Lens: Leitz Macro-Cinegon 10 mm f/1.8
Vintage: 1060's - 1970's.
Lens Mount: Leica M.
Preferred Mounting: Reversed.
Filter Thread: 39 mm.
Needed Adapters: 39mm-52mm step up ring, 52mm reversing ring, easily found on eBay.
Street Price: $1000-$2000 in good condition. Prices vary a lot online, shop around.
Controls: Aperture and focus settings.
Aperture: 5 blades.
Basic Function: Requires a bellows to set focus and magnification
Extension | Magnification | Working Distance |
adapters | 7.56 | 18 mm |
25 mm | 10.04 | 17 mm |
5 cm | 11.68 | 16 mm |
9 cm | 15.53 | 15 mm |
13 cm | 19.5 | 14.5 mm |
Appearance:
Resolution vs. Aperture:
This lens is sharpest at an aperture of f/3.3. It has the most resolution at f/2.8 with only a minimal drop in sharpness. I used and tested this lens at f/2.8.
Corner Fuzziness vs. Aperture:
Corner sharpness is very good across all of the apertures. No problems with shooting images at f/2.8.
Performance: Sharpness vs. Magnification:
I have 4 lines that represent levels of performance from outstanding (top) to fair (bottom). This shows where this lens fits into the hierarchy that I have created.
The Leitz 10mm shows sharpness performance that is in the fair category across the magnification range. I did not test this lens at a bellows setting beyond 13cm (m=20) because the shutter speeds would have been over 20s/image at maximum bellows extension.
Performance: Resolution vs. Magnification:
I have 4 lines that represent levels of performance from outstanding (top) to fair (bottom). This shows where this lens fits into the hierarchy that I have created.
The Leitz 10mm shows resolution performance that is in the good category across the upper portion of the magnification range and in the fair category in the upper magnification range.
Corner Fuzziness vs. Magnification:
The field is quite flat across this magnification range.
Resolving Power vs. Magnification:
This graph represents the smallest details that are able to be resolved by this lens at various magnificaitons. If the number doesn't get smaller as the magnification rises, there is little benefit to going up in magnificaiton with this lens. This situation is also called empty magnification.
This lens shows resolving power of about 1.2 to 1.3 micrometers fairly consistently across the magnification range. You won't get significant improvement in detail by going much above m=7.
Chromatic Aberration:
This lens show mild/moderate color fringing in the center (about 0.40 - 1.72 pixel) and moderate/severe on the periphery (0.126 - 0.334%). See the graph to the right.
There is moderate axial CA on out-of focus details (see image below) as shown by a moderate red fringe on the right and a moderate cyan fringe on the left of the image.
Longitudinal CA:
Image Contrast: Image contrast is OK, less than typical bellows lenses or microscope objectives.
Flare: This lens shows mild flare during testing in the center of the image.
Distortion: This lens shows no significant distortion during testing.
Image Samples:
About 7.5:1 magnification, f/2.8, focus stack of 30 images, resized:
Pixel level crop from the image above:
There is very good pixel level detail, no problems.
About 15:1 magnification, f/2.8, stack of 36 images, resized:
Pixel level crop from the image above:
There is OK pixel level detail, getting fuzzy, but not bad at sane image sizes.
Conclusion:
The Leitz 10mm f/1.8 Macro-Cinegon can be adapted for high magnification macro use. It needs to be reversed to work on a bellows. It performs fairly well from a magnification of 7.5:1 to about 20:1, but is limited by its fairly small aperture (for the magnification) of f/2.8. This smallish aperture is probably the reason why it doesn't get significantly more resolution as the magnification rises above 7.5:1. The working distance is good for the magnification owing to its retrofocus design. Its contrast is OK, but not great. It has fairly severe chromatic aberrations and it has some mild flare (bright spot in the center of the field mainly visible with the test target).
Despite all of the problems, the pictures that it produces are pretty good, although they can be outdone with a microscope objective or a short focal length bellows lens. You can certainly use one if you have one, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get one of these for macro use.