Angenieux S3 75mm F1.8 Lens

Angénieux is a French optics company in Paris founded by Pierre Angenieux in 1935. It has manufactured lenses for still and movie cameras, and also for military applications. 

The Angenieux Type S3 Lenses are the rarest and most expensive offered by Angénieux Paris. The Angenieux S3 75mm F1.8 is arguably more rare and better portrait performer than the Amazing Angenieux S3 100mm F2. It is the Holy Grail of Angenieux Lenses due to its insane rarity but also it’s magical rendering, thus demands astronomical prices in the current market.

What’s so magical about the Angenieux S3? It combines the best of both worlds, the sharpness and charmastic rendering from the Angenieux S5 & P1, with slight hint of the magical glow from the S21. The bokeh is very unique with a swirly character and is extremely smooth.

Specifications

Lens Mount: Leica M

Format: 35mm | 120mm (Covers Medium Format)

Focusing: Manual Focus (MF)

Diaphragm: 12 Blades

Maximum Aperture: F1.8

Minimum Aperture: F22

Closet Focusing Distance: ~0.8m

Filter Size: 49.5mm

Gallery 

Angenieux Type P1 90mm F1.8 Lens

Angenieux Type P1 90mm f/1.8

Angénieux is a French optics company in Paris founded by Pierre Angenieux in 1935. It has manufactured lenses for still and movie cameras, and also for military applications.

The Angenieux 90mm F1.8 Type P1 is a famous portrait lens made by Angénieux between 1950 to 1961 and available in A1 or A2 models. The lens is well-known for its extreme high resolution, exceptional smooth bokeh and romantic colour rendering.

Specifications

Lens Mount:

M39 | M42 | Exakta | Rectaflex

Production Year: 1950

Construction:

5 Elements / 4 Groups

Diaphragm: 12 Blades

Maximum Aperture: F1.8

Minimum Aperture: F22

Closet Focusing Distance: 1m

Filter Size: 56mm

Weight: 380g

Gallery

Alpa Kern Macro Switar 50mm F1.8/F1.9 Lens

Introduction

The Alpa Kern Macro Switar 50mm was exclusively made for Alpa cameras by Kern Aurau in Switzerland. Alpa is a precision Swiss watchmaker combined forces with Kern who was famous for making optical glass at the time to produce this legendary lens. The Kern Switar 50mm F1.8 was firstly introduced in 1951 and replaced by Macro Switar in 1958 with close focusing capability of 28cm for macro photography. The Kern Macro Switar 50mm F1.9 was introduced in 1968 with revised lens design and newer coatings for improved optical performance.

Build Quality

Alpa is known as the precision watchmaker thus no surprise that the Alpa Kern Switar 50mm lenses were extremely well engineered. The build quality is excellent and on par with well-known cinematic lens makers such as Angenieux or Schneider at the time. The Kern Switar 50mm lenses were hand assembled and finished in either chrome, black paint or combination of both. 

Image Quality

Image quality from the Alpa Kern Switar 50mm lenses are exceptional and the lens excels at macro photography. Images produced are extremely sharp with high contrast and vivid colour saturations. Alpa claimed that this is an apochromatically corrected lens of unequalled quality, which is found to be true in most situations.

The Kern Macro Switar 50mm Lenses have close focusing capability when used with liveview for macro photography. The details retained by this lens is incredible with extreme sharpness and pleasant rendering, which is an amazing achievement on modern rangefinders.

Practical Use

Unlike Modern lens design, when the aperture ring is turned that the yellow dots appeared indicating the visifocus depth-of-field scale for the selected aperture stops. The focus ring has an extremely long throw and takes several turns to reach the minimum focusing distance of 28cm equivalents to 1.8x magnification, which is extremely useful for close-up work.

Modern photography technological aids such as live-view or high resolution electronic viewfinder, which allows to maximise the ability of the Kern Macro Switar 50mm Lenses to reach its full potential for macro photography.  

Alpa Kern Macro Switar 50mm F1.8

VS

Alpa Kern Macro Switar 50mm F1.9

The Kern Switar 50mm F1.9 Lens was introduced later with revised lens design and newer optical coatings compared to the Kern Switar 50mm F1.8 Lens for improved performance. The Kern Switar 50mm F1.8 has golden yellow colour coating whereas the Kern Switar 50mm F1.9 has golden yellow with purple coloured coatings.

The Kern Switar 50mm F1.9 has updated lens design with an additional element with 8 elements in 5 groups compared to 7 elements in 5 groups of the Kern Switar 50mm F1.8 Lens. The Diaphragm blades also have been moved forward in position. The improved lens design resulted better optical performance for the newer Kern Switar 50mm F1.9 Lens.

Lens Versions

 Nekogahora Camera Collection (Clockwise)

1. Macro Switar 50/1.9 (Surgical 81)
2. Macro Switar 50/1.9
3. Macro Switar 50/1.9 (Gold Plated)
4. Kern Aarau Switar (Automatic Diaphragm)
5. Macro Switar 50/1.8 (Black Paint)
6. Macro Switar 50/1.8

Adapters

There are three popular Alpa to Leica M adapter options on the current market and the price is reflected in it’s materials & build quality. The finish of the adapters are mostly in either Chrome or Black and most adapters are Rangefinder Coupled. However, during actual use might require manual calibration to work perfectly on Rangefinders.

I will rank the adapter brands from most to the least expensive:

1. Shogun
2. Metabones
3. Kipon

Specifications

Lens Mount: Alpa

Production Year:  1951 (F1.8) | 1968 (F1.9)

Construction:

7 Elements / 5 Groups (F1.8) 

8 Elements / 5 Groups (F1.9)

Diaphragm:  9 Blades

Maximum Aperture:  F1.8 | F1.9

Minimum Aperture:  F22

Closet Focusing Distance:  0.28m

Filter Size:  48mm

Weight:  280g

Gallery 

Canon 85mm F1.8 LTM Lens

The Canon 85mm F1.8 LTM is arguably the best Canon 85mm RF lens made. It is relatively hard to find and has very high reputation as a portrait lens without the softness associated with most vintage lenses. It has similar resemblance to the older Canon 100mm F2 LTM lens but with improved ergonomics and optical performance.

Build Quality

The Canon 85mm F1.8 is a solid and compact lens for its focal length. It’s compact dimensions and solid build quality is perfect balance on Leica M Rangefinders. The lens is all metal construction with design consisting of focusing and aperture ring turning simultaneously.

Image Quality

The Canon 85mm F1.8 LTM is a vintage lens that offers relatively modern rendering with typical Fuji signature colours. The lens produces sharp contrasty images and renders like newer modern glass. There isn’t noticeable flare or vignetting with this lens and it renders image beautifully for 1970’s Lens.

The Lens offers a relatively fast maximum aperture at F1.8. When shot wide open, it produces pleasant bokeh and smooth out of focus area. The image rendering is classic with natural and vibrant colours.

Practical Use

The Canon 85mm F1.8 LTM is in original Leica Thread Mount hence requires a LTM-to-M adapter to work properly on Leica M Cameras.

The focusing throw on this lens is very long but very smooth at the same time. When adjusting for aperture, since the lens has no dual helicoil mount and the aperture ring turns with focusing throw. This can be confusing during practical use as both aperture and focus turn at the same time.

Canon 85mm F1.8 vs Canon 85mm F1.9

The main difference in terms of image quality is when shooting both lenses wide open. The Canon 85mm F1.8 LTM is definitely sharper and more contrasty than the Canon 85mm F1.9 LTM at their respective maximum aperture, this is partially due to their optical design. When shooting wide open, the bokeh of the Canon 85mm F1.8 is more smooth and pleasant in comparison to the Canon 85mm F1.9 lens.

The size and weight of the Canon 85mm F1.8 is bigger and heavier than the Canon 85mm F1.9 lens. It is slightly larger in dimensions and around 100 grams more in weight. There is also a difference in applicable filter size for both lenses with 58mm for the Canon 85mm F1.8 lens and 48mm for the thinner Canon 85mm F1.9 lens.

Specifications

Lens Mount: Leica Thread Mount (LTM)

Production Year: 1960 - 70s

Construction: 7 Elements / 6 Groups

Diaphragm: 13 Blades

Maximum / Minimum Aperture:  F1.8 - F22

Closet Focusing Distance: 1m

Dimensions: 75mm x 60mm

Filter Size: 58mm

Weight: 470g

Conclusion

The Canon 85mm F1.8 LTM is an excellent short telephoto lens, it has plenty of character and shoots eye-pleasing portraits. The lens has great colour rendition and produces contrasty images. It is an amazing lens for Leica M you won’t regret buying, that is if you can find one.