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Matt Wright backups

[11Aug24] Matt Wright writes the Leica Lenses for Normal People site which is a joy to read. While writing up these notes, his pages were blank for a couple of days and so I have taken the liberty of backing a few up here. They are also on the Wayback Machine.

Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm f/4 Review

The 90mm Recommended list

Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 APO-Lanthar LTM Review


Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm f/4 Review

Link https://www.leicalensesfornormalpeople.com/2020/09/02/minolta-m-rokkor-90mm-f-4-review/

[11Aug24] Trying to sort out the history of this lens, particularly with regard to whether or not there are different versions, how to tell them apart, and which one to buy was a painful exercise in futility. I can say with absolute certainty that after about an hour researching this lens I gave up.  All I can say with absolute certainty is that that this lens hails from the Minolta/Leica CL/CLE era of the 1970’s-80s. 

Other than that, I don’t know what is fact, legend, or opinion. There is debate on whether the optics changed when this lens went from early versions being made in Germany to later versions being made in Japan. There doesn’t seem to be any general consenus regargding any sort of significant image quality differences between different versions or years.

That is about all I feel comfortable saying about this lens because I am reluctant to regurgitate false or misleading information. If you want to know more about the history of this lens, strap in, go to the forums, eat an edible, drink a beer, have a shot, and good luck keeping your sanity with all of the back and forth. 

On garden gnomes and park cars

Usability issues with 90mm rangefinder lenses include considerations regarding 1) Size and 2) if you do leave the house with it, can you actually focus it accurately?

The primary issue (at least for me) is that rangefinder telephoto lenses can be bigger than I want for my rangefinder rig. Large(er) rangefinder lenses encourage me to leave them at home because of their size. Beefcake lenses the size of a stubby cactus hanging off the front of a rangefinder obviate my #1 reason for using a rangefinder which is that I don’t have to use big ass SLR lenses. 

Lenses that are bigger than a chubby little pickle also violate the #2 reason of using a rangefinder which is that you can house all of your lenses for a day of shooting in a tiny camera bag with the lenses standing straight up for easy access. My current rangefinder camera bag is the Peak Design Everyday Sling. If a lens doesn’t stand up straight in the bag WITH THE LENS HOOD ON it is a dealbreaker. 

Reason #3 for using a rangefinder camera is that a rangefinder camera is a simple tool. Screwing on and off lens hoods to make lenses fit in your bag (again lenses must stand erect with a lens hood on) or screwing on and off a focus magnifier, which may be necessary with some 90mm lenses (1) so you can obtain accurate focus violates rule #3. Screwing while using a rangefinder is a dealbreaker. 

With that background, you now understand why the form factor of a 90mm rangefinder lens is so important.  90mm lenses where you don’t need to use a magnifier to get critical focus (1) and stand up straight and tall in your camera bag like an erect piece of celery in a glass full of salty water are my baseline requirements.  The 90mm Minolta M-Rokkor f/4 checks those boxes and, as far as I am concerned, is the ideal package for a 90mm rangefinder lens. 

This lens does not have a focusing tab. As you know, focusing tabs for me are like Blue Dream and Bombay to Whiz Khalifa. Unlike other focal lengths, at 90mm they are not necessary. The focusing barrel of a 90mm lens is large enough so you won’t be grabbing the aperture ring accidentally. Moreover, focusing is so difficult at 90mm you are going to need (at least) two fingers and a long focusing throw. After this review, I won’t be mentioning focusing tabs on 90mm rangefinder lenses. There is nothing to discuss. 

I find no usability issues with this lens. 

Does it have SOUL? 

As a general rule, vintage lenses fall into two categories.  Lenses can be super vintage and fun to collect or use as a novelty item from time to time to get special effects for projects but in practice they are either too low contrast, too difficult to use, too flarey, too glowy, and are generally just too crummy to be taken seriously by anyone except the forum dwellers who recommend and cherish them because they inherited them from their grandfather. On the other end of the spectrum, lenses (even some older lenses) can be too good, too modern, and lack SOUL in much the same way that the last season of Game of Thrones, the third season of Breaking Bad, Van Halen III, and everything by Sun Kil Moon (2) are great but are also just only OK at the same time.  There are only a few lenses that proudly walk the tightrope between vintage and modern. This is one of them.  The Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm f/4 is the Philippe Petit (3) of camera lenses. 

Wide-open, this lens has the soulful crema of being slightly unsharp but sharp at the same time, it ever so slightly glows in the highlights but never goes all boom chicka wow wow, and it even offers a sedate and groovy color palette that stands on its own without requiring work in post to improve contrast or, conversely, analog film emulations to knock down the skittles and rainbows that are so common in modern lenses.

This brings us to a discussion of f/4. In most cases, f/4 is too slow to waste time with on a rangefinder. If this was a 35mm lens, f/4 is a dealbreaker. If this was a 50mm lens, f/4 is a dealbreaker.  If this was a 28mm lens, f/4 is mostly a dealbreaker. If this were any old mirrorless camera with fancy pants things like animal eye focus, focus tracking, or even focus peaking that actually worked, f/4 would also be a dealbreaker at 90mm. On a rangefinder, however, f/4 at 90mm requires additional discussion.  

I will probably lose my Leica fanboy membership card (again) with the following transgression but since my membership is already on thin ice after I said that you can make “Leica Glow” with a slider in photoshop, 90mm is pushing the upper limit of rangefinder technology. Given the size of the rangefinder patch and the 90mm focusing lines that crop the world into oblivion, focusing a rangefinder at 90mm can be challenging if you have 20/20 vision, difficult if you are over the age 40, and possibly impossible if you are shooting anything other than garden gnomes and parked cars(1). With a 90mm lens, at f/4 you have a fighting chance. At f/2.8 you might get lucky. I don’t understand f/2 at all.  That is why f/4 on a rangefinder lens is not a dealbreaker. In many situations, you will want, need, or just use f/4 just to be confident your focusing is accurate (1). 

If you are using your 90mm lens for landscapes (e.g. shooting at a higher aperture) or you are stalking Sadhus in India from 25 feet away f/4 is sufficient (1)(4). With high apertures and/or shooting things in the distance, bokeh is not your primary concern so don’t waste your time and money with an f/2.8 lens. If however, you keep the 90mm in your bag to take pictures of close up/near focus details like people’s hands, eyeballs, handlebars, shoes, rings, or maybe even an occasional portrait of someone with a pulse and you want a super dreamy background, f/4 requires even more discussion.

In my hands, a 90mm lens has a permanent position in my bag for closeup and detail images because the close focusing on rangefinders is awful. Moreover, I feel that closeup and detail images are also the only place that gratuitous bokeh and background cream offer more than a signal to other photographers to let them know you blew $5000 on an f/0.95 lens. Fortunately, the background cream from a 90mm lens is equal to or better than faster lenses of a shorter focal length. Stated another way, 90mm is an inexpensive way to get cream into the background of your images. You need to decide for yourself if f/4 gives you enough cream at close focusing distance or do you need to go up to f/2.8 and endure the headaches and missed images you can expect with close focusing a 90mm lens on a rangefinder at f/2.8.

Here are a few gratuitous. closeup, bokeh images to help you get a feel for the cream at 90mm and f/4 on a rangefinder.

[Omitted]

Don’t get all nit picky on the appearance of the cream like some bokehphiliac in some camera forum. I specifically didn’t shoot little bokeh balls for that reason. Save that for later. Just focus on the degree of cream. If that is enough cream for your sauce, you are good. Don’t waste your time with f/2.8(1). If, however, you demand more cream for your soup, you are likely an f/2.8 man or woman. In my opinion, nobody will ever call an f/4 lens a “bokeh master” or even a “bokeh monster” but at 90mm, the cream is actually pretty creamy in most situations. Your mileage may vary.  The cream is a personal decision. 

While you are agonizing over cream, don’t forget to consider the trade-off between lens size and cream. Physics dictate that for comparable image quality are going to need a larger lens (e.g. f/2.8) to make more cream. We will explore this more when we look at 90mm f/2.8 lenses. 

The last issue in your decision matrix is whether or not the lens is sharp enough at f/4 to make your gratuitous bokeh shots pop. Everyone knows that gratuitous bokeh shots require a sharp subject or they look stupid. Right? Saving space in your bag and going with an ultraportable f/4 lens is a stupid decision if it is unsharp wide open. In my hands, the Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm f/4 lens is “vintage sharp++++” at f/4. Of course, that is a stupid made-up term just like the stupid made-up terms you will encounter when shopping for these lenses on eBay. Nonetheless it roughly translates to perfectly sharp for normal people with a job and a house and other things to worry about but it is not rose thorn sharp so the pixel peepers will lose their lunch. In my experience,  if you are posting your images on Instagram they will be plenty sharp. If you add some grain in post, are using film with grain, or are shooting at a higher ISO, nobody will ever know you didn’t spend money on an ASPH lens costing 10x the price of this little gem. All of that said, this lens isn’t winning the 2020 wide-open sharpness award so if you are that worked up about sharpness, you probably aren’t considering this lens and you probably also didn’t make it this far in the review to read this anyway. You are not my people.

In conclusion, soul vs size vs weight vs sharpness vs cream vs can you even focus the damn thing wide open is the decision matrix you need to sort through with this and all of your 90mm rangefinder lens decisions.

Flare there? 

You already know I am a sucker for lenses that offer interesting flare.  On the other hand, flares are unwelcome if all I can get out of the flare is a white phlegm smear on the periphery of the image which is pretty much what you get with this lens. Don’t expect any pretty circles, hexagons,  streaks, or anything like that. 

Flares (or lack thereof) are something to pay particular attention to when working with 90mm lenses because you have such a small area of the viewfinder window to use to frame the image.  In my experience, it can be difficult to work with flares and 90mm rangefinder lenses because it can be difficult to judge how much of the sun is in the periphery of the image and how it will affect the final image. Truth be told, with 90mm lenses (unlike all other focal lengths), my preference is to add flares in photoshop (gasp) if they are absolutely necessary. I ruined too many 90mm images with suboptimal flares and old 90mm lenses. I am pretty much done playing with flares at 90mm. 

Did I keep it? 

A soulful lens that is smaller than an adolescent chipmunk and is vintage sharp at f/4? What is not to like? Right? Not so fast. When I asked you to look carefully at the bokeh images and consider the size of the package I was serious. Those trade-offs are not insignificant. This was not an easy decision for me and it is well established that I suffer from availability heuristics, information bias, stereotyping, and selective perception and as a result make quick decisions which I often regret in the future.  For a sufferer of that many cognitive biases to say it was a difficult decision, it really was difficult. To see where I fall on the spectrum and how this lens compares to its peers, please vistit the Leica Lenses for Normal People: The Recommended list .

Notes: 

  1. In my hands, any lens faster than f/4 on a rangefinder may require a focus magnifier if used wide open. Part of the reason is that the depth of field is razor-thin and rangefinders are not the best tool to use to focus with a razor-thin depth of field. In my hands a rangefinder is not quite precise enough to focus down to a razors thickness.  The following primer explains the situation using a little math derived from the depth of field calculator.
    • If you are close focusing at 0.7 meters (27.5 inches) at f/4 and using a 90mm lens your margin of error (e.g. zone of focus) is only 0.5 inches (1.27cm). That is razor-thin but it is even worse if you are using an f/2.8, 90mm lens wide open at close focusing distance. At f/2.8, your margin of error is only 0.35 inches which or 0.889 centimeters!!! As you can see the margin of error is almost nothing with both of these lenses spo unless you are using a digital tool to assist you with focus, it can be impossible to accurately focus a 90mm rangefinder lens, wide open, at f/2.8 using the rangefinder mechanism. Think about it, if you lean in just 8mm your subject will be out of focus. If your subject moves 8mm it will be out of focus. If your rangefinder focusing is off by 8mm it will be out of focus. If a wasp farts in your general vicinity your image might be out of focus although I am not exactly sure if insects pass gas it will affect your image. In my experience, the rangefinder mechanism is just not accurate enough (with my eyes) to reliably allow you to focus with 8mm of precision. At f/4 you have somewhat of a fighting chance.
    • When it comes to focusing at moderate distances, let’s say a subject is 6 feet away, the situation improves..slightly. Using a 90mm lens at F/4 your margin of error is 3.72 inches (9.5cm). At f/2.8, the margin error is just outside of the stupid range and is 2.64 inches (6.7cm). It is reasonable to expect that even at 6 feet away if your subject is moving or you do like everyone else and get excited and lean in just a little bit before you press the shutter, your subject might be out of focus. 
    • At farther subject distances, let’s say 25 feet, this discussion is less of a concern.  At f/4 your margin of error is 5.64 feet (1.72 meters) and at f/2.8 the margin of error is 3.97 feet (1.21 meters).  In both of those situations, at least in my experience, the rangefinder, even without a magnifier is just fine. 
    • As a corollary to this discussion, if you think you need an f/2.8 lens for far focusing because you think you will get more background blur with f/2.8 compared to f/4, think again. The difference in bokeh between f/2.8 and f/4 at 25 feet isn’t all that much different. 

2. Although I am warming up to Sun Kil Moon. 

3. Man on A Wire. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155592/ Go. Now.  

4. My recommendation is to stop stalking Sadhus or anyone else from 25 feet away. Go up to people and ask them to take their picture. Sniping and stalking from 25 feet is creepy. While you are at it, be sure your Sadhus are genuine and not just guys dressed up like Sadhus for tourists. 

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The 90mm Recommended list

Link https://www.leicalensesfornormalpeople.com/2020/08/01/the-90mm-recommended-list/

[11Aug24] The 90mm recommended list was in some ways the easiest to develop and in other ways it was the hardest. 

The EASY: all of the lenses I tested were excellent in one way or another. No joke. As I mentioned on Instagram, I once read that it is easy to make a 90mm lens.  It would appear that is correct.  There are no duds in this group. For most people, including myself, I see no good reason for spending a lot of money on a 90mm lens. This recommendation is even more important considering that for most people 90mm is not their primary focal length.  The difference in price between the most expensive and the least expensive lens in this group will buy you an additional lens (or lenses)  in a different focal length and you will lose little in image quality. 

The DIFFICULT: Because every lens was remarkable in one way or another, there was no clear winner in this group. My recommendations are based as much on the size, cost, and what camera you are shooting as it is on image quality. To reiterate, all of these lenses take remarkable images. 

Before we get to my final pick and other recommendations, I feel the need to mention a transgression I made with this list. I am not sure if it is a major or minor transgression but it is a transgression nonetheless. That transgression is that I didn’t test the legacy Leica Tele-Elmarit 90mm f/2.8. This is a transgression because it is likely that normal people (e.g. people who are not blindly going to buy the most expensive lens they can get their hands on just so they can tell their friends they have a full set of Summicron or Summilux lenses) are going to be considering that lens. Rightfully so. In my situation, however, I just couldn’t get myself to spend the money on the Tele-elmarit – even to test it and sell it. These are my reasons: 

  1. Every review I read online states that the legacy 90mm Leica lenses are prone to flaring My Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm f/4 is prone to flaring and as I said in that review, lens flares on a 90mm lens when mounted to a rangefinder are unwelcome. The reason is that because the 90mm frame lines take up such a small part of the viewfinder. In my hands, it is next to impossible to sort out what is going on with the flare and how much of the image will be impacted by the flare. With a digital M you can play around and look at the LCD screen but it is still a pain. With film, I would be too worried about making a flare mess, so much so I wouldn’t even take the shot. I just can’t seem to get flares dialed right with 90mm lenses attached to a rangefinder.
  2. One of the major Leica CLA repair people warned me about purchasing Leica lenses made in the late 70’s and early 80’s. This includes the Canadian lenses from this era such as the more affordable Tele-elmarits.  There is no issue with the optics but because of some cost-cutting measures Leica was doing at the time, that person (I am not telling you their gender to help maintain their anonymity) said they don’t hold up as well (e.g. they cannot be repaired) as other Leica and these lenses are already showing signs of age.  Even the newest of the Tele-elmarit lens was made during this period. 
  3. Cost was also an issue. As I was nearing the end of this round I said to myself, “self, look you are holding several EXCELLENT lenses that are less expensive than the Leica Tele-elmarit and you already own the modern Elmarit successor. If you didn’t have this website you know you would never spend the money on that 40-year-old lens that by all accounts will annoy you with flares and might not be able to be repaired.   What are you doing? Do you really need to test something that you know you won’t keep? My answer was “no” so I decided to skip the Leica Tele-Elmarit.  Please forgive my transgression. Perhaps someday I will go back and revisit. For now, I am pretty confident in my decision. Even looking back, knowing what I know now, and considering the cost, I can’t convince myself that there would be any possibility I would keep the Tele-Elmarit lens after I purchased it. 

The Recommended List

Normally, I just list my picks and pans and get on with it. This doesn’t work for 90mm lenses because your choice will ultimately depend on what type of camera you are using. By now, you are probably tired of hearing me whine about trying to focus on something moving at close distance with a 90mm lens on a rangefinder but it is what it is. My recommendations for a digital rangefinder are different from a film rangefinder which are still different from a mirrorless camera such as a Leica SL, SL2, or Panasonic S1. 

If you are shooting a digital rangefinder (Leica M9, M10, etc). 

My keeper pick: The Voigtlander APO-Skopar 90mm f/2.8 is my keeper pick but, as you already know, there is no review of that lens on this site. I never shot it. Never used it. I can, however, say that the latest round of Voigtlander lenses that came out in 2021 are all pretty much excellent. Nobody shoots a 90mm lens as their primary lens on an M camera so as a secondary lens, I am confident in recommending something I have never shot. Get the new 90mm APO from Voigtlander. Don’t jack around with the older LTM lens and unless you need need need a red dot, don’t get the Leica. It is just so heavy and big for a secondary lens. NOTE: I haven’t used this lens myself but 2 trusted sources recommend it without reservation.

I dont have that new 90 but I did keep the old Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 LTM APO-Lanthar: I hated the racing stripes on the outside barrel but that is cosmetic. For the price and size, this lens cannot be beaten. My long term concern is the dust inside the lens. I don’t know how that will shake out in 20 years but for the cost, it is a risk I am going to take. If you are considering this lens, also consider factoring in the cost of a CLA. You are going to need it. Since the writing of that article, I was talking with the folks at Kurtz camera repair here in San Diego. The service person said he was familiar with that lens and it is invariably riddled with dust. His recommendation was to not do anything until the dust got so bad that it had an effect on the images. He didn’t see the need. “It’s just dust and no haze” was the final comment. He wouldn’t take my money to get rid of the dust. He recommended coming back in a few years if it got worse. Fixing it at this point was a vanity move.

My second place pick and maybe your first place pick: The Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm f/4. I also love this lens. I ultimately chose the older Voigtlander because it is sharper, it comes with an integrated lens hood, and I am less interested in a vintage look for my 90mm lens. If you are looking for more of a vintage feel (but still pretty modern)  this lens is a phenomenal bargain and should be your first choice. It is also more widely available than the old Voigtlander. It might be of interest to note that if someone stole my Voigtlander I would be 99.07% as happy with the Minolta 90. It might also be of even more interest to note that if someone stole my Voigtlander, my life wouldn’t skip a beat. That is because the Minolta 90 is staying on my shelf in addition to the Voigtlander. It is so inexpensive, I decided to keep both. #hordingbehavior Additionally, I would just get the new Voigtlander APO that was released in 2021.

Some of these picks are slow lenses (f/3.5 and f/4 respectively). In the 90mm focal length that is acceptable for me given that this is a secondary focal length and I like to just jam one in my bag just in case. I cant do that with my Leica Elmarit 90mm f/2.8 so I never use it. I recommend the new Voigtlander f/2.8 because it is readily available, it is smaller than the Leica Elmarit or Summicron, and I am told it is great.

However, be careful before you go and run out and buy a big(er) 90mm lens. The size reduction (when compared to an f2.8) for the slow aperture is a worthwhile trade off compared to the speed or bokeh improvements offered at f/2.8 if you don’t need a 2.8. This type of recommendation, however, opens the door to the valid criticisms that 1) a film shooter might need 2.8 and 2) an f/2.8 lens shot stopped down a bit should be sharper and better than my choices wide open 3) the bokeh at f/2.8 should be better than f/3.5 or f/4. My reply is that all of those concerns are valid but only one is convincing. I discussed this in the individual reviews but briefly: 

  1. The bokeh at f/2.8 should be better than f/3.5 or f/4: This is 100% accurate and if you are a bokeh aficionado go for the f/2.8. In my hands, however, at close focusing distance, the bokeh from f/3.5 or f/4 is perfectly fine for normal people. I actually showed normal people (e.g non-photographers)  different images at near focus at 90mm and they didn’t care about any bokeh differences between the lens. At far focus, there is no real difference anyway. I let normal people influence my purchasing decisions. Not other photographers in forums.
  2. An f/2.8 lens shot stopped down should be sharper than an f/3.5 or f/4 lens wide open: this is true but the Voigtlander lens at f/3.5 is perfectly sharp for me. The Rokkor is “vintage sharp” meaning it is a touch soft wide open. You won’t notice this on film but if you are a digital pixel peeper it is real. Stated another way, I don’t care about this at all. These lenses are acceptably sharp wide open. 

My last two picks, the Leica Elmarit f/2.8 and Summarit f/2.5 are sitting at the bottom of the list because they are both chubby and heavier than I want for my rangefinder rig. Given the recent rise in prices since Covid hit, they are also more expensive than I want for my 90mm. Third, focusing on a rangefinder at near focus at f/2.8 is an act of frustration. I am recommending the Voigtlander f/2.8 APO because it is new and available. You are essentially getting the f/2.8 for free with the Voigtlander. I don’t recommend it because it is a 2.8. Again, I nearly never shoot a 90mm lens at f/2.8.

Whenever I recommend a Summarit, I feel like I need to justify my recommendation given all of the hate thrown at these lenses online. I am making this recommendation knowing full well that I am actively choosing to ignore The Internet’s worries about some nebulous Summarit build quality issues because 1) I can find exactly zero reports of actual real-world issues with this (or other) modern Summarit lenses and 2) none of the people I talk with who actually fix lenses can muster up a single complaint about the Summarit line. As I mentioned in the review, in 20-30 years I may regret this decision (and so might you if you follow my recommendation) but by that time I will be blind or dead anyway. Sorry offspring of mine. Maybe you don’t get to make a killing when I die and you sell my stuff on eBay. You lose.

As you can expect, I follow my own recommendations. Now that I am shooting film again, I am going to hang on to the Elmarit for a while longer. If I had it to do over again, I would have purchased the Summarit or waited for the Voigtlander to come out. To give you an idea of exactly where my head is at, now that I own the Elmarit I don’t think it is worth the headache to sell the Elmarit and buy the Summarit or Voigtlander. I don’t use the 90mm lenses enough to warrant that buying and selling rigmarole.  

Not recommended: 

Last and very much least is the purple people eater – the Konica M-Hexanon 90mm f/2.8. This lens can make solid images. If it was the only lens I had access to in the world, I would be happy. Fortunately, it isn’t the only lens in the world, so I see no reason to own this lens unless you have a Konica rangefinder. I almost said that this would be OK if you were shooting a film Leica because it is possible you won’t be able to see that it doesn’t actually focus properly on a Leica but then I remembered the purple fringe of death. I am no pixel peeper but the purple fringe is not worth the headache given that there are other options that 1) do focus properly at f/2.8 on a Leica  2) don’t go all purple haze on the world and are 3) less expensive. Given those considerations, I can’t even justify the usefulness of this lens as an adapted lens on a mirrorless camera. There are too many other lenses that you can adapt that are less expensive and won’t purple fringe you into postproduction madness. 

If you shoot film on a rangefinder

There is really no change here. The Voigtlander APO-Skopar 90mm f/2.8 is still my pick. The Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 LTM APO-Lanthar is also a great choice if you want a smaller package. As a general rule I go for a sharper lens with film but that is personal preference. For my slow lens pick, I pick this one over the Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm f/4 but just barely.

With film, however, we need to revisit my recommendation not to get an f/2.8 lens. Personally, I still don’t see myself ever trying to use (er…waste film) trying to focus an f2.8 lens on a rangefinder at close focus distance but film is more forgiving than digital so my recommendations regarding 90mm lenses on a rangefinder need to be tempered.

There is also a very real need for the extra stop when shooting film. That extra stop could make or break an image. Therefore, the f/2.8 aperture could be a lifesaver if you are shooting film for all of those times you are not focusing it at close focusing distance.

Therefore, with film, you need to weigh the size of the lens, how often you will use it in low light and your budget. If I was buying one lens I would opt for either of the f/2.8 options as described above over the slow lenses if you can afford it.

If you are shooting adapted M lenses on a mirrorless camera (Leica SL, SL2, Panasonic S1)

Stop wasting your time with the slow lenses. You are already carrying around a beast of a camera if you are shooting an SL, SL2, or S1. Worrying about size went out the window when you bought your camera. The Voigtlander APO-Skopar 90mm f/2.8 is the top choice. The f/2.8 Elmarit and Summarit options are also perfectly sized for your (beastly) camera. Get the f/2.8. It is stupidly easy to focus a 90mm lens at f/2.8 on a mirrorless camera so you can ignore everything I said about focusing a 90mm on a rangefinder at f/2.8. Go big. Get your bokeh on.

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Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 APO-Lanthar LTM Review

Link Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 APO-Lanthar LTM Review

[11Aug24] The Voigtländer 90mm f/3.5 APO-Lanthar LTM lens was released in 2001. It came in black and silver versions.  At the time this lens was released, I was recovering from an alpaca breeding accident. Voigtlander, caring little about my injury, was releasing a family of lenses for their new Bessa line of cameras.  The 90mm f/3.5 APO-Lanthar LTM was a member of this new line of lenses. 

If you are thinking about purchasing one of these lenses, chances are that you are probably also searching other websites. If so, you are bound to come across Casual Photophile (1) and their review of this lens. At the time of writing, it is one of the few other solid reviews of this lens I could find.  In that review they mentioned that they got Ex+++++’d (2) by an eBay seller. Their lens had the epizooties and needed to go for a CLA. My lens was in a similar shape although I didn’t get EX++++++’d. Rather,  the seller warned me ahead of time that there was dust and haze.  I don’t understand enough about lenses to understand why these lenses, which aren’t all that old, are prone to dust, haze, and the epizooties. My lens is currently out for CLA so fingers crossed it can be cured of its disease. If you do decide to buy one of these lenses, consider factoring in the cost of a CLA. 

The Lanthar in APO-Lanthar refers to lanthanum which is a rare earth element that has been used in camera lenses for decades.  Adding lanthanum to the lens is said to minimize chromatic aberrations, increase sharpness, and improve overall resolution. The barrel of this lens and the other Voigtlander lanthar lenses is adorned with red, green, and blue colored stripes. The colors are to remind you that these lenses are “fully corrected for the three main colour bands of the spectrum(3).” In my world, the colors remind me of painful memories of the jumpy ball pit at McDonald’s. What I would have given to grow up in a pandemic so I didn’t have to pretend I was having fun in the jumpy ball pit with the other kids. #moreD&Dlessjumpyball

Anyway, Voigtlander has been putting these RGB racing stripes on their Apo-Lanthar lenses for decades. I get it. Tradition. Throwback Thursday. Whatever.  Perhaps it is time to stop. I am man enough to know that I am at least moderately superficial and old enough to own it.  If you are reading this, please also be honest with yourself. Unless you inherited your grandfather’s Leica and you just happen to need a 90mm lens so you can revisit those dog days of summer down South when you and your grandfather used to walk down by the creek at sunset to skip rocks your hound dog named Buck, chances are you are a bit superficial too. Embrace it. You like nice stuff. No judgment. Buying a nice lens for a rangefinder is 100% OK.  

If I am correct, you are like me, you are at least moderately superficial, and you like nice stuff, putting RGB racing stripes on an otherwise perfectly designed lens is a crime against humanity.  Don’t get me wrong, the idea of stripes on a lens is pretty cool. Black stripes would be cool. Pink stripes would be sick. Conversely, Greg Brady blue, Coca-Cola red, and astroturf green stripes are worse than The Toxic Avenger Part 2. Given the technicolor atrocity on the barrel of this lens, I think it is reasonable that I interrupt this post to pen a letter to the Voigtlander marketing department. 

“Dear Voigtander marketing department:

I am writing you about your APO-Lanthar lenses. Please stop with the RGB racing stripes. We don’t need colors on the barrel of the lens to remind us of what is going on inside the lens. Nike doesn’t have a picture of a shoe in their logo but everyone somehow still knows Nike makes shoes. Google doesn’t have the word search in their name but somehow we know what to do when we see the search box.  Voigtlander, you don’t need to be this literal. You already put the word Lanthar on the lens. Isn’t that enough?  Do we really need jumpy ball color racing stripes?

This is an ongoing gripe I have with you guys. Your lenses are often exceptional but the package is often weird. How can any respectable Leica owner show up at a hipster coffee shop, be seen on Tokyo Camera style, or even show their face at a Beers and Cameras meetup sporting racing stripes?  If you ever see me in public with this lens, don’t be surprised if the racing stripes are black. I am currently looking into ways I can paint away the horror. 

Thank you for your time. 

Matt” 

Wait,….paint them?  That means the lens stays and you can stop reading the review. Right? Busted. Maybe. Keep reading. 

On Garden Gnomes and Parked Cars

When I started the website I didn’t foresee the 90mm lenses being so boring with regards to usability. They are all similar and just as fine as one another as far as I am concerned. Given that they are larger than lenses of other focal lengths, they are also inherently less fiddly. You don’t need a focusing tab or anything else that would separate the usability of one 90m lens from another. Honestly, I don’t really have anything to comment about on with regard to the useability of this lens. It works and it doesn’t get in the way. 

It may be of interest to note that that the screw-in lens hood is robust and pairs nicely with the lens. With the hood on,  it is a little larger than I would Ike but it still falls within my upper limit size criteria that it must stand up straight in my camera bag with the hood on. Again, nothing really to discuss here regarding the size or form factor.  

If you are wondering about why I haven’t commented on the f/3.5 aperture, You didn’t read my review of the 90mm f/4 Minolta M-Rokkor lens. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that f/3.5 is equal to f/4. If you can accept that, the short story is that I use my 90mm lenses for closeups and to compress the background for distance shots. At distance, there is no bokeh advantage of f/2.8 lens over and f/4. Closeup, I don’t understand how anyone can focus a rangefinder at less than f/3.5-4 because you have such a shallow depth of field. In my experience, the rangefinder is a suboptimal tool to use to focus 90mm lenses that close. I am 100% prepared to defend that math for a digital Leica. If, however…

  1. You are adapting this lens to a digital body (Leica SL, Panasonic S1, etc) your math might different because with the right body (e.g. NOT a Sony A7III, A7III or any previous Sony model) it can be easier to obtain critical focus with a 90mm manual focus lens. I already know what you are thinking but please do not use the EVO 2020 for this.
  2. You are shooting film, your math might also be different. f/2.8 might be worthwhile just in case you have a roll of 100 loaded up and you go inside.  Moreover, film is more forgiving with regards to nailing focus. You might be OK. For me, I wouldn’t waste the film. Too tricky. 

Does it have SOUL?

In the early 90’s there was a movie named Rudy about a small, dyslexic, kid who overcame a bazillion obstacles to fulfill his dream of playing football at Notre Dame. It is one of those dripping with honey, moral of the story, movies that tricks you into believing that you that you should never give up because miracles happen…almost gets you to cry…and then you smack yourself back to reality and say, “What am I doing here? That S*&%% never really happens in real life. Miracles don’t happen to me.” If that is what you think, au contraire, mon frère. That S*&%% really does happen. I have the Voigtlander 90mm APO-Lanthar f3.5 LTM lens to prove it.

Sometimes I think Voigtländer is the Rudy of the camera lens world. They are always right up there, sometimes they get a play or two, but there are so many obstacles to overcome. Unlike Rudy, sometimes the obstacles they are overcoming are of their own making. Racing stripes on a lens barrel so we know what they already wrote on the front of the lens, ill-conceived marketing around the word Classic, weirdly shaped lenses like that 50mm 3.5 VM Heliar pyramid lens with the lens diagram on the barrel, etc. etc. etc. Every once in a while, however, Voigtlander’s inner Rudy shines bright, the Voigtlander SOUL bubbles up to the surface and they get to play ball with the big boys. That is the case with this lens. 

Call me a sucker but I tend to give underdogs a few points of SOUL just for trying. It is like Base + Fog with underdogs and SOUL. This lens has a fine baseline of SOUL but other than that, it is really a pure modern lens. Therefore, as with all pure modern lenses, if you are looking for SOUL you are looking in the wrong place. I can’t wax poetic about how it is dripping with 70’s charm or anything like that. It is sharp. The lanthanum is apparently doing its job cranking out colors that are true to life and not supersaturated or dull. It is a good thing like Martha Stewart used to be a good thing before she went to jail but after she got in with Snoop Dog. 

Can I be honest for a second?  Lens reviews like this one are not objective. There is no way for me (or anyone else) to take our brain, foibles,  past experiences, and prejudices out of the equation. I am not even sure we should. Part of photography is gear and sometimes the gear, in and of itself, motivates us to get out there and use it. If you need a red dot to signal to the world that you are the man because your iPhone, moleskin, and other accouterments didn’t go far enough you should go for a lens with a red dot.  This lens doesn’t signal anything to the world except that you have a lens with racing stripes on it. You won’t get any street cred brownie points. Nobody will talk to you about it.  My prejudice is that I don’t care too much what the street thinks but I do get warm fuzzies inside when I find a diamond in the rough that is as inexpensive as this lens but is as good as a lens that is 4x the price. That type of discovery must trigger some dopamine or something in my brain because when I use this lens I get a major dopamine hit.  Because of my prejudice it is possible that I like this lens better than maybe I should. The underdog gets me every time and that is probably influencing this review. Please keep that in mind.  

Flare there?

Even with the dust and minor haze in my lens, the flare resistance of this lens is very strong. Artistic or unwanted flares are a non-issue if you are flare averse. If, however, you are looking for a lens that flares this is not your lens.

So did I keep it?

I don’t like silver lenses. I don’t like racing stripes. I am currently looking into how I can black out the racing stripes because I can’t bear to look at them any longer. My success in painting the racing stripes may very well be the deciding factor if I keep this lens or not. There are so many good options in the 90mm category, it is coming down to splitting hairs and minor differences like racing stripes. To see whether or not I kept the lens, you don’t need to wait to see how my arts and crafts escapades turn out. All you need to do is sign up for my Leica Lenses for Normal People: The Recommended List and see how I compare and contrast the lenses I test, find out which lenses I kept and which ones I didn’t, and find our which lenses I recommend to my family and friends. If you find that I didn’t save you some time or money with your research, there is even a money-back guarantee. You have nothing to lose.  

Notes

  1. 1. One of my top 10 websites of all time. #fanboy
  2. 2. That is most certainly a verb. To be EX+++++’d means that you bought something that any normal person would have said, it is in OK shape but I am not giving specifics because I don’t want you sending it back because I know it really isn’t all that perfect or I would have just said so.” To a Japanese seller, EX+++++ is somehow better than EX++++ but worse than Mint -. Something is getting lost in translation with all of these plus signs I am afraid. 
  3. 3. Reference: https://www.arnecroell.com/voigtlaender.pdf

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References

Wright, Matt (n.d.) Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm f/4 Review [online]. leicalensesfornormalpeople.com. Available from https://www.leicalensesfornormalpeople.com/2020/09/02/minolta-m-rokkor-90mm-f-4-review/ [Accessed 11 August 2024].

Wright, Matt (n.d.) Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm f/4 Review [online]. leicalensesfornormalpeople.com. Available from https://www.leicalensesfornormalpeople.com/2020/09/02/minolta-m-rokkor-90mm-f-4-review/ [Accessed 11 August 2024].

Wright, Matt (n.d.) Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 APO-Lanthar LTM Review [online]. https://www.leicalensesfornormalpeople.com/2020/10/10/voigtlander-90mm-f-3-5-apo-lanthar-ltm-review/ [Accessed 11 August 2024].

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Page created 01-Jan-2022 | Page updated 11-Aug-2024