Canon's fast rangefinder portrait tele — 85mm f/1.9 in Leica Thread Mount, manual focus.
The Canon 85mm f/1.9 is a fast short-telephoto rangefinder lens made in Japan for the 39mm Leica screw thread. It comes from Canon's later-1950s rangefinder line, carrying the Canon name after the earlier Serenar 85mm f/1.9. It served Leica-thread and Canon rangefinder bodies as a bright portrait-length lens.
This is a manual-focus, rangefinder-coupled Leica Thread Mount lens with an 85mm focal length and a maximum aperture of f/1.9. The mount is the 39mm Leica screw thread (LTM / L39 / M39). Focus and aperture are set on the barrel by hand. Element count, weight and filter thread are omitted here because they are not verified from the gap data.
At 85mm this lens gives the flattering perspective and working distance photographers want for portraits, and at f/1.9 it blurs backgrounds well. Short teles of this generation render smoothly wide open and grow sharper on stopping down. Beyond portraits it suits candid work and tighter street compositions where a normal lens is too wide.
Buying used, inspect for haze, fungus and balsam separation in the cemented groups. Check the coatings for cleaning marks and wear, look for oily aperture blades, and confirm the focus helicoid is smooth. Rangefinder-coupling accuracy is important at 85mm, so test it on a body. It adapts well to Leica M via M39-to-M and to mirrorless using M39-to-E, M39-to-Z or M39-to-RF adapters.