4 primes for the Leica M EV1
When I was looking at lenses for my Leica M EV1, I immediately looked at Leica's own M glass. A fast 50. A compact 28 or 35. As with all gear hunting, it began by diving into reviews, then taking a step back to really consider how I would be shooting, and how much I wanted to spend.
As is commonly said you can generally pick two to optimize for:
- Aperture/speed (and to a degree the aesthetic of the specific style of bokeh, some people prefer lenses with more pronounced circular/"swirly" bokeh)
- Cost/size
- Image quality and sharpness
With my Sony and previous Canon, my favorite lenses were always a fast 50. I have a mid-range Canon f/1.4 and a f/1.8 Zeiss for the Sony that captured beautiful shots with great bokeh. So I first began looking for the equivalent with Leica glass.
When it comes to Leica's own lenses, a fast 50mm like the Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 ASPH costs $5,500 new. Then there's the 50mm Leica dream lens, the Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH that goes for over $14,000. There is also the well-regarded but slower Summicron-M 50mm f/2 that goes for $3,200.
With prices like these combined with my purely hobbyist needs, I began looking at third party lens options (though I did also consider some used Leica glass). While there are a lot of options out there, it's readily apparent that many people immediately turn to Voigtlander, owned by Japanese optical-glass maker Cosina. Some of their offerings even best the equivalent Leica glass (for example the APO-Lanthar series of Voigtlander glass is highly rated for absurdly sharp, low-aberration, modern lenses).
So for the price of the cheapest Leica 50mm, I picked up 4 Voigtlander lenses. I focused primarily on lens size over optical perfection. I needed more reasons to shoot, not fewer, and if my Leica setup got large and unwieldy that meant I wouldn't travel with it as often.
I haven't shot with these for too long but I'm happy with my selection. The most unexpected surprise was the size of the 75mm f/2.8 VM which just came out; I've never seen a 75mm that small.
- Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.5 II MC: Fast, compact and with smooth bokeh. I use this lens most often.
- Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f/1.5: Another fast Nokton.
- Voigtlander 28mm f/2.8 Color-Skopar: Remarkably compact. This thing is tiny. Makes the Leica M just about able to be put in a jacket pocket.
- Voigtlander 75mm f/2.8 APO-Skopar VM: The smallest and lightest M mount medium-telephoto prime I've seen at just 1.7 inches long and 191 grams.
To go with these lenses I purchased a set of B+W UV and CPL filters, though that's a bit controversial in the Leica world where it seems like people tend to shoot without UV filters and rely on a lens hood for bump/drop protection. I'm a bit too paranoid to do that just yet.
I also picked up a small 6-bit encoder kit from Akara Labs. The gist of it is that since the Leica M is entirely mechanical and has no electronics in the lenses, Leica provides a series of 6 white and black lines on the back of the lens that is read by a small sensor in the body. This way the camera knows what lens is being used and you can see that in the EXIF data in your files later. However, third-party lenses don't have this so you need to manually draw it on yourself in a very specific spot; thus the stencil.
