Leica 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit
By Heinz Richter
When my father gave me my first Leica, a Leica III with 50mm f/2 Summar, it was soon followed by a 135mm f/4.5 Steinheil Culminar. It served me well and even after all these years I still have the lens sitting on my desk.
Along the way I also came into possession of a Meyer-Optik Görlitz 250mm f/5.5 Tele Megor. It came with an Exacta mount. I had no intention to keep the lens, primarily because it was useless on any of my Leica cameras at the time. To have a better chance of selling it, I converted it to a Nikon mount. Well, for some reason I still have the lens. As a matter of fact, with a Nikon to Leica M adapter I can even use it on my Leica M240.
Both lenses date back to the early 50s
I got the idea to take some test shots with these two lenses and compare them to my 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit and 200mm f/3.8 Novoflex. Both those lenses have proven to be excellent performers and I use them regularly.
To make this comparison test as neutral as possible, I set my camera on a tripod and shot the same subject at the same distance with all four lenses. To maintain a reasonable exposure time the camera was set to ISO 1000. Each lens was shot wide open and then stopped down through the various apertures to f/16. All four lenses were focused with the electronic Visoflex, wide open. I did not refocus for any of the smaller apertures.
All images are raw, unaltered JPG files.
Looking at the results, it is obvious that the Leica and Novoflex lenses are noticeably better at all apertures. They should be because they are substantially newer than the other two. But in a pinch one might argue that the Culminar and the Tele Megor are acceptable, as long as you have the possibility to use them at their best performing aperture.
Maximum Aperture
Steinheil 135mm f/4.5 Culminar @ f/4.5
Leica 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit @ f/2.8
Novoflex 200mm f/3.8 @ f/3.8
Meyer-Optik Görlitz 250mm f/5.5 Tele Megor @ f/5.5
Steinheil 135mm f/4.5 Culminar @ f/4.5
Leica 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit @ f/2.8
Novoflex 200mm f/3.8 @ f/3.8
Meyer-Optik Görlitz 250mm f/5.5 Tele Megor @ f/5.5
Steinheil 135mm f/4.5 Culminar @ f/4.5
Leica 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit @ f/2.8
Novoflex 200mm f/3.8 @ f/3.8
Meyer-Optik Görlitz 250mm f/5.5 Tele Megor @ f/5.5
Best Aperture
Steinheil 135mm f/4.5 Culminar @ f/8
Leica 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit @ f/5.6
Novoflex 200mm f/3.8 @ f/8
Meyer-Optik Görlitz 250mm f/5.5 Tele Megor @ f/11
Cropped Images
In the past I have written about the advantages of high performing, very sharp lenses and the ability to crop their files to give the field of view of a longer lens. Since the 250mm Meyer lens is the longest focal length in this comparison, I cropped the best files of the other three lenses to give the same field of view. I added the file of the 250 for comparison.
Steinheil 135mm f/4.5 Culminar @ f/8
Leica 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit @ f/5.6
Novoflex 200mm f/3.8 @ f/8
Meyer-Optik Görlitz 250mm f/5.5 Tele Megor @ f/11
This image is not cropped, for comparison only
Adjusted Images
I rarely use images straight out of the camera because I found that in most instances, these can be improved with Photoshop, Lightroom or similar programs. For the final comparison I cropped images of all four files and adjusted them for density and also added some sharpening in Photoshop.
I rarely use images straight out of the camera because I found that in most instances, these can be improved with Photoshop, Lightroom or similar programs. For the final comparison I cropped images of all four files and adjusted them for density and also added some sharpening in Photoshop.
Steinheil 135mm f/4.5 Culminar @ f/8
Leica 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit @ f/5.6
Novoflex 200mm f/3.8 @ f/8
Meyer-Optik Görlitz 250mm f/5.5 Tele Megor @ f/11
VERY SMALL SECTION CROP
For the final comparison I posted the same, optimized images cropped to a very small section of the original image..
Steinheil 135mm f/4.5 Culminar @ f/8
Leica 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit @ f/5.6
Novoflex 200mm f/3.8 @ f/8
Meyer-Optik Görlitz 250mm f/5.5 Tele Megor @ f/11\
Final Thoughts
Looking at the results, it should come as no surprise that the Leica 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit and the 200mm f/3.8 Novoflex outperformed the other two lenses by a relatively wide margin. As a matter of fact, the differences are actually less noticeable here because of quality losses due to compression. It must also be noted that the Leica 135mm Elmarit showed optimum performance already at f/5.6. I did not show any images at apertures smaller than f/11 because all lenses showed a loss of image quality starting at f/16.
For other articles on this blog please click on Blog Archive in the column to the right
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