I found @yukosteel's disassembly of this lens, which helped me get to the focus shims. Those screws holding the focus cam were on TIGHT!
My copy came with 3 identical shims, totaling 0.59mm thick. I removed one, which resulted in extreme back focus instead of the slight front focus. I'm not sure how to get to a final elegant solution, but I've temporarily replaced one of the shims with a couple layers of tape to get a total shim thickness of 0.57mm and perfect focus accuracy wide open. I've been shooting like this for the past few days at various apertures and everything looks sharp! I don't even really notice the focus shift in real world use.
Opening the mount also gave me access to the infinity/minimum focus stop and I decided to test out a way to add a soft stop at ~0.6m, close to where my camera's rangefinder cam decouples from the lens cam. Now I have a tactile indication when I need to switch to live view! This is also still a proof of concept using some gaffer's tape and scotch tape until I come up with a more elegant material/solution, but it's quite satisfying to have the focus ring resistance increase when it reaches the limit of the rangefinder mechanism.
I recently picked up another copy at a reasonable price. I like it better on film than digital as it's a bit lacking in character for me, but it's great glass all things considered. A little series from tonight.
I might try my SC with an MRC Black Diffusion 1/4 to see if it gives more character that I am looking for.
Tried my 1931 /1932 US model with ft only, Hektor 7.3 1.9 on my aging wife (I can say that since I am older then she is) and she actually liked the look I tried to portray. Progress!
Next to try on her is the 1938 Thambar f2.2 I have with of course center filter installed.
Years ago when Fred tested them against each other, the difference to me seemed minimal sadly.
This is true. Using the SC version won't make the lens more "characterful" at all. You'd struggle to spot a difference even if you tried. It's essentially just a coating change, which can sometimes introduce a bit more veiling flare, though that's hard to predict or control.
The only lens I've seen where the low-contrast version actually changes the optical formula is the LLL 50/1.9 ZS6, inspired by the old Dallmeyer Super Six. The low-contrast variant shows less correction for spherical aberration, higher coma, and lower longitudinal CA.
stgrove wrote:
I might try my SC with an MRC Black Diffusion 1/4 to see if it gives more character that I am looking for.
Tried my 1931 /1932 US model with ft only, Hektor 7.3 1.9 on my aging wife (I can say that since I am older then she is) and she actually liked the look I tried to portray. Progress!
Next to try on her is the 1938 Thambar f2.2 I have with of course center filter installed.
When you try the Thambar you may think it's defective at first.
