So I'm seriously afflicted with Leica enjoyment: Enjoying the heck out of my M-D and CL, and the R6.2 I picked up for a song recently. The photos I'm getting from these cameras are just so satisfying.
I tend to use a fast normal lens most of the time. And for the R and M I have 50mm f/1.4 or 50mm f/2 choices … more than one of them. So I was planning on buying the APO-Summilux-TL 35mm f/1.4 ASPH to use with the CL, the dedicated normal for the format. But. It's kind of a bulky lens. And I could only use it on the CL since it's Leica L-mount and a fully dedicated, electronic lens. And it ain't inexpensive, being around $2500 or so. Hmm. I was thinking of all this and looking through some photos I've made in the distant past. And some of my favorite photos made with the Pentax APS-C bodies were made with the 43mm f/1.9 Limited. And I remember looking for one of the special versions of this lens made for Leica Thread Mount an eon ago and being a little put off by the price (over $1100 at that time with the dedicated 43mm optical finder). So I looked for a LTM mount SMC-Pentax-L 43m f/1.9 Limited again and several popped up. Prices are not much different than they were for the complete set in EXC++ to near-MINT examples. But again. I found a couple without the finder down in the $650-700 range. And one looked very clean and pretty, with original caps. And I thought to myself, "That's a lot less than $2500, and I can use it on both my CL and my M-D. And it's that very nice 'long-normal' equivalent focal length around 65mm.." The 40mm optical finder is irrelevant for the CL (EVF body), and I've got an LTM to M-mount adapter for 35mm which I feel fits the 43mm FoV well enough for the M-D (and I can flip to the 50mm framelines easily enough with the M-D's frameline preview selector for a comparison .. I know exactly how the 43mm FoV relates to those two lenses). And for close focusing on the CL, I have the Leica ELPRO close-up lenses that work very very nicely. It's on the way. I'll be able to contribute a couple of NEW pictures to the PDML annual this year! :-) onwards! G — No matter where you go, there you are. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
