50mm f/1.4 options for the M mount.

[Dante_Stella]

Dante, really appreciate the summary on the lenses in your list, haha, very helpful. 😀 I like the straightforward approach you've got there.

From your experience I would have to disregard the Sonnetar, Nikkor, and Jupiter because of the bokeh. My experience with the Voigt 35mm and 50mm - the bokeh is sometimes amazing, and sometimes not so good. I've never had a problem with the boken on my Zeiss 50mm though (ZE, EF mount) so that was what I was hoping to upgrade to.

I am getting the impression from many of the Sonnar users here that the focus shift is workable though.

Good bokeh and focus shift go hand in hand. This is a constant in the universe, and both are symptoms of under corrected spherical aberration. That's why sharp lenses (what you characterize as "modern") universally have poor bokeh. You can try to mitigate this by moving the subject closer to the camera and/or increasing the spread between the subject and background, but the problem is always there. So that's consideration one.

As to Sonnar vs. Planar or Gauss:

Sonnars
- Historically smaller than symmetrical designs
- Historically lower flare and higher transmission
- Better coatings than historic Leica lenses
- Most have rotating lens barrels
- More vignetting
- More field curvature (this can boost apparent depth of field)
- The West German Opton/Carl Zeiss versions (sold through 1962) are stunningly attractive and well made, so much so that they make contemporaneous Leica (or any current) lenses look like agricultural implements.

Planars/Gauss
- Cheaper to manufacture (because they at most involve one cemented element and no cemented triplets)
- Sharper (they generally benefitted from new types of glass and higher correction)
- Better off-center performance
- Due to generally higher correction, smaller apparent focus shift
- Can be very large and heavy with wide apertures
- Pre-multicoated lenses have more flare
- Less vignetting (due in no small part to larger diameter elements)


Dante

 

[splitimageview]

I never thought about nail polish or shellac or loctite. I've never loosened the screws to actually open the lens, knowing my luck I'd probably completely ruin the lens if I ever tried that.

Because there's always a bit of oil leaking out from under the screws, I assume that the oil is coming from the part of the lens that connects two parts together which allows focusing movement. I'm not sure how much oil I've lost from those compartments but it still feels kind of smooth so it can't have been too much.

Is there a risk that if I accidentally placed too much nail polish/shellac/loctite, that it will leak into the moving compartments and eventually cause movement or focusing issues, or somehow cause some minor wear and tear on the moving parts inside?

It's a couple of minutes work. Take out the screw and put in a tiny drop. Put the screw back in. A tiny drop of loctite will not cause other problems.

Personally I would not prefer a modem lens with a 1m close focus...

If you really prefer your ZE maybe you should get a Canon film body instead of shooting M.

 

[mdarnton]

It's not like a car engine, submerged in oil. Anything that's coming out is not needed.

 

[splitimageview]

The West German Opton/Carl Zeiss versions (sold through 1962) are stunningly attractive and well made, so much so that they make contemporaneous Leica (or any current) lenses look like agricultural implements

🙂

CZO 50/1.5: my favorite vintage lens.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Some will find this blasphemous, but a few years ago I finally bought a NEW copy of the latest 50 Summilux ASPH. I was expecting it to be my dream 50. When I shot the same subjects side by side with my pre-asph Lux, I was shocked that I preferred the look of the pre-asph Lux images most of the time. . . .

With the slight changes listed above, I could have made the same post as Charlie.

I was expecting wonders from the new 50mm Summilux ASPH. What I found is that at f1.4, my pre-asph Lux matched it in center sharpness, but the ASPH Lux had the advantage in sharpness in the corners. Once I stopped it down, from f2 all the way through f5.6, the pre-asph Lux was sharper than the ASPH Lux. After f8 they were pretty much identical. I shot this same test with an M3, M6TTL, and M8.2, just to eliminate camera focus issues, and in all three tests, the results were the same. Maybe the copy I got was an oddity, but I found that my pre-asph Lux gave me better images in the range I usually shoot it.

Best,
-Tim

 

[MCTuomey]

With the slight changes listed above, I could have made the same post as Charlie.

I was expecting wonders from the new 50mm Summilux ASPH. What I found is that at f1.4, my pre-asph Lux matched it in center sharpness, but the ASPH Lux had the advantage in sharpness in the corners. Once I stopped it down, from f2 all the way through f5.6, the pre-asph Lux was sharper than the ASPH Lux. After f8 they were pretty much identical. I shot this same test with an M3, M6TTL, and M8.2, just to eliminate camera focus issues, and in all three tests, the results were the same. Maybe the copy I got was an oddity, but I found that my pre-asph Lux gave me better images in the range I usually shoot it.

Best,
-Tim

No oddity at all - your experience corresponds pretty much exactly to the mtf charts for the two lenses. The main difference between the asph and pre-asph is mid-frame and corner performance, where the asph improves upon the pre-asph in a big way. Center performance, copy variation aside, is where both lenses perform quite similarly.

The midframe and corner difference between the 2 lenses is easier to see when shooting FF digi versus APS-H.

Bokeh performance (wide open) is improved in the asph over the pre-asph as well, also evident from the mtf's.

 

[goamules]

To me, the classic Sonnars produce the best of everything I want, fairly cheaply. I've used the Canon 1.5, Jupiter 3, Tanar 1.5, and the Nikkor 1.4. I like the Nikkor 1.4 best.

But of all the other Canons, I think the 1.4 best meets what you are describing. It's a somewhat modern design, made until about 1972, in LTM. It is very sharp wide open, flat field, and good bokeh, to me. You could buy one and try it and not have much to lose. I don't know what the Leica's and Zeiss cost, but I imagine 10 times more. Are they 10 times better? A good review of the Canon 1.4 on Ms here: http://aperturepriority.co.nz/2013/05/28/the-japanese-summilux-canon-50mm-f1-4-ltm/

I don't have any low light shots, but here is one more open.

 

[mfogiel]

I find that shooting a 50mm RF lens wider than f 2.0 is quite difficult for a couple of reasons - one is the difficulty to recompose after focusing and the other is lack of resolution when using fast film ( plus a push=big grain), perhaps only Summilux ASPH has enough resolution wide open to cope with low resolution film. In my experience, the Nokton 50/1.1 on B&W film has been a huge disappointment: not enough resolution wide open, blah blah bokeh and substantial focus shift when stopping down. It is one of very few lenses that I ever sold.
If you want a F1.4 with decent resolution, the Summilux ASPH is king, then you get Summilux pre asph - one of my favourite 50's, not so much for wide open sharpness as for beautiful overall rendering, particularly for portraiture. Nokton 50/1.5 and C Sonnar 50/1.5 will be sharper wide open. I have not tried the Nikkor or Canon 1.4, but I doubt they can compete with the above lenses at full aperture. I have a Canon 50/1.2, and it certainly is soft before f 2.8.
The real one lens solution on the cheap would be the Planar 50/2 - even with very fast film it will deliver outstanding sharpness wide open, on par with v5 Summicron at half the price.
Planar 50/2
20080111013 by marek fogiel, on Flickr

 

[Richard G]

A lot of us are now digital users mostly. Do we ever need 1.4 or 1.5? Marek's case for the f2 Planar looks rather convincing. For many, me included, it is all rather disturbing to learn the measured differences between the most expensive Leica lenses and perfection. I passed up many opportunities for a version 1 Summilux, believing my long since stolen version 2 to have been superior. Not necessarily. Then to read that there are trade-offs even with the Summilux ASPH.....I'll stick with my C Sonnar and v4 Summicron.

 

[goamules]

.... I have not tried the Nikkor or Canon 1.4, but I doubt they can compete with the above lenses at full aperture. ...

Compete how? In price they pummel the Leica. In speed, same. Sharpness, pretty much the same. Then you get into the subjective parameters.

A lot of us are now digital users mostly. Do we ever need 1.4 or 1.5? Marek's case for the f2 Planar looks rather convincing. For many, me included, it is all rather disturbing to learn the measured differences between the most expensive Leica lenses and perfection. I passed up many opportunities for a version 1 Summilux, believing my long since stolen version 2 to have been superior. Not necessarily. Then to read that there are trade-offs even with the Summilux ASPH.....I'll stick with my C Sonnar and v4 Summicron.

Exactly. A lot of the photos shown so far are of dim interiors, night time foggy streets, etc. Why, exactly, would you need a $2,000 Summilux, over a $300 Canon 1.4 again? I guarantee you a good photographer can take a good photograph with just a "good" lens.

 

[edge100]

Canon 50/1.4. Absolutely stellar lens.

 

[uhoh7]

Once I stopped it down, from f2 all the way through f5.6, the pre-asph Lux was sharper than the ASPH Lux. After f8 they were pretty much identical.

Puts put them both on the bench. The ASPH was as sharp WO as the pre at 5.6. In his test the ASPH was well ahead at every stop.

He also found the CV 50/1.5 superior, though by a small margin to the pre-asph.

I have a bunch of Sonnar 50s, which I dearly love. None I would consider an "all around lens". The Canon 50/1.4 does fit that mold:

Here at F/4:

Sisters by unoh7, on Flickr

But it's pretty antique compared to a modern 50. I can't quite justify a ASPH at the moment, so my daylight 50 is the cron v/4:


South Faces of Cobb by unoh7, on Flickr

It's very sharp wide open if you are close. Sharper than the ASPH Lux in that situation, according to Puts.


L1006776 by unoh7, on Flickr

In tests at lensrentals the 50 cron v4+ outperforms the Zeiss Planar across the frame by a significant margin, despite numerous claims from users that the Planar is a match for Mandler's lens. I see v4 crons for 900USD fairly often.

But F/2 cuts the light from 1.4 by half. Frankly with the M9, even 1.4 is not enough for me in low light. That's when I use the superspeed, and my preference is the CV 35/1.2 because you have some DOF.

The 50 Lux ASPH in the M9 is something else. On the 240 I'm not sure what happened. It's still fantastic for landscape. But the magic WO is missing from the files straight out of the camera. Perhaps with the right workflow it comes back.

Here many of the suspects in this thread undergo a true benchtest:
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/comparing-rangefinder-and-slr-50mm-lenses-version-0-7

There we learn:
50/2 APO is the sharpest 50 in the world at f/2 (including Otus)
Mandler's 50/2 is incredible across the frame at f/2 with 1200/1200/1200
The Lux ASPH has a midzone dip, but it's not much, and otherwise it is extremely strong.
The ZM Sonnar is not that sharp at F/2 compared to these killers
The Planar is much weaker at the edges at f/2 than the old cron.
Sigma does make a very sharp 50!

 

[Lax Jought]

I think if you want a workhorse 50, either the Summilux or the Nokton would be my recommendation. Nokton is great value, images wonderfully, but actually kinda big if that matters to you (impinges fingers a bit if you use a grip). The E43 v2 pre-asph lux is a good value (in Leica-world), well-built too. E46 pre-asph lux is more money, gives you closer min focus (nice!) and a non-locking sliding hood that will drive you nutty. Asph lux is my idea of a near-perfect 50, but I think now USD 2500-2800.

I don't have any particular preferences or limitations with the size and weight of the lens, it's all good.

I am edging towards an older summilux at present. Are there any truths to discussions about the older lenses not having enough resolving power when paired with the newer digital bodies?

 

[Lax Jought]

That's why sharp lenses (what you characterize as "modern") universally have poor bokeh.

Actually, when I refer to modern lenses I am talking more specifically about lenses that have less 'character' so that I can apply it in various photography circumstances. A bit more contrast wouldn't hurt either. I'd be happy to have a single 50mm that will stay on the body 95% of the time, it seems to be how I work, and it seems to fit with the restrictions I work under during photography gigs.

A bit later I might get the Sonnar though as a backup or as a lens to play around with. Quite a few of respondents in this thread seem to really like it despite the flaws which turned me away before I started this thread.

 

[Lax Jought]

If you really prefer your ZE maybe you should get a Canon film body instead of shooting M.

Nah, it's not that I prefer the ZE, I am using that as a point of reference for IQ after having used the Voigts and Canon lenses for the past few years. It was the ZE that opened my eyes to what's possible in terms of IQ. I find that the Canon lenses are very dry in character (if I can put it that way).

However, I'm trying to stay away from a lens that is full of character too.

I really like the rangefinder, I work much faster with it, focus much faster, I can work in lower light conditions with it. It's also smaller and completely non-threatening to people as opposed to a DSLR.

 

[Lax Jought]

It's not like a car engine, submerged in oil. Anything that's coming out is not needed.

That is perplexing! But I am very aware of my lack of technical/engineering knowledge when it comes to these things.

 

[Lax Jought]

But of all the other Canons, I think the 1.4 best meets what you are describing.

I am very tempted to just purchase one to play with since it isn't tooooo expensive.

 

[Lax Jought]

The real one lens solution on the cheap would be the Planar 50/2 - even with very fast film it will deliver outstanding sharpness wide open, on par with v5 Summicron at half the price.

That is a beautiful portrait, love the rendering of the man's face in contrast with the background.

I don't really want to go with a f/2 lens though, that is the problem. I often work in very low light circumstances so I need all the f/stops I can get. I quite often do event type photography at festivals and on film sets where flash is strictly not allowed, and sometimes (for eg) I need to catch behind-the-scene type shots where lighting is not ideal at all.

 

[Lax Jought]

Canon 50/1.4. Absolutely stellar lens.

I have a bunch of sonnar 50s, which I dearly love. None I would consider an "all around lens". The Canon 50/1.4 does fit that mold

Sounds like the Canon f/1.4 is universally recommended by the RFF community. I'll see if I can get one in the new year to play with.

 

[Lax Jought]

Exactly. A lot of the photos shown so far are of dim interiors, night time foggy streets, etc. Why, exactly, would you need a $2,000 Summilux, over a $300 Canon 1.4 again? I guarantee you a good photographer can take a good photograph with just a "good" lens.

I have done a lot of that kind of photography too.