Ancient lens test. How does a 55 year old short telephoto lens stand up in modern times? We check it out on South Congress Ave. Used Gear = Tariff Proof.

 

This is the full frame.

I've always had a soft spot for 135mm f2.8 lenses. And single focal length lenses at 135mm are getting hard to find new. The only "modern" 135mm I've found in the L mount systems is the huge and heavy Sigma f2.0 Art series lens. I owned one of the HSM versions and used it for theater work on a Panasonic S1 but it was enormous, dense and .... very slow to autofocus. I traded it out for the Panasonic 70-200mm but have been on the lookout ever since for a classic, prime 135mm. Why? They are smaller and lighter than the big, f2.8 zooms that cover the focal length and...just because I think it's a very cool focal length. 

When I was shooting with film cameras I owned several Leica R, SLR film cameras and a collection of Leica prime lenses. One of them was the 135mm f2.8 Elmarit-R. Those were the times before punch in/magnification fine focusing and way before in-body image stabilization. For some reason I always thought that the Leica R 135 was not particularly sharp. Which was odd for a Mandler designed prime lens made for a top tier camera system. The build quality always struck me as "off the charts" good and the focusing ring was like butter, but were the images created sharp with the aperture wide open? I wouldn't have said so... Now I'm here to acknowledge the possibility that there might have been a bit of user error. It happens to the the best of us. Or...maybe I can blame the SLR focusing system and optical focusing screen in the cameras that were a joint venture between Leica and Minolta... Yeah. That's a better fit for my fragile ego.

Recently I decided I really wanted to try the 135mm Elmarit-R one more time. Mostly to see if image stabilization coupled with high magnification focusing would tip my opinion from: "Soft lens from yesteryear" to "Wow! This is so much better than I remembered." When a very clean and well cared for one turned up at Leica Store Miami (no affiliation/no reward) popped up in their used Leica equipment listings --- and then soon dropped in price by $100 --- I took it as a sign from the photo gods and bought it. A whopping $395 for a lens made back in 1970. Predating even my own fledgling interest in anything photographic.

It's a version two. An improvement over the original optical design of the 1960s and was a consistent and long tenured design right up until the lens was discontinued in 1991. The lens is not big at all but it's dense. It weighs about 700 grams or a little over one and a half pounds. The lens features a solid, all metal, built-in lens hood and anti-features a close focusing limit of one and a half meters...a tad under five feet.

The manual (only) focus ring travel is long, long, long but it's easy to fine tune focus because this. 

Lens in hand I decided to use it with my favorite work camera (written about yesterday), the Leica SL2. I tossed the lens on an Urth brand adapter, set the focal length in the lens profile menu (to get good I.S.) and headed out on a sunny day to see just exactly how the lens would acquit itself fully 55 years after it was constructed, along with 1999 other ones, for the original Leica SL2 (a venerable and non-biodegradable, bullet proof film camera) cameras. I mean, you can read all the shit about it that's been written but the only true test of a lens is how well it works for you. In your personalized method of use.

All lenses ( or "most" lenses ) perform pretty well at f5.6 or f8.0 but that's not much of a test. I kept the camera mostly at f4.0. I figured I could give it one stop in honor of its long tenure in the field...

TL:DL (Too long, didn't look at the samples?): I find the color to match modern lenses quite well. None of the overly warm or overly yellow looks that many older film era lenses can sometimes show. The contrast, even at f4.0, is well balanced and, in fact, much contrastier than I would have anticipated. And sharp? Yes. It's quite sharp as long as I focus it correctly. As it was a sunny afternoon I kept the shutter speeds above 1/250th of a second to try to minimize operator induced movement as much as possible. 

Take a look at the images and see what you think. I really like the lens but I'd jump on a modern version with autofocusing in a heartbeat. When shooting older, manual focus, wide angle lenses depth of field is your friend but, conversely, when shooting with longer, moderately fast aperture, manual lenses the lack of enough depth of field can be your enemy. Still. Focusing quickly and accurately was a challenge but where would the fun be if taking images with 55 year old lenses didn't have a little friction involved?

I've added some captions where I thought appropriate.

this is the 100% crop from above. The lace is very clearly defined. As is the satin fabric.

A great job for a lens shooting through the thick glass of a shop window.

the full frame...

100% crop. Fabric very clearly defined...

a wolf dog up for adoption. This is the 100% crop. The full frame is just below.

Near the close focusing distance of the lens. The color and texture is perfect.

A sample of a scene shot across four lanes of traffic. F4.0

Very nice edge acuity.

Hundreds and hundreds of scooter and bike riders.