Great points there- appreciate the clarification! I'm going to pick up the LLL Elcan while Im here- its too tempting not to collect, and super interesting to hear about the side glow. I take a lot of night photography in the city so that's a really nice quality to have.
Also keen to see a comparison of the Voightlander Heliar... Its been on my list to buy for a long time...
cheers all
rscheffler wrote:
Looking forward to seeing such a comparison. Based on my impressions, the Heliar will have the strongest wide open glow and craziest bokeh. While it cleans up stopped down, it doesn't appear to achieve very high technical sharpness across the full frame (but I could be wrong). The SPII is a step down in wide open glow and sharpness up really well stopped down, by the looks of it. The Elcan seems to be a combination of the two - sharp centrally with peripheral softness and glow. Stopping down doesn't result in excellent peripheral sharpness. Elcan looks to be slightly smoother background rendering than the SPII (but might be distance dependent), which is also true compared to the 50 Cron Rigid. Based on Fred's comparison of the Heliar and Rigid, they appear to render backgrounds similarly across their shared aperture range....Show more →
Nice three lens roundup!
I’ll test it later to confirm, but I think the Elcan is sharp away from center at f/2 from MFD to about 1.5m. Past that, it gets soft off center wide open. It does sharpen up off center at distance when stopped down, though. At infinity and f/8, the Elcan is pretty good across the frame..
EDIT: Tested real quick on the SL2-S: f/2-2.8 and out to 1.5m is pretty sharp at the edges when focused at the edges; at 3m, f/4 is needed. At 3m and f/8, focused in the center, objects off center look pretty good.
Follow up after getting an M11. I'd previously only used my LLL lenses on the SL2-S.
All three of my lenses had issues:
LLL 35 8E collapsable black: lens reached infinity focus hard stop long before the rangefinder did (resulting images were correctly focused at lens hard stop but rangefinder was not showing they would be)
LLL 35 8E brass: lens reached infinity focus hard stop long before the rangefinder did (resulting images were correctly focused at lens hard stop but rangefinder was not showing they would be)
LLL 50 Elcan titanium: developed extreme difficulty to dismount both from the Leica M-Adapter-L on my SL2-S and from my M11. It almost got permanently stuck removing it the last time from my M11.
Popflash has been incredible – they let me send the lenses to them for testing, they tested and verified all of the above, and they issued me a full refund for all three. The collapsable was purchased in September of last year, so I'm quite impressed with their customer service.
The Speed Panchro II protype was perfect with my M11 rangefinder.
That's disappointing to hear. I do wonder if the same care and attention is put into production level lenses compared to late-stage prototypes?
With regard to my 35 Cron replica, I do feel slightly misled by the performance implied by the prototype reviews compared to what I experienced with my copy. That said, once I determined the limitations of my copy, I've generally been happy with it.
rscheffler wrote:
That's disappointing to hear. I do wonder if the same care and attention is put into production level lenses compared to late-stage prototypes?
With regard to my 35 Cron replica, I do feel slightly misled by the performance implied by the prototype reviews compared to what I experienced with my copy. That said, once I determined the limitations of my copy, I've generally been happy with it.
Why not send your copy to DAG for focus overhaul if it's outside the return/warranty period? He charges less for focus overhaul than for a full CLA. I would have done that had Popflash not allowed the refund.
When I buy LLL lenses in the future, that's what I'll plan to do and consider that as part of the lens pricing.
highdesertmesa wrote:
Follow up after getting an M11. I'd previously only used my LLL lenses on the SL2-S.
All three of my lenses had issues:
LLL 35 8E collapsable black: lens reached infinity focus hard stop long before the rangefinder did (resulting images were correctly focused at lens hard stop but rangefinder was not showing they would be)
LLL 35 8E brass: lens reached infinity focus hard stop long before the rangefinder did (resulting images were correctly focused at lens hard stop but rangefinder was not showing they would be)
LLL 50 Elcan titanium: developed extreme difficulty to dismount both from the Leica M-Adapter-L on my SL2-S and from my M11. It almost got permanently stuck removing it the last time from my M11.
Popflash has been incredible – they let me send the lenses to them for testing, they tested and verified all of the above, and they issued me a full refund for all three. The collapsable was purchased in September of last year, so I'm quite impressed with their customer service.
The Speed Panchro II protype was perfect with my M11 rangefinder....Show more →
How are your other M lenses with the M11 rangefinder? My first M11 had misaligned horizontal adjustment.
Fred Miranda wrote:
How are your other M lenses with the M11 rangefinder? My first M11 had misaligned horizontal adjustment.
Rangefinder is perfect at infinity with:
CV 35 1.5
CV 50 f/1
Lenses that reached infinity on the rangefinder slightly before hard stop (normal lack of CV quality control I have experienced before):
2 copies of the 28 Ultron II, one of which was almost perfect but not quite before I gave up
The 2 LLL 8E lenses were the only ones I had that hit the hard stop before the rangefinder patch even reached infinity. That behavior is exactly like the new TTA 28 5.6 I got before I adjusted it. I think they completely missed the rangefinder adjustment step.
Only exception might be the collapsable. That lens uses an LTM adapter to work on M mount, and that could throw off infinity (?). Infinity on the lens itself was perfect at the hard stop, though. But not sure how the LTM adapter does or does not affect the rangefinder mechanism.
My 'Elcan' drives my cam follower to infinity, but my 8-Element comes up a bit short. For how much I paid for it, that's a little disappointing, but in practice, it is irrelevant as it focuses correctly wide-open at minimum focus distance and then depth of field seemingly covers any issues at infinity (especially as I would never use this lens wide-open at infinity). My 'Elcan' has trouble easily disengaging from my M5 and Voigtlander VM-E mount adapter, but has no issues on my Zeiss Ikon - so clearly, a very specific choice in how the mount was machined.
At any rate, I am still very happy with both lenses. I recently picked-up the LLL IROOA hood and it's really gorgeous.
Here are some recentish photos:
Drive-In Theater by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
Leica M5, Light Lens Lab 'Elcan' 50mm f/2 at f/11, Kodak T-Max 400, Xtol 1:1
Drive-In Theater by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
Leica M5, Light Lens Lab 'Elcan' 50mm f/2 at f/11, Kodak T-Max 400, Xtol 1:1
Drive-In Theater by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
Leica M5, Light Lens Lab 'Elcan' 50mm f/2 at f/8, Kodak T-Max 400, Xtol 1:1
Volkswagen 1600 by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
Leica M5, Light Lens Lab 8-Element 35mm f/2 at f/4, Kodak T-Max 400, Xtol 1:1
Jenny by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
Leica M5, Light Lens Lab 8-Element 35mm f/2 at f/2.8, Kodak T-Max 400, Xtol 1:1
Tennis Court by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
Leica M5, Light Lens Lab 8-Element 35mm f/8 at f/4, Kodak T-Max 400, Xtol 1:1
Semi-relatedly: I picked up a Voigtlander 50mm f/2 Heliar LTM (the nickel plated one) to see how it compares to the 'Elcan.' I figured a 5-element lens vs a 4-element lens seemed like a fair fight. They are both similarly sharp-ish wide-open and then become usably sharp at 2.8. The Heliar has more mechanical vignetting, but is much more flare resistant/contrasty against light thanks to it's multi-coating. I haven't shot any real photos yet with the Heliar, but I am excited to see how it looks.
_jim_ wrote:
My 'Elcan' drives my cam follower to infinity, but my 8-Element comes up a bit short. For how much I paid for it, that's a little disappointing, but in practice, it is irrelevant as it focuses correctly wide-open at minimum focus distance and then depth of field seemingly covers any issues at infinity (especially as I would never use this lens wide-open at infinity). My 'Elcan' has trouble easily disengaging from my M5 and Voigtlander VM-E mount adapter, but has no issues on my Zeiss Ikon - so clearly, a very specific choice in how the mount was machined.
At any rate, I am still very happy with both lenses. I recently picked-up the LLL IROOA hood and it's really gorgeous.
_jim_ wrote:
My 'Elcan' drives my cam follower to infinity, but my 8-Element comes up a bit short. For how much I paid for it, that's a little disappointing, but in practice, it is irrelevant as it focuses correctly wide-open at minimum focus distance and then depth of field seemingly covers any issues at infinity (especially as I would never use this lens wide-open at infinity). My 'Elcan' has trouble easily disengaging from my M5 and Voigtlander VM-E mount adapter, but has no issues on my Zeiss Ikon - so clearly, a very specific choice in how the mount was machined.
At any rate, I am still very happy with both lenses. I recently picked-up the LLL IROOA hood and it's really gorgeous.
Great photos! Keep an eye on your LLL Elcan in case you notice it getting progressively more difficult to dismount. Mine started out fine, then by the last time I took it off, it got jammed very tight to the point where I thought I'd have to send the half-dismounted lens and camera combo out to DAG for dissection.
Were you able to identify the cause of the problem? So far with my 35 Cron replica I have not experienced anything similar. Must be something about how they made the Elcan's mount?
Having dismantled a few M-mount lenses already I have no idea how this could happen except for:
a) a screw holding the bayonet coming loose
b) something getting stuck around the rf coupling roller
rscheffler wrote:
Were you able to identify the cause of the problem? So far with my 35 Cron replica I have not experienced anything similar. Must be something about how they made the Elcan's mount?
I'm not well versed in the mechanical workings of these lenses to know. But having had a few close calls with cheap adapters over the years, it was a red flag to stop using it and either return it or have it repaired. I never had an issue with the mounting/dismounting of the 8E replica, either, just the Elcan.
---------------------------------------------
BastianK wrote:
I also find this super interesting.
Having dismantled a few M-mount lenses already I have no idea how this could happen except for:
a) a screw holding the bayonet coming loose
b) something getting stuck around the rf coupling roller
Never had this happen before. The lens would come loose at the top of the mount but be stuck on something at the bottom of the mount that wouldn't let go, almost as if it were hinged at the bottom, then it would get locked into place and not budge (with the top of the lens still dismounted and pulled away from the mount). It was something about the lens since it happened to me with not only the M11 but the M-Adapter-L and the Hawk's Factory M to L adapter. Popflash also verified it was difficult to dismount.
If it were a machining defect from the factory, I would think it would have done this the first time I tried to dismount it, but it didn't. It worked fine at first. It developed the issue after a month or so of casual use. So it had to be something that could work loose over time.
Based on my impressions, the Heliar will have the strongest wide open glow and craziest bokeh. While it cleans up stopped down, it doesn't appear to achieve very high technical sharpness across the full frame (but I could be wrong). The SPII is a step down in wide open glow and sharpness up really well stopped down, by the looks of it. The Elcan seems to be a combination of the two - sharp centrally with peripheral softness and glow. Stopping down doesn't result in excellent peripheral sharpness. Elcan looks to be
