Where is it ?! APO-Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0 ASPH

[Dirk]

Maybe Leica knows something we don't. Maybe they know that in the not-too-distant future there will be new sensors that can take advantage of the ueber-quality the new lens provides. With the new lens, they can try out new design and production methods to be ready when the time comes.

 

[Turtle]

But to make a more relevant comparison, which will lose more in absolute terms in 10 years; the regular Cron or the asph APO? I suspect the latter, but a large margin, assuming availability is not an issue.

I suspect lots of people want to find novel justifications for this lens because they want one. That a person wants one is the only justification required.

+1



(bla bla for length...)

 

[rxmd]

But to make a more relevant comparison, which will lose more in absolute terms in 10 years; the regular Cron or the asph APO? I suspect the latter, but a large margin, assuming availability is not an issue.

Not sure. Seeing the current used Leica gear price bubble, ten years from now the current broad wave of rangefinder enthusiasm might well be over, and the regular Cron might be back in $400 territory where it belongs, while the new one might be a limited collectors' item with the associated price premium.

That said, this thread makes me feel like deja-vu, it feels like most points made here were made already in the earlier threads on this lens.

 

[BobYIL]

After living some decades of up and downs, after Leitz had realized that they would not be able to cope up with the competition through mere engineering and technology, they began to introduce a number of products for reasons to flatter egos first than to serve as photographically. Think about the 50/1.2 Asph. or 35/1.4 Aspherical going for much higher than $10K each today but also think about what they would mean for you as photographical objects if they were available for a fraction of what they go for today.

The days of dealing with the resolution power of a lens on Panatomic-X or Pan-F is over... today we all know that the final resolution is a product of lens + sensor, thus a lowly Nikon 50/1.8G costing about $219 on a D800E would blow off any Leica lens on any camera to come from Solms.. Today the issues of CA, distortion, etc., are solved via software, optical engineers are concentrated on some other aspects than the classical methods. May God help us if Leica comes up with a 24-70/2.8 AF lens, probably to cost over $20K! Similarly when the low-light capability in color photography is concerned we know that any lens not below f2 on any recent DSLR of over $2K can turn circles around the combination of the 0.95 Noctilux on any Leica body.

Sometimes we like to own things that are rare or not easily affordable by the majority.. For some the amount printed on the price tag means more as an indication of quality than the actual specifications. Leica has chosen to serve this mentality first; as today none of the Leica bodies are more advanced, more robust and reliable than the cameras selling for a fraction of what they cost. In the production world, engineering is to employ science for the practical benefits of human beings; if they have any engineering capacity to brag about then they should start by improving the reliability of their cameras and by improving their sensors, processors and features while asking some $7K for an already outdated design. These should be their engineering priority, for there was no shortage of excellent f2 50mm lenses.

 

[Calzone]

I'm not so sure. A very simple test I saw online compared a D800E and 45 pancake with the M9M and 50 APO Cron asph and in terms of resolution it was about a dead heat on centre. At the edge the Leica combo had the edge, but it was not fall off your chair different (albeit at middling apertures of f5.6 and 8). I would expect that by 2.8 the regular 50 cron would be next to no different to this new masterpiece in practice on print and at f2 there would be a difference, but the cheaper symmetrical cron would still be darned good. At the end of the day, how often do you shoot landscapes with corner to corner sharpness, at distance, wide open in low light so you cannot add a stop of ISO?

The notion that the M9M 'needs this lens' is marketing IMO... especially since the M9M produces very little noise at 640 and beyond.

Thanks for your insight. A Nikon D800E is also a body to consider, especially since I also have Nikon glass.

Anyways for now I'm still shooting as much film as I can.

Cal

 

[redisburning]

thus a lowly Nikon 50/1.8G costing about $219 on a D800E would blow off any Leica lens on any camera to come from Solms..

or you know, Leica could just buy a sensor from Sony with the same resolution.

you sound a bit bitter there, Bob.

 

[BobYIL]

or you know, Leica could just buy a sensor from Sony with the same resolution.

you sound a bit bitter there, Bob.

This sensor has been designed and developed by Nikon and the production has been subcontracted to Sony Semiconductor, not to Sony.. Even Sony can not use it without having a license from Nikon. And Nikon would give license to anybody else while keeping the state-of-art technology at hand?? If Leica can get the already available 24MP Sony sensor with their 16K sales a year then they should feel happy.. (Sensor sharing, processor engine sharing, even mount sharing are all critical issues, counted as proprietary products if not also as "undiscussable" during patent periods..If Sony indulged license for the 24MP to Nikon then it was because of Nikon, Nikon uses at least 10 times more APS-C and FF Sony sensors than Sony uses.. a very privileged customer... )

 

[semilog]

or you know, Leica could just buy a sensor from Sony with the same resolution.

In fact, Leica cannot just drop in an off-the-shelf sensor because of the short flange distance and small mount diameter in the M, with a corresponding stable of lenses that have rear nodal points that lie relatively close to the sensor plane and small exit pupil diameters.

As we know from the RD-1, the Fuji X-pro1, the NEX-7 and other cameras, using a sensor not optimized for these characteristics means that the image center can be OK but the image outer zones will have a poor MTF and chroma shift (and even optimized lenses have chroma shift). Consequently sensors for the M system require optimizations including thin cover glass, offset microlenses, and probably optimizations of the interference coatings on the cover glass and microlenses as well.

 

[hteasley]

I suppose so in some respects, but that is not a production car sitting in showrooms as part of a regular line up. Every main dealer will be expected to carry the new Cron.

I guess I could see Leica stores carrying it, but those are super elite boutiques. I can't imagine most dealers ordering these to sit on shelves. The only camera shops around me that sell Leica almost never keep anything in stock, they order new stuff. They may have one Summarit on the shelves, but that's it.

Is it different for other dealers?

 

[Viktor Sebastian]

In fact, Leica cannot just drop in an off-the-shelf.

Why oh why did they base it off CCD technology in the first place? :bang:

 

[redisburning]

In fact, Leica cannot just drop in an off-the-shelf sensor because of the short flange distance and small mount diameter in the M, with a corresponding stable of lenses that have rear nodal points that lie relatively close to the sensor plane and small exit pupil diameters.

As we know from the RD-1, the Fuji X-pro1, the NEX-7 and other cameras, using a sensor not optimized for these characteristics means that the image center can be OK but the image outer zones will have a poor MTF and chroma shift (and even optimized lenses have chroma shift). Consequently sensors for the M system require optimizations including thin cover glass, offset microlenses, and probably optimizations of the interference coatings on the cover glass and microlenses as well.

well, but Sony will make them a chip to order, I assume.

I mean, that is a market that Sony could never capture, they might as well try to get as much out of it as they can.

It's not like Leica has to make their own chips; they can chose from a quite large collection and if the only limitation is price we've seen that's not much of a hurdle for Leica.

 

[semilog]

Depends on what it costs to do a run in small volume. There are not exactly economies of scale with Leica.

Anyway, for Leica's sake I hope it's a Sony. No one makes better sensors and that's been consistently true for at least a decade.

The idea that Nikon "designed" their new sensors is marketing nonsense. Specified, with modifications, a Sony sensor? Sure. Fabricated in custom runs? I don't doubt it. But the underlying photosite technology is the same stuff Sony's been doing with unsurpassed expertise for 20+ years. And sitting above the photosite, Sony are the folks that invented the microlens, among many other innovations.

 

[BobYIL]

....
It's not like Leica has to make their own chips; they can chose from a quite large collection and if the only limitation is price we've seen that's not much of a hurdle for Leica.

"can chose from a large collection": Where's that collection? 🙂

Sensor market is an ultra-sophisticated one.. First, the "top" sensors are not developed to share with others. Nikon developed the 36MP sensor, Fujifilm developed the random-array 16MP sensor, who cares who manufactured them (Sony in both case) they are to be employed only by the ones developed them. If Leica succeeds to develop a similar "top" sensor then they can "own" it, otherwise they have to go with the "regular" sensor offerings of Sony, Kodak, Dalsa, etc. (Like in the X1, X2..) I doubt that Sony would share even the 24MP APS-C with anybody other than Nikon, for example..

This time they need an FF-CMOS, for CCD is far from meeting the requirements of the developing camera specifications of our day. Leica has no technology to develop a sensor, even their electronics come from Jenoptik. They did not/could not go with the Sony 24MP, so they are trying it with the French STMicrolectronics. Hopefully we will see a prototype in this Photokina.

Maybe it's early to state it but I tend to believe that the brands to rule the market in the very future would be the ones who were able to develop their own sensors and then subcontracted it to the sensor producers. The sensor manufacturers are not the sole leaders of sensor technology anymore..