Leica's 3-in-1
Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50mm Lens Review
Logging my 50th blog last night reminded me of the 50th Anniversary of the launch of the Leica M-series... so I'm going to post occasional reviews based on my own use of that system. I'm starting with the M6 and will retrace steps to a much earlier model that I sensibly owned but foolishly don't any more. As a hint... it will be a Leica but it may not be an M!
A first for Leica can be seen in two ways... as either a catching up with the rest of the industry after many years of extra and thoughtful R&D or an innovation that the rest of the industry might just look at and have to think twice about. However, when Leica announced their new Tri-Elmar-M lens to an admiring if not astonished cognoscente in 1998 it fell into neither of those categories.
Varifocal, as opposed to proper zoom lenses, have been marketed before... and in this photographic age in which the ubiquitous autofocus zoom has reached an unprecedented state of optical and mechanical quality there is little need for a lens of different focal lengths which then requires manual focusing adjustment after its focal length has been, also manually, changed. But of course the Leica M is a rangefinder camera with a direct vision viewfinder incorporating "floating" frame lines, or pairs of frames on recent models, which snap-in with individual lens changes to show the focal length in use. As such, "in-between" focal lengths cannot be seen... and anyway Leica is different as we should all know by now.
Leica must have thought hard, however, about what their customers would want and came up with a neat solution to a problem which exists, even if most photographers don't know it exists. The problem, if I can call it that, is that zooms tend to be used at either extreme of their focal lengths and not so often at the many in-between lengths that are offered. I've been as guilty of this as anyone... my regular 35-70 Nikkor was used mainly at 35mm or 70mm, and my 80-200 at either 80mm or 200mm. I suspect that many of you do the same... we simply do not use our variable focal length lenses enough at their many other variables.
Leica thus came up with an innovation that some may have thought the start of a new trend... a "varifocal" lens. Indeed some of the more hopeful cognoscente were already commenting that if it could be done as a 28-35-50 then why not in the potentially more useful 35-50-70 range? [November 2006 update: I can add that with the Leica M8 digital body announced at Photokina, September 2006, the sensor crop factor of x1.33 effectively converts the 28-35-50mm Tri-Elmar to a 37-46-66mm lens... close to a very useful 35-50-70mm range. And a second Tri-Elmar-M announced at Photokina 2006 with a 16-21-24mm focal length range for th edigital M8 becomes the equivalent of 21-28-32mm on a film-loading body.]
Tri-Elmar-M f/4 28-35-50mm Aspheric
I should mention that this review / summary is for the first version of the Tri-Elmar... it was later superseded by a newer model with depth-of-field markings on the lens barrel and other mechanical improvements. The Tri-Elmar is a compact lens combining the three most popular focal lengths for the Leica M-series of 28mm, 35mm and 50mm. Comprising 8 elements in 6 groups the high image performance of the lens is enhanced by two "aspherical" elements being used... one to reduce distortions, the other to reduce monochromatic aberrations to a minimum.
Leica guardedly admit that overall the lens produces "good to very good" image performance at all focal lengths at between f/5.6 and f/8 with only slight distortion seen at 28mm compared to the prime 28mm f/2.8 Elmarit lens. At all three lengths the Tri-Elmar-M apparently exhibits very slight vignetting - a darkening of the corners potentially seen in even toned areas such as clear blue skies - but is totally absent two stops down at f/8. At full aperture the contrast produced by this lens is excellent and it is only necessary to stop down to f/5.6 in practice to reach optimum performance.
Tri-Elmar-M in use
My experience with the Leica M system dates back to the late 70s as a TV and film "stills" photographer. My regular Nikons were too noisy in studios after working practices changed... not mine, but the studios. When I worked as a designer in television in the 60s stills were taken during proper full-dress rehearsals, but by the mid-70s directors would "take" each scene from the start of the day on the assumption that it might be the best performance... if not the video tape was wiped and reused. Thus, the near-silent Leica M became the best camera to use without ire from the director's box above. And of course the other factor which suited stills photographers was that the M was far easier to focus under the (often less than) subtle studio lighting.
So there I was with Leica's 28 Elmarit, 35, 50 and 90 Summicrons constantly being juggled between an M4-2 an M4-P, trying to do my job without distracting the actors by moving in front of their eye-line. I never wished for a Tri-Elmar in those days (the option never occurred to me) but I think it would be a very useful TV studio tool today, despite its f/4 maximum aperture, given that film technology has improved considerably in the past decade or so.
However, because Leica M users don't use tripods (I know, I know, a tripod is worth a couple of stops and puts an ordinary lens sometimes on par or better than a much higher specified but hand-held example) it follows that they load their camera with fast film. They take pictures on the move, candidly, sometimes in places where AF SLR cameras would begin to need "focus assist" from a projected IR beam. That is the beauty of the M and why so many photojournalists use them.
And there lies the rub... the Tri-Elmar is too slow at f/4 for those applications where the Leica M excels... the focusing isn't affected because you view and focus through a bright viewfinder, not a prism and lens, but the corresponding shutter speed you have to set on the camera comes down and down to the point where you have to use faster and faster film to compensate.
On the other hand, for outdoor applications when the light is inevitably more favourable having three focal lengths in one package is extremely convenient. In fact I've changed my style... I've almost become a one-camera-one-lens-at-a-time photographer, thoroughly enjoying and learning from the extra effort required to see with one lens and record an image or two of some consequence to me. So although the Tri-Elmar may make life a little easier with its options of wide to standard views, conversely it offers a choice of views which may distract from the goal of the 35mm or 50mm "viewing" purist of whom there are many in the Leica camp. To decide if the lens is for you, you really have to try it out first... not an easy option with a price tag of around £1,700 [£1,850 in late 2006].
Problem areas?
First I have to describe some operational difficulties. There are three milled rings on the lens barrel... for focusing, focal length selection and aperture. On all modern Leica M optics the aperture ring is in the forward position on the lens and the focusing ring near to the body - so no problems there. On the Tri-Elmar the focal length adjustment ring is in the middle position... and this does take getting used to because it's probably the least used ring in the most convenient position... in the centre of the lens barrel. Also the three focal lengths are not in a sequential 28-35-50. Due to the constructional constraints imposed on the designers they are in an unnatural 28-50-35 sequence and so take some time getting used to.
When launched the lens was only available in black finish and consequently, perhaps, the focus, focal length and aperture ring actions are not quite as smooth as with a silver or titanium model due to the different materials used in their construction. However, one advantage of black M lenses is that they are between 75gms and 200gms lighter than silver and titanium examples due to the use of different, lighter alloys necessary for black coating.
When all is said and done the accuracy and ease of focusing of an M Leica is paramount. Those well-known photojournalists of the past 30 years or so whose work we cannot help but admire - Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Ralph Gibson, Joseph Koudelka, Eugene Smith and others spring to mind - all use or used the M intuitively by having the lens in-focus by the time the camera is / was raised to their eye. They know their equipment so it becomes one with them... they know that when the focusing tab on a 50mm or 35mm Summicron is in a certain position then the focus is set for, say, ten feet and that the image is going to be spot on... depth-of-field taking care of the rest of course! Photojournalists don't really use the viewfinders of Leica Ms as amateurs would, so I think that fiddling about with the Tri-Elmar's focusing, and view selection, would demean the essence of the camera for them.
Though not directly related I would like to quote Ansel Adams, "...constant practice is necessary to master a craft - exactitude can be attained only through relentless repetition," ...so learn how to use your equipment and then you won't feel it's getting between you and the subject.
But these, what I call initial operational difficulties would not be the case for travellers for whom the lens would be the answer to the usual problems of what to carry, where and when. In more casual situations than the hard world of photojournalism or street photography the Tri-Elmar is in its element offering a choice of views which on paper don't appear too varied but in the viewfinder are more than enough for most people.
Advantages
I rarely carried the 28mm, 35mm and 50mm Leica lenses together in my bag because I considered the 28mm and 35mm, or the 35mm and 50mm too close together... but the speed with which the frame selection and angle of view is changed on an M6 plus Tri-Elmar combination opened up my eyes, literally, to the true difference in angle of view between a 28mm and 35mm, and a 35mm and 50mm. Seeing the suspended frame-lines in the slightly wider than 28mm viewfinder is a revelation. I realised in a very short time with this varifocal lens just how different the 35mm angle of view is to the standard 50mm.
I took many photographs with the Tri-Elmar at all three focal lengths for comparison purposes and found that the optical system is so well corrected with two aspheric elements that resolution does not noticeably improve at all on stopping down at any of the three focal lengths... in other words, the lens can be used at its widest aperture for much of the time if necessary. Considering that with an f/1.4 or f/2 lens it is customary to stop down to f/4 to gain a bit of resolution, if not depth-of-field, it was a revelation to find that under less than perfect lighting conditions I could use this lens at maximum aperture and not suffer the consequences seen with many other lenses from several other systems.
An interesting review was carried out by Erwin Puts at Tri-Elmar test where after extensive testing with a pre-release prototype he found that only the most recent versions of the 28mm, 35mm and 50mm single focal length M lenses bettered the Tri-Elmar... and that all of the earlier generations (which are no slouches) were outclassed by a noticeable margin. Furthermore, the current versions of these lenses were equalled in performance in many picture taking situations.
I'm not going to try to qualify Erwin Puts' statements which are highly regarded in any case... it is up to you to decide what type of photographer you are, or are becoming, in order to justify the purchase, or not, of such a desirable lens. The 50mm f/2 Summicron is outstanding as a "street" lens and justification enough to go back to using a standard lens for much of one's photography. After a while you don't find that fixed focal length limiting and by using your own two feet you can quickly alter the framed area of a grabbed scene in the viewfinder... (as Korean war photographer David Douglas Duncan said, "Get close, then get closer") and the clarity of the viewfinder makes it easy after practice.
If, however, you are a traveller who likes to go lightweight then the Tri-Elmar is probably the lens for you. You only have to compare the tidiness of the lens compared to the bulk of a pro-spec AF zoom in the 24-85mm range to realise that all the extra glass necessary with an SLR lens, plus the motor-driven focus drive, etc., weighs heavy on the shoulder and wallet regions!
On his Luminous Landscape site Michael Reichmann also said, "I am extremely happy with the Tri-Elmar. It exactly meets my needs for a walk-about lens for street and travel shooting under normal light conditions, even with ISO 100 colour transparency film."
Gradually I'm turning away from 35mm SLRs because of their increasing technological complexity and battery dependency... whilst at the same time gaining nothing that a manual camera and meter cannot provide in the hands of a someone with a modicum of understanding about light and exposure. Most of the features of most of todays cameras are underused by the majority of camera users... they are arguably the product of company and advertising one-upmanship in the never-ending race for more sales.
If I were a photojournalist I would worry that the Tri-Elmar was also too highly specified offering three lenses in one and as a result under specified in having a maximum aperture of only f/4. But if I were a traveller the lens would almost be the perfect companion... apart from the annoying cut-off within the 28mm viewfinder frame because of the length of the lens. As I'm not the former any more and can hardly claim or aspire to be the latter (caring for my wife nowadays) I feel I'm wrestling with the old problem... do I really need it or do I simply want it? I once became so overburdened with equipment that my photographic creativity suffered. I think the Tri-Elmar would have released me from that burden and freed me up to do more interesting personal photography... and more often.
8:13:58 PM 
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