3 ZM lenses reviewed

please note that with regard to the 21 biogon they suggest that the 21 elmarit is prob the one to get but seeing as they do not directly compare or test the Leica lens there is little to substantiate this comment. As far as the sonnar was concerned I was always under the vague impression that it was not the sharpest lens about but the signature was its reason for being.

And as for the comment somewhere that the ZM 21 4.5 in the pipeline is not expected to be a super performer as it is a reincarnation of an old lens, this does not appear to be the case at all. Preliminary tests suggest that this lens is truly outstanding from wide open rather than a piece of nostalgia...in fact sharper than the 21 2.8 biogon which Putz suggests is as good as the elmarit...
 
I don't know that I would really trust that review.

On the one hand, I am not surprised at all that the summilux ASPH blows away the Sonnar C wide open. As others have said, the Sonnar C is not supposed to be sharp wide open in the same way. It is a classic lens designed for bokeh and character, while the summilux ASPH is designed for the absolute maximum resolution, contrast and freedom from aberrations. I also would not be surprised if the 50/1.5 Nokton also outperformed the Sonnar C in many technical ways. The Sonnar C is designed to make beautiful images, not blisteringly sharp ones. Or at least that is my understanding. If you want a sharp photo, choose a Summicron, Summilux ASPH, Nokton, Hexanon, Planar etc etc. I see the Sonnar C as a remake of something like the Nikon 50/1.4 LTM or the Summarit. They don't seem to get that over at the Luminous Landscape.

As for the 21mm, I am not quite sure what the problem is...I bought the 21mm Biogon to replace the 21mm CV, and it is definitely way ahead of the Skopar. More diligent tests by Sean Reid show that it is neck and neck with the 21mm Elmarit. Frankly, if they don't even realize that the 21mm CV is rangefinder coupled, how far can you trust them?
 
If the variance in plane of focus is the same as what I experienced with the two Sonnars I had I can tell you it is not acceptable. At 5 meters the plane of focus was as much as 10cm ahead of the intented area. I could not reliably get a sharp point of focus on the lens above F2.8.

This is all strange because the ORIGINAL Sonnar F1.5 did not show these effects...I have never had a problem landing the point of focus on my Contax or with any Leica mount Sonnars from the old days.

As I said earlier, I cross checked two lenses on two seperate cameras and the result was the same. Sorry for the rubbish quality of the shots, but it was for test purposes only.

See attached:
 

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(Disclaimer: I often remember things wrong.)

Do I remember reading something about focal point differences between the Zeiss Ikon and Leica M bodies? Seems to me it was in an article published right around the time the Zeiss Ikons were released for sale. Someone had posited that Leitz lenses assumed the film plane was a few millimeters closer or farther away than where it was on othe Zeiss body. (I don't understand the theory, I just remember the words.)

Wouldn't the reverse also be true, with a Zeiss lens on a Leica body? If so, wouldn't it be apt to show up with a shallow depth of field lens like a 50/1.5 wide-open?

The Luminous landsacpe test used an M8. problems.

Mr. States reports he used the lens on an M6. Problems.

What body is Mr. sebastel using, I wonder? Has anyone used this lens on a Zeiss Ikon body and had these problems? Has anyone tried this bottle on *both* Zeiss Ikon and Leica m bodies? Would anyone so equipped care to do so?

Joe'll be using a Zeiss lens on a Zeiss body. Wondering what we'll hear from him. And I wonder if he has an M-series body lying around...?
 
joachim said:
Please get my right, I am not saying the C-Sonnar sucks. Just ultimate sharpness was not one of it's design goals.

So the review at luminous landscape did only discover what Zeiss marketing tells you anyway. Where is the beef?
Click to expand...

You have to be kidding, right? When a photographer picks up a lens, mounts it on the camera and focuses it on a subject, he or she expects the image to be IN FOCUS at the plane of expected focus, not somewhere else! I can't believe that this obvious and simple fact has gone missing in much of this discussion.

Ron
 
This came from some postulating by E Puts. It's nonsense. I have the Planar F2 and it focuses perfectly, as does the 35 and 21. The differences seen in my samples are more than manufacturing variance.

As you can see in the samples the kind of error I am refering to makes the lens unusable at wide aperture. Puts was speculating on differences of fractions of a micron.

It is notable that the focus cams for the Sonnar seem to be differently constructed than the other ZM or Leica lenses. It is possible that Zeiss tries to compensate for non linear behavior in focusing at wide aperture with a special focus cam and has just miffed the job.

Best wishes.

Dan
 
As an addendum to the samples posted above I want to add that the cameras used focus perfectly with the Summilux M and Noctilux lenses I have owned, so I feel strongly that the lenses are the issue, not the cameras.

Dan
 
When I first tried the 50/2 ZM Planar on my MP, I found a slight optical focusing error on super-critical resolution testing at f/2 while the Summicron did a bit better. By f/4 they were equally sharp. In that case the Planar optically focused slightly in front of the film plane even though both had the same exact infinity focus with the camera's rangefinder patch. I felt it was probably deliberate in the design philosophy to compensate for film bowing slightly forward within the film gate on ZM bodies.
 
Um....I must say I am feeling more an dmroe turned off to the sonnar now, I cant afford to be out on a project and second guessing me lens focusing. Does the planar have this all over the place focus problem? I must say im quite disapointed.
 
It is interesting how the negative comment of one person posted on the website of LL leads to such a discussion. To be honest - my first thought was „oh **** - have bought the wrong lens, should have taken the planar“. And that, although I am satisfied with the results of the Sonnar so far.

The reason for being satisfied, however, might be that I not often use 1.5. I often shot landscapes or photos of my kids. Landscapes with 1.5 - not really often the case. And photos of my kids - it is difficult to focus a correctly a 3 year old girl. And it is good to have some depth of field.

But depth of field is the crucial point. And this is exactly what LL says: „Just be aware that at f/1.4 and f/1.5 these lenses can be difficult to focus accurately. Even the tiniest focusing errors will be seen, because depth of field is very small indeed.“

And that is also to reason why the test shots posted here IMHO do not say anything about the quality of the lens - the deth of field is simply too small at 1.7 or 1.5. Maybe the person on the photo moved a little bit, maybe the photographer. How knows. This leads us to the other test shots that are often posted: brick walls. There it might be possible to see differences between lenses - but in real world I do not take photos of brick walls - landscapes and my kids are my point of interest. Accordingly test shots either cannot be used or are not relevant for my purpose.

LL says further: „in my non-rigerous and highly subjective (!!) comparisons between the Sonnar and the Summilux I found the Leica lens to be superior wide open, but otherwise these lenses are both stellar performers.“

I bought the Sonnar and not the Planar, because the price was the same. I like the results and I take into consideration why I started to use a rangefinder and not a DSLR. I wanted to have a small camera for people shots. And not for brick walls.
 
The 50mm Planar ZM has no problem focusing where the rangefinder indicates focus is, and is fine wide open or stopped down with no apparent focus shifts. I've used mine on Leica M7 and Hexar RF cameras with repeatable success.

I have a C-Sonnar too, and contact sheets look fine. I've only printed a photo from a negative shot at a middle aperture (f/4 or f/5.6), The print shows slightly soft corners, but focus seemed to be fine. I'll look into whether my more wide open shots show front focusing, but I don't think my sample is as off as Dan's is.
 
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First: The C Sonnar is not a razor, OMG, sharp lens at f 1.5. It draws differently than other lenses. It draws like a Sonnar. If you want the Sonnar look, buy the C Sonnar ZM.

Second: If you can afford 2-3 times more for a new or like-new Summilux, buy it.

Third: If you think it's important to use a sharpest lens possible, buy the Summilux even if you can't afford it.

Fourth: If you don't want a the Sonnar look, and you can't afford the asph. Summilux, buy the Nokton. It will likely be sharper wide open.

Having said that, here is a recent photo with two crops. This came from a C Sonnar wide open using a ZM body and TriX exposed at ISO 800. The camera was hand-held at 1/125.

The negative was scanned using a Cannon 9950F and SilverFast Pro in 48 bit color mode as a "raw" (see below) 3584 X 2368 tiff file. This single-pass scan was made without sharpening.

The file was converted to monochrome using Adobe Lightroom. The photo was cropped to 3434 X 1932 (16:9 format). While the tonality was optimized in Lightroom, it was not shaprpened. The two crops are Lightroom 4:1 Navigator crops. The crops are screen captures from Lightroom saved as tiff files.

For my money, the C Sonnar records sufficient detail at f 1.5.

willie



note: Silverfast will scan and record data straight from the sensor. Silverfast calls this a HDR file. But HDR does not mean multiple scans with different tonality are added together. This sort of file is similar to a digital camera RAW file. The data manipulation by the scanner driver software is minimal. Here HDR is just Silverfast market-speak for a RAW file from a scanner.
 

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Once again, if a lens is unable (IF the reports and anecdotal descriptions are to be believed) to focus at the point you expect to focus at, it is not worth a plug nickle. No matter how beautifully it "draws", if it isn't in focus, it isn't in focus. period.

Ron
 
This review, like some other reviews on Luminous recently, is irresponsible. It's quite obvious the reviewer has an anti-Zeiss bias. Not only does he skewer the ZM Sonnar unfairly, he compares the build quality of the $3800 15mm German built Distagon and complains that the more consumer friendly (read: more affordable) Cosina built Zeiss lenses are inferior. He even complains about the Zeiss blue dot! Focusing issues with a fast lens on a rangefinder camera aside, his 50mm Sonnar is obviously a bad sample. Any responsible reviewer who experienced this kind of problem with a lens should request another sample from the manufacturer---while mentioning the problems with the bad sample in the review. But let's put this in context. When Michael Reichmann reviewed the Leica M8, he experienced the subsequently much discussed issues with excessive infrared sensitivity and banding. When Leica requested he OMIT these issues in his review, he agreed. As far as I’m concerned, Luminous lost any credibility with this decision. A former reviewer on Luminous, Sean Reid, had the good sense to start his own review web site. If you want strong intellectual rigor with a practical, unbiased approach, I suggest you give his reviews a look. I don't waste my time with anything written on Luminous Landscape.
 
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Hell, I'm still laughing too hard from the Luminous Landscape article that claimed the Canon 30D was the equivalent of medium format filim to notice anything new they've written. 😀
 
i will soon start the journey of finding my own truth with this lens, at least my copy.
i shot a short roll of delta 100 this morning at the farmer's market.
no great art i think as the muse was still in bed when i was out shooting.
but i'll begin to get an idea of how the lens does what it does.

will process and scan later on today.

joe
 
Maybe not enough people have one or those that do don't run tests shots (simple large ad or news print at around 8-10 ft will do) at various apertures to test perfomance. I've yet to see posted a series of test shots or direct comparisons (suject to same subject) with a ZM Planar, Leica 'cron or 'lux with this lens. I'm sure someone has been curious enough to put it through it's paces, right?
 
People are confusing "signature" with "defect". The lenses I used, and apparantly LL used are defective. It has nothing to do with a "look" because the areas AHEAD of the intended point of focus are sharp as hell.

A look at the MTF data for the Sonnar C indicates that while it is not at the Summlux ASPH level, if it is working properly it should be at LEAST at good as any of the SLR Planar 1.4's and substaintially better than the older Summilux M.

A PROPERLY FOCUSED SONNAR C SHOULD BE SHARP AT FULL APERTURE. Unfortunately for some lenses acurate focusing is not possible.

I for one would like to get this resolved so I can get the Sonnar I intended to have originally. I held my comments over the past weeks until there was some other indication from other users of what I encountered, and that it was not just me smoking crack. I'll refer again to the samples I posted above...Can anyone say this is acceptable sharpness? These are but two of hundreds of shots with the same results.

Hopefully this is just a batch of lenses with misground cams and not truly focus shift. If it IS focus shift the lens needs to be redesigned to be a usable high speed optic.
 
Dan States said:
People are confusing "signature" with "defect".
Click to expand...

Exactly. Either manufacturing defect, or design error. Whichever it is, the stupid things should work the way every other rangefinder lens works.

That's why I'd really like to hear from someone who's tried the same "defective" Zeiss Sonnar-C on both a Leica and Zeiss Ikon body. The factory's QA test rigs are sure as sh*t going to be set up to simulate mounting on their body, and it's hard to understand how more than a few of these could fail QA in this sophisticated age.

I honestly can't help thinking it has something to do with rear element to film plane spacing, or cam profile, or something like that. I know relatively little about camera mechanics.

However, I do know a wee bit about QA protocols. If I'm reading correctly, everyone who's described a problem in this thread has used the lens on a Leica body. So? Introduce a baseline- try it on a ZI as well.
 
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