Preparations for the Unit | The Unit Arrives | Resolving the Issue | Expanding the Equipment | Preliminary Conclusions | Links

After Ricoh's official announcement of the M-mount expansion unit, I decided to buy one, although I had not intended to do so originally. Here are my first personal experiences with the new module and some of the lenses that I bought (or tried to buy).

Note: For general information about the A12 M-Mount unit see here.

 

Preparations for the Unit

In preparation of the unit, I also bought one lens and auctioned a second one, both meant to extend the range of my two A12 units at the wide and tele ends. Firstly, I bought a Voigtländer Super Wide Heliar f4.5/15mm for about 500 EUR, which is manufactured by Cosina and equivalent to a 22,5mm wide angle lens. Then, I auctioned a Leitz Elmar f4/90mm, which was originally dedicated to the Leica CL and corresponds to a 135mm tele lens. The Leica CL was manufactured for Leitz by Minolta in the 1980s. Minolta also sold an own version of this camera, even after Leitz had discarded it. I read that the Elmar was the only Japanese lens that was manufactured in Germany...

Figure: The Elmar-C (left) and the Voigtländer (right) lenses

    

Photos: The Voigtländer (left) and the Elmar-C (right) lenses

 

The Unit Arrives

Foto Koch in Germany offered the unit for pre-order in August 2011 (or even earlier), but I decided to wait after my summer holiday, which ended at the end of September. Then, however, the first wave of units had already been sold, and no more units were available in Germany thereafter (and Foto Koch had also raised the price). There was another shop in Germany that offered the unit, but it was also not immediately available. However, when I looked at their site again on October 12, the unit was - unexpectedly - available, and I managed to order and get one (it looked to me as if they had only three units...). My excitement lasted, however, for only about 15 minutes. Then the plastic knob that has to be pressed for exchanging lenses fell off. One screw remained behind a metal lever and the second was gone forever - I assume it was never there...

    

Photos: After about a quarter of an hour, the plastic knob fell off - probably it had never been fixed properly...

Nevertheless, I was still able to exchange lenses by pushing the metal lever and, thus was able to make a few test shots - the results that my two new lenses produced were very pleasing

 

Resolving the Issue

I was very frustrated by this experience and addressed my Ricoh contact, Mr. Wutzke, once again. This time, he even offered to discuss the issue with me on the phone - what we did after the weekend. In parallel, I also contacted the dealer who offered to exchange the lens. I did not expect this to be a viable option because of the few samples that were available, but obviously the units are now coming in in larger quantities... Therefore, we all agreed to have the unit exchanged by the dealer. Both the dealer and me sent the units on Tuesday, and both of us received them on Wednesday. Thus, a week after my order I finally had a functioning unit in my hands...

 

Expanding the Equipment

In October and November, 2011, I expanded my lens collection and bought eventually three Zeiss lenses for the M-mount unit, after having some trouble with decentered Voigtländer lenses.

First, at the end of October, 2011, I bought a Zeiss Sonnar T* C 1:1,5/50mm ZM (black) (75mm equiv.), my most expensive and fastest lens up to then:

    

Photos: Arrived on October 25, 2011: Zeiss Sonnar T* C f1.5/50mm ZM (black) (75mm equiv.)

Side-Step: My (Temporary) Voigtländer Skopar Pancakes

Then, I bought two Voigtländer pancake lenses, a 35mm and a 21mm one. Regrettably, both were decentered - I tested even two samples of the 35mm - so that I returned them and replaced them with two Zeiss Biogon lenses, the f2.8/35mm and the f4.5/21mm. Below are the details...

 
Photo: Arrived on November 8/17, 2011: Voigtländer Color Skopar Pancake II 1:2.5/35mm (52.5mm equiv.) -> returned (Nov 14 and Nov 21)   Photo: Arrived on November 16, 2011: Voigtländer Color Skopar Pancake II 1:4/21mm (31.5mm equiv.) -> returned (Nov 21)

The first sample of the Voigtländer Color Skopar Pancake II 1:2.5/35mm was fuzzy at the right edge. I exchanged it for another one that was fuzzy at the left edge, particularly at the lower left corner. Therefore, I decided to return it as well and bought a Zeiss Biogon 2.8/35mm. The first sample Voigtländer Color Skopar Pancake II 1:4/21mm was fuzzy at the left edge, for a change. I returned it as well and bought a Zeiss 4.5/21mm Biogon from the same dealer, which was even a little bit more expensive than my Zeiss Sonnar, in the end.

         

Photos: Voigtländer Color Skopar Pancake II 1:2.5/35mm (left) and Voigtländer Color Skopar Pancake II 1:4/21mm (right) - click photos for larger versions

All in all, I am less than satisfied with the two Voigtländer Color Skopar Pancake II lenses that I bought. While these lenses got some favorable reviews, you probably need to be very lucky when you take part in the Voigtländer lens lottery. A dealer who should know better (they have 80% of the Voigtländer market) told me that only 0.4% of the Voigtländer are returned, which ia s low as the return rate for Zeiss and Leitz lenses - regrettably mine was 75%! Obviously, I was not lucky. Therefore, with a heavy heart I decided to go for the much more expensive and bulky Zeiss Biogon lenses.

Two More Zeiss Lenses

So here are my two Zeiss Biogons that finally replaced the Voigtländer pancake lenses:

    
     
 
Photos: Arrived on November 22, 2011 as a replacement: Zeiss Biogon T* C 1:2.8/35mm ZM (black) (52.5mm equiv.)   Photos: Arrived on November 32, 2011 as a replacement: Zeiss Biogon T* C 1:4.5/21mm ZM (black) (31.5mm equiv.)

The Zeiss lenses are a little bit slower, heavier, and much more expensive than the respective Voigtländer pancakes. Up to now, I did not test them sufficiently, but first results are encouraging.

 

Preliminary Conclusions

It is far too early for me to draw any conclusions. Manual focusing is difficult, particularly with the Leica tele lens and with the 50mm Zeiss lens wide open - here my results are still inconsistent. The focusing aids that Ricoh provides with the unit (and the new function enhancing firmware update) are useful but not as useful as expected. I looks as if a lot of training (and checking after a photo has been taken) is required. Otherwise, the results that my new lenses produce with the M-mount unit are very pleasing.

 

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24.03.2012