type 2 Summicron). Rangefinder lenses could only focus down to about 3 feet. So once again, Leica developed goggles to adjust the field of view. Mount the goggles on the lens, and it would push a release button, allowing the helicoid to focus to about 1.5 feet. I still use this lens. Mine has pristine coating.

This is a Type 2 50 Summicron without the close-focus mechanism. You will never see more meticulous mechanical finishing and craftsmanship. They were heavy because the mounts were chrome-plated brass. The optical quality is almost as good as any 50mm lens today.

These are Series VI filters for black and white film. I still use them on my M2, a Rolleiflex, and on a 4×5" camera. Series filters do not have threads. You place them into an adapter holder, which is threaded for the appropriate lens. Many older Leica lenses were E39 size, and you can buy E39 filters that screw in directly. I wonder why Leica did not make bayonet mount filters, like Zeiss and Rollei? 

This is the Leitz polarizer filter. Because you can not see the effect through the lens, as with a single-lens reflex camera, this filter was designed with a pivot. Swing the filter out, view through it, adjust the amount of polarization desired, then pivot it 180° in front of the lens. Brilliant.

This is the folding metal hood for the Summicron lens. It was beautifully made but bulky. Note that cinematographers use larger barn door hoods with their $100,000 lenses. (You can always tell an amateur photographer or internet warrior; he is the guy who will argue vehemently in forums that he does not need a hood because he thinks his kit zoom lenses have some sort of magic modern coatings rather than spend 2 seconds and simply attach the hood.)

Leica-Meter

The Leica rangefinder cameras before the M5 of 1971 did not have built-in light meters. So for models M3, M2, M4, and MP, Leica marketed these elegant little CDS meters that fit into the flash shoe and coupled with the shutter speed dial. Another clever design, and more proof that Leica was a master of inventing unique accessories. Problem: the meter used mercury PX625 batteries, which are now banned. But hearing aide batteries work at the correct 1.35 volts. Unfortunately, many of these meters suffered battery leakage and are now ruined. 

Leica M2

This is the Leica M2 camera. It was similar to the M3, but the viewfinder had a wider-angle view and could mount a 35mm lens without the goggle attachment. I bought this gorgeous example from a friend here in town. A 1980s-vintage Type 4 50mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron lens is on the body. 

1958 advertisement for USA market announcing the new Leica M-2 camera

E. Leitz introduced the M2 in 1958 at a cost of around $280 in the US market. Recall that in those days, so-called "fair trade" (i.e., price-fixing) laws often fixed the price of an item among all retailers. Fair trade laws were fought in the courts, and by mid-1975, fair trade had been eliminated in 25 states. 

Photojournalists around the world used Leicas. Cuban photographer Alberto Kordahe took this iconic photograph of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara with a Leica M2 and 90mm lens. The title is Guerrillero Heroico ("Heroic Guerrilla Fighter"). The Wikipedia article is an interesting read. Hmm, even the anti-capitalists liked Leicas.

This is my second M2 body. My stepdad bought this one (and the Dual-Range 50mm lens in the previous pictures) in 1966. He lived in Greece, and at that time, such luxury goods were taxed at over 100 percent. So a friend bought it in Germany and brought it back. 

This is the 90mm ƒ/2.8 Tele-Elmarit lens from the early-1980s, a compact and handy 90 for travel use. I used it for 25 years. The rubber hood included a holder for Series 5.5 filters, which were quite rare. 

This is the ground-breaking Russar 20mm lens, made in the Soviet Union. This was a symmetrical super-wide lens with a deeply-protruding rear lens element. It was only a ƒ/5.6 lens, but was contrasty and had great color. The original patents were from Michail Rossinov in 1946. In 1951, Zeiss modified the design for their legendary Biogon super-wide lens. Lomography has re-introduced this 20 (now made by Zenit) with M-mount to use with modern film or digital cameras. I am not sure how well it will work on digital, but the fact that it is still in production after 60 years is pretty amazing. And Zeiss still makes Biogons in mounts for various cameras. The famous Hassselblad SWC camera used a 38mm Biogon lens.

Some people claimed that Leica lenses were tailored for the color response of Kodak's famous Kodachrome film. That is probably just hyperbole, but properly exposed Kodachrome slides were brilliant.

Closing Notes

Leica film cameras and lenses are among the few photographic products that hold their value for decades. There is still an active market for film Leicas on auction sites. If you could afford the initial cost, any lens lasted for decades and often could be sold at a profit. 

Leica still makes cameras, both film and digital models. Leica Camera AG may be one of the few  camera companies that is profitable today. The digital models resemble the classic rangefinder bodies but are somewhat thicker. They are expensive, and the lenses, still the best in the world, are breathtaking in cost seriously expensive. 

As a result of the cost of entry, the internet world is full of Leica-haters, mostly the jealous "photographers" who post on forums about how their brand xyz camera is so much better because it has more functions and more buttons and is equipped with a super-duper zoom kit lens. Dpreview attracts the most toxic of these fanbois and photo-frauds. As Roger Hicks writes in his amusing personal photographic journey, Leicaphilia, "Leica-haters may refuse to believe it, but Leicas are cameras for people who take their photography seriously."

On the opposite note, there are fans who blather on about their Leicas. On blogs, they write nonsense such as "I can really see the Leica heritage and century of precision and lens crafting in these jpegs taken handheld with my new Leica xyz." "My (digital jpeg) pictures have that Leica glow." Time to gag or retch. Leicaphilia wrote about deconstructing the Leica mystique. 

But the M Monochrom is tempting: a digital camera with an 18 pixel CCD monochrome sensor - yes, black and white only. The haters on the camera sites scoff, but obviously many never used black and white film (and it is clear many of them know almost nothing about photography anyway). But it is $8000 - hmmm, maybe I'll ask my daughter to buy me one. Phase One sells a monochrome back and camera for about $55,000. Maybe I will order that one.....

If you are interested in a rangefinder camera, the 35MMC blog has a handy article on what is a rangefinder and how it differs from a focus system that projects the image on a frosted glass or plastic (the single lens reflex type of camera). 

If you are serious about improving your photography, Mike Johnston from The Online Photographer recommends The Leica as a Teacher. "I suggest shooting with nothing but a Leica and one lens for a year. Shoot one type of black-and-white film (yes, even if you're completely devoted to color and digital, and hate film and everything it stands for. You don't have to commit to this forever; it's an exercise). Pick a single-focal-length 50mm, or 35mm, or 28mm. It doesn't have to be a "good" lens—anything that appeals to you and that fits the camera will do. Carry the camera with you all day, every day. Shoot at least two films a week. Four or six is better (or shoot more in the spring and fall and less in the dead of summer and winter). The more time you spend shooting, the better." 

Mike Johnston also wrote a short history of the 24×36mm format, first used by Ernst Leitz's Oscar Barnack in his UR-Leica experimental camera, and how this format has lingered into the digital era as a semi-standard size for the sensors (so-called "full-frame," which was formerly known as the miniature format). 

Update August 25, 2014 - Famous Leica Users

Here is Brigitte Bardot in Cannes in 1953 with her Leica IIIF IIIC (similar to the same as my dad's IIIC, but she was not his friend).

Here is Elvis with his Leica. He was not a family friend, either. He has his left index finger on the viewfinder window.

Queen Elizabeth with her Leica M3. Sigh, also not a family friend.

Erwin Rommel had one, too.

Update February 28, 2015 - Some Tri-X Examples

On my 2014 trip to Burma, (Myanmar), I took Kodak Tri-X 400 film in my Leica M2. 

This is a scene from the waterfront of Mandalay, with the Irrawaddy River in the background, taken with my 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens (pre-aspherical model) with yellow filter. The contemporary Tri-X is amazing and has slightly finer grain that the version of a few decades ago.

This is the unused Pegu Club in Rangoon, the former exclusive English officers' club once patronized by notables like George Orwell and Rudyard Kipling.

This is the central train station in Rangoon (Yangon), also with the 35mm Summicron lens.

Update January 2016

The Online Photographer blog had an interesting description of a visit to the treasure vaults at the George Eastman House. The vaults contain 16,000 significant cameras. The author described how Kodak was a pioneer in digital technology and had predicted the fall in film sales, but was unable to make money on digital hardware. 

Update March 2017

This is the cover of the Japanese journal, Photographic Industries, showing a Leica M3 with an unusual reflex-viewing attachment and a long-focus lens.  

A 1960s advertisement for the Leica M4 emphasizing the essentials  of photography. Better not show this to the contemporary crowd who insist that photography is not possible without 10⁸ megapixels, autoexposure, enormous penile stabilized zoom lenses, equivalence, their "workflow" with Lightroom, and, most important of all, autofocus. Oh, the the horror of it all.

Update Sep. 24, 2020

I found a price list for Leitz products from January 15, 1974, from E. Leitz in Rockleigh, New Jersey. These are "official" prices. Retail at the discount venders was probably 10 or 15 percent lower. Note how a Leicaflex SL with 50mm ƒ/2 lens was $1197.00. At that time, you could buy a Nikkormat with 50mm ƒ/2 for around $250. So yes, the Leicaflex was "better," but would you really ever see the improvement on a photo print? Using the U.S. Inflation Calculator, that $1197 in 1974 equates to $6311 in 2020, so a half or less than an equivalent modern digital Leica M or SL with lens. 

Appendix A

From an old email from the Leica Users Group forum with USA prices for the M2 camera in the 1960s (in US $ Dollars):

Catalog 35, FEB 60:

M2 body 216.00

M2 w/35mm f/3.5 Summaron 298.50

M2 w/35mm f/2.8 Summaron 321.00

M2 w/35mm f/2 Summicron 390.00

M2 w/50mm f/3.5 Elmar 267.00

M2 w/50mm f/2.8 Elmar 276.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 rigid Summicron 345.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 DR Summicron 384.00

M2 w/50mm f/1.5 Summarit 315.00

M2 w/50mm f/1.4 Summilux 414.00

Catalog 38, JAN 65:

M2 body 264.00

M2X body (no S/T) 225.00

M2 w/35mm f/2.8 Summaron 384.00

M2 w/35mm f/2 Summicron 441.00

M2 w/50mm f/2.8 Elmar 333.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 rigid Summicron 423.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 DR Summicron 465.00

M2 w/50mm f/1.4 Summilux 474.00

Catalog 39, JAN 66:

M2 body 249.00

M2X body (no S/T) 214.00

M2 w/35mm f/2.8 Summaron 372.00

M2 w/35mm f/2 Summicron 412.50

M2 w/50mm f/2.8 Elmar 318.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 rigid Summicron 399.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 DR Summicron 438.00

M2 w/50mm f/1.4 Summilux 447.00

Some 1968 USA prices from a Leitz USA catalogue:

M2 no lens  $214

M3 no lens  $288

M4 no lens  $288

Leicaflex SL no lens  $465