jaapv said:
No need to apologize, Crasis, I think I worked on the derailment that seemed impending to the same amount and I regret that as well, but the resolvement reached in the end overshadowed any harsh words imo. The upshot is that a clear picture about the lenses in question emerged.
And an interesting discussion, to boot! Unfortunately, my interests in the thread now have nothing to do with how the lenses perform in the real world, and purely on how they perform theoretically. I'm actually very interested in whether the correction of aberrations from the aspherical elements helped the resolution in a non-contrast oriented way.
It should be obvious by now that you pretty much cannot go wrong with Leica lenses in the 35mm focal length. So for those who want to know which 35 to get, my answer would be any. The summicron is the best bang for the buck giving you decent speed, high resolution, and even the asph version is small! For more money, you can get more speed in a bigger form factor. For less money, less speed in a similar or smaller form factor.
That's the gist of it. That's the summary.
Actually, perhaps I should resummarize in a better fassion what I know so far about these 35mm lenses. Note, this is what I know so far and some of it may be wrong but it's a general guide.
Expensive, fast, and big: Summilux 35 asph. About as sharp as the 35/2 pre-asph with an extra very useable stop.
Not as expensive, fast, and not as big: Summilux 35 pre-asph. Holds all of the typical glamour of an older fast lens, ie. vignetting and not as high in resolution or contrast as a slower lens (summaron, summicron).
Medium price, medium speed and a decent size: Summicron 35 asph. Considered the sharpest little lens out there, though the debate is out on whether this is due more to the contrast than to the actual resolution of the lens.
Medium price, medium speed and small: Summicron 35 pre-asph. I'd expect the same people who like the Nokton 40 SC over the MC to like this lens over the asph, but so far that's not the case. In any case, the standard sharp Leica lens.
Lower price, lower speed and small: Summaron 35. Pretty much, when you go to slower lenses, you can expect them to be cheaper and just as tasty sharp as the faster lenses (if not better in some cases).
So you can choose between price, speed and size. You can optimize for 2 of those 3 variables, but not all 3 at once. Of course, for the summilux asph, you can only optimize for 1 of them. Speed, unless you like large lenses.
Yeah, there's lots of detail on all of the lenses that you can find if you search the web, for you to make a more critical choice, but if you know what you want from those 3 variables, you can't make a bad decision! They're all good!
