Using vintage lenses that were manufactured many years ago has always fascinated me! For photo geeks it’s intriguing but for most people they just care about the image. So recently I went out to test a lens that was made in 1958 the Leica 35mm f3.5 LTM (thread mount) Summaron. I was given this lens when I was 15 years old along with the external viewfinder. A few years ago I had the lens cleaned of fungus and started using it on my Leica M-P 240. The unfortunate thing is that the thread mount to bayonet mount I have on it is for a 90mm not a 35 so the wrong frame lines come up in the viewfinder. I am sending mine to Tamarkin Camera in Chicago in return for a 35mm one. It will be fun to be able to see the frame lines correctly for once.
This lens has a very nice vignette to it as you can see in the image above. It’s like a piece of jewelry all cleaned up. What a gem! I was curious to see how the color would be an I was pleasantly surprised at the images I got.
The black and white conversions were outstanding as well meaning that the contrast was top notch. I found very little wrong with the results they were outstanding.
Finding compositions over at the Maritime Center is a breeze as they are everywhere. I just loved poking around the old hulls etc. The combination of this little lens and camera brought me back to the old days of shooting with my Leica M3 with this lens. I can’t wait to shoot some film with that combination later on this summer it should be fun. Below is a video I did on this little project.