The Lightweight 135mm F/4.5 Hektor by Dick Gilcreast
A rangefinder 135mm lens is particularly useful for amateur sports work. Not big and heavy like a 200 with Visoflex, or a 180 on a reflex camera, and not so short as a 90, it serves to replace all of those. Add a 50 on a second camera to take care of close shots and groups, and the two lenses together are all that is needed for a day at a grandson’s high school track meets, for instance, working with two older Leica IIIc cameras. The equipment is small and light, but still able to bring back the shots. A good choice for the long lens can be one of the lightweight 135mm f/4.5 Hektors, as seen here.
The Hektor may not be quite as fast as a later f/4 Elmar lens in SM mount, and it may not have quite the ultra-flat MTF curves of the latest lenses, but it is quite sharp, and the versions made from 1949 on are lighter in weight — and this one is black! – so I can concentrate on the shooting and not be obliged to answer bystanders’ questions, as was apt to happen when I was using a more attention-getting chrome Hektor. It makes a great lens to carry in a small bag for an afternoon at the races. Sometimes without any bag at all.
The 135mm f/4.5 Hektor is of course available in black or chrome finish, both quite common on the used market. The 1949 lighterweight versions (down from 550g to 440g) first appeared in the traditional black paint, soon changed to chrome in 1950. All are identified by a black vulcanite band around the base. Thus the only black lightweight 135 Hektors were produced in 1949 – the lens shown No. 700154 from the middle of that year – and its vulcanite band is sharkskin, seen on Leica cameras made during that same period.
But why use the old screw-mount cameras? Well, they are small and relatively light, they have comfortable handling, and they have that excellent 1.5x enlarged rangefinder image (with diopter adjustment!) combined with the instantaneous shutter response that all Leicas are famous for. Also in their favor, they keep me grounded in the essentials of photography. The great latitude of modern color negative film doesn’t need precise camera metering in outdoor conditions. Distant action doesn’t need auto parallax correction. And, with rapid action, good timing on the initial shot is needed more than rapid winding for a second backup shot. So the old cameras do as well as the newer ones under these circumstances. And the lighter bag keeps my shoulder happy.
Incidentally – although not really necessary – I have always felt it a good idea to mount and dismount the screw-mount Hektor while set at its closest distance of five feet. Many of these lenses have a partial rangefinder cam segment at the back of the lens, and the close focus retracts that cam and reduces the momentary displacement of the camera’s rangefinder coupling roller while the lens is rotated during mounting.
A good 135mm viewfinder to use for sports on any rangefinder Leica is the SHOOC brightline with its life-size 1:1 image. True, the image is not enlarged, but it makes it possible to frame the subject tightly while still seeing what is going on immediately outside the frame. It also has no distracting focus spots or rangefinder patch in the middle of the frame to divert the eye from the action. And the continuous life-size image also makes it easy to assess distance (with both eyes open if you want) as well as keeping track of pre-focus points and looking for cleaner gaps in a busy background while the action passes in front of it. This is all much more easily done in a brightline finder than when using a reflex camera with its large and constantly shifting image, tight black borders, and instant total blackout hiding the critical moment.
The record of Hektor production (Leica Pocket Book, 8th edition, Bower and Clark) shows production doubled in 1949 to 3109 lenses form the previous year’s 1786, so it was instantly popular. And with good reason. It was very sharp for its day, and still compares well now. After 1950 its production increased to well over 5000 by 1952, and, with production in both screw and bayonet mounts during the reign of the M3, the total numbers had swelled to over 10,000 per year in 1955. It stayed close to that figure each year until the introduction of the f/4 Elmar in 1960.
The slightly slower speed of the Hektor makes no difference in these days of sharp and grainless ISO 200 or 400 color negative films. But the lighter weight does make a difference compared to that excellent (but heavy) early black bayonet mount 135mm f/4 Tele-Elmar M lens which I used for a long time. As the years passed It began to feel twice as heavy as the Hektor when hung on the front of an M camera, let alone the (very heavy) 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit with goggle-eyes that I carried in Europe one summer. Two larger and heavier M cameras with four larger and heavier
lenses fi nally got to be more than I wanted to carry all day, hence my return to using a couple of IIIc bodies with 135 Hektor and 50 Summitar at day-long track meets. Exposures on ISO 400 fi lm in normal daylight will be around 1/1000th at f/8. But if the light should decrease due to clouds or a setting sun there are four stops available down to 1/200th at f/4.5 before a need to start panning the action to keep it sharp. And of course a 50mm f/2 can be used for panning at the fi nish line under evening fl oodlights, if it comes to that.
Th e 50mm brightline finder SBOOI, also with life size 1:1 vision, can be used for all 50mm work near and far, being particularly nice for viewing full frame when wearing glasses. And it has a parallax correction line for shots at closest distance when needed. It was first available in 1949 (Lager, Leica Illustrated Guide II). I got one in 1952. It helped to prepare my eye for my fi rst M3 later on… but that’s another story.