Will I be able to use a Voigtlander screw-mount 25mm f/4.0 or a 15mm f/4.5 lens, with a M-bayonet adapter of course, on a Leica CL and a Minolta CLE? Thanks for your answers in advance.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), February 04, 2001

Answers

This has come up on the Leica-users and there should be no problem. Both lenses are retrofocus designs and have enough clearance for the CL's metering arm. The CLE does not have a metering arm and can take most M and LTM lenses. Here are a couple of websites with more information:

http://www.cameraquest.com/cle.htm

http://www.cameraquest.com/leicacl.htm

Cheers,

-- John Collier (jbcollier@home.com), February 04, 2001.

Check out http://www.bayarea.net/~ramarren/photostuff/holhel/holhelcomp.htm

Godfrey DiGorgio did a great job of comparing the heliar 15 to the Hologon; and included photos of the results... For the test he mounted the Heliar on a CL.

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), February 04, 2001.

I have used both on the CLE. They work fine. Even the metering seemed accurate with the 15mm.(some users said they had to use compensation with this combo)

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), February 04, 2001.

Gee, thanks guys for your quick replies! My priority will the the 25mm, but if the prices are within my budget, I might just get both lenses! Thanks again! By the way, Andrew, hope you've got my e-mail about the Konica 28mm (M-Hexanon 28/2.8) lens--it does bring up the 28mm frameline in the CLE.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), February 04, 2001.

The 15 works fine on the CL. I've never owned a CLE but it has more clearance then the CL for lenses in shutter box so I can only presume that the 15 will work just fine. They also work without any problems on the M6TTL I found the metering was somewhat problematic in my use with the CL+15 combination and got my best exposures by going to a hand held incident light meter. The M6TTL has no such difficulties.

Godfrey - http://www.bayarea.net/~ramarren/

-- Godfrey DiGiorgi (ramarren@bayarea.net), February 05, 2001.

My Voigtlander 25/4 and 15/4.5 just arrived! The 15mm, wow, is really something! I haven't taken any pictures yet, but both lenses seems to mount well with a M-adapter on my Minolta CLE, with the meter working noramlly. The shop threw in a "50.75" adapter and a "35.135" adapter with my order; the former brings up the 28mm and 40mm framelines in the CLE's viewfinder while the latter only the 28mm frameline. But it really doesn't matter which adapter to use since both lenses come with their own external viewfinder. Thanks guys, once again, for all your useful information.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), February 13, 2001.

When using the 25 on the CLE, you'll get more accurate framing by using "all you can see to the edges" through the regular camera finder than the one that comes with the lens. When using the 25's finder, a trick I found is to put a small strip of black tape on the top 1/8 of the finder front. Otherwise, you'll think your getting more on the top of the photos than you are. The sides and the bottom seem pretty accurate, but it shows you more on the top than the film gets.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), February 15, 2001.

Thank you so much, Andrew, for the great tip. In fact, that was exactly what I was trying to confirm--I vaguely remembered reading somewhere on the Web about using just the CLE viewfinder's viewfinder for the 25mm and I couldn't locate the source. Thank you once again for your timely info!

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), February 16, 2001.

Andrew, Hoyin: I'm very curious as to whether you find the click-stop focusing to be an impediment, especially when working close in, and if the f/4 stop is acceptable to you. Given the price of wide Leicas and the scarcity of good M-Rokkors, the 25 looks like a winner. Even has a tab, right?

-- Joe Brugger (jbrugger@pcez.com), February 16, 2001.

Joe, I'll be using the lenses for the first time on Monday; I'll report back after that.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), February 17, 2001.

I just spent a very nice day on an island photographing some village houses today with the Voigtlander 15mm and 25mm. Haven't got the film processed yet, so I can only comment on the lenses' handling quality.

To answer Joe's queries, I didn't find the click-stop focusing an impediment; in fact, because the lens is not rangefinder coupled, I think the click-stop actually helped to set the focusing distance based on the required DOF more quickly. Working close-in is a potential problem for the non-rangefinder coupled lens, but that's not what a wideangle lens like the Snapshot-Skopar is meant for anyway.

Since I tend to use ISO 400 film (T400CN, TMAX400, Superior 400 and Provia F rated at 320 and pushed 2 stops), the f/4 maximum aperture isn't really an issue. But just for testing the lens, I used an ISO 100 Elitechrome today, and I was able to get at least 1/125 second shutter speed most of the time at f/8 aperture--well, it was a sunny day and I was shooting outdoors most of the time.

All in all, I'm very happy with the Voigtlander Super Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5. Even though the lens is not rangefinder-coupled, its immense DOF makes "guesstimating" the focusing distance a non-issue. The Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4 is a nice lens as well, but, on hindsight, the 25mm is not significantly more useful than the Konica M-Hexanon 28mm f/2.8 I already have, as the Konica lens is only slightly less wide as the Voigtlander, and it has a bigger maximum aperture and, most of all, is rangefinder coupled to the CLE.

For the CLE, I think a rangefinder-coupled Leica, Rokkor or Konica 28mm lens makes better sense than the non-rangefinder coupled Voigtlander 25mm. However, the opposite is probably true for the CL, as the camera has neither frameline nor, if I'm not wrong, rangefinder coupling for a 28mm lens--if you have to use an external viewfinder for either lens, you might as well go for one with a wider coverage.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), February 19, 2001.

Hoyin: Thanks for the rundown on your Voigtlander experiences. I personally never adapted to the 28mm focal length, so I'll probably keep my eyes open for a bargain on the 24/2.8 and its RF coupling. After selling my M2s a couple years ago when the collector market soared (wasn't using them much) I'm having a lot of fun with the CLE.

-- Joe Brugger (jbrugger@pcez.com), February 20, 2001.

You're most welcome, Joe! I just got my test roll back from the lab and I'm able to report on the result. It seems that the Voigtlander 15mm experiences similar metering problem on the CLE as Godfrey did using the same lens on his CL. My slides show that the daylight shots (bright sunny weather on the day of the shots) are consistently underexposed by about 1/2 to 2/3 of a stop, but the ones taken with the dedicated CLE flash are perfectly exposed. Clearly, the necessary exposure compensation adjustment is needed if one is to use the built-in meter in the CLE with the Voigtlander 15mm lens. The good slides are very sharp and contrasty--no complain in this regard. The 15mm and the 25mm's wasn't a problem--all of slides are sharp, is just a matter of ensuring that the focus is set to a distance that gives DOF to infinity with the selected aperture (it's quite easy to read the DOF scale on the lens). I'm testing the 15mm with a roll of Provia 100F (rated at ISO 320 and push-processed 2 stops) on a Leica M4-P with a handheld meter; I will report back as soon as the slides are back from the lab.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), March 07, 2001.

The slides are back! Result: Voigtlander 15mm on a M4-P metered with a handheld incident meter--perfect exposure, just as Godfrey said. Andrew mentioned that he got correct exposure with his CLE without exposure compensation; it could be because Andrew had used print film, which has sufficient lattitude to compensate for that little bit of exposure inaccuracy.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), March 14, 2001.