For some reason I got it into my head that I’d like a Leitz 50mm F2 Summicron R. Possibly to use with a Leica body, or possibly to use with an adapter on my Sony NEX 5n. I’d read (and heard) so much about this lens that I fancied trying it. I quickly realized that the rangefinder versions cost much more than I was willing to pay, but that the SLR R-mount lenses were much less costly and that some of the SLR bodies (e.g. the R4) were not that expensive either. Was a Leica R4 with 50mm f2 Summicron R the way to go?

This was as far as I had gotten, however, when a new friend (knowing my interest in old cameras) showed me some of his. One of them was an R4 with 50mm f2 Summicron (or at least it think it was. The lens faceplate was missing, but it certainly looked like the pictures Id seen).

He kindly let me borrow it for a while to try it out. I was thinking I’d do the following:

1. Just generally try it out without film to see how I liked the handling.
2. Put a roll of film through it.
3. Get an adapter so I could try out the lens on my Nex.

I had the sense that he needed the camera back fairly soon so I quickly ruled out option 3 and I started with option 1. I quickly came to the conclusion that I didn’t like the camera all that much. Admittedly it’s solid and very well made (as you’d expect from a Leica), but it’s also very heavy. I also found the controls to be “fiddly”. Trying to use the camera in my preferred aperture priority mode also turned out to be awkward, largely because the lens was double cam (i.e. designed for the SL series of SLRs) and would only support aperture priority in stopped-down mode: a fairly tortured procedure involving pulling in the depth of field preview level while at the same time half pressing the shutter release and turning the aperture ring.

I’d also read that some early versions of the R4 (of which this was one) had bad electronics that might or might not have been fixed.

Doing more research on the internet I also discovered that the R4 was not particularly liked (for some of the reasons I’ve outlined above).

I returned the camera with my thanks. I’d certainly learned a lot.

Where do I go from here. I’m thinking that I might proceed as follows: 1) as finances allow get my hands on a Summicron R and an adapter to allow its use on Sony E-mount cameras; 2) Still later consider acquiring an R-mount body, possibly a SL2, which seems to get good reviews.