75 summilux/summicron...what's the diff?

P. Lynn Miller said:
Being able to focus to 0.75m with the Summilux 75 would make it a very nice, working lens. One of my pet peeves with some many rangefinder lenses is that the minimum focusing distance is around 1m. I keep a Nikon F slung over my other shoulder just for this reason, since even early Nikkor 35's and 50's will focus down to 0.5m with ease.
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Apart from the first version with 58mm filter, which focuses to 1m, the 75 Summilux focuses to 0.7m. About the same as other 75-85 mm f 1.4 lenses, including those for SLRs.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/75+Summilux/

I have plenty of shots with the Summicron too, but they're not posted. Both very nice, but quite different.

Marty
 
Marty,

Thanks!

I have used a Summicron 90 APO and found it great on the M5. How much bigger is the Summilux 75 than the Summicron 90? A photo of the two along with the Summicron 75 would be great. Anybody have all three for a family portrait?
 
I've never shot the 75 Summicron.

While the cron might be Puts' favorite, the Lux was Mandler's 🙂. People usually only comment on its OOF performance. However, on a well-adjusted Leica it is amazingly sharp at infinity, even wide open, making it a great general purpose lens. If you check what Puts writes on the Lux perfomance at f2, you'll notice that you don't loose a lot, compared to the Summicron. It doesn't get much better than this at f2 and f2.8, unless you use a tripod:

Puts said:
At full aperture the lens exhibits a medium to high overall contrast, with extremely fine details quite visibly recorded. Very fine details are clearly resolved with some softness at the edges. Some astigmatism is visible in the outer zones, which softens the finest possible textural details. This performance holds over most of the image field, with a detectable reduction in the outermost zone. The corners, although much softer, still record very fine details with good visibility. Stopping down to f/2.0 achieves the high overall contrast needed to record extremely fine details with clarity and crispness. Higher contrast generally gives the fine details more clarity and sharper edges. The outer zones now also improve and only the extreme corners lag a bit beyond this performance. At f/2.8 the contrast is slightly higher yet and now the micro contrast is at its top, allowing the clear and crisp rendition of exceedingly small details. Now a tripod is most needed to record the finest possible details. We are talking about small details with a diameter of about 0.3mm in the image, photophotographed at a distance of 7.5 meters! You need to view the real object at really close distances to see what the lens/film combination can record. This performance level is maintained from f/2 and f/2.8 to f/8 and the choice of aperture needs only to be justified on depth-of-field arguments.
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P. Lynn Miller said:
I believe that Roland aka 'ferider' used a Summilux 75 extensively over the past year or so. Would enjoy hearing his experience.

Thanks!
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For Lynn (size comp. with 90 pre-asph):

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I find the Lux' size very manageable with a grip. It's a very cool lens, clearly my favorite. I do recommend (as TomA has also said in the past), that if you buy it, you dedicate a camera body to it.

Roland.
 
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Don't hesitate to ask me if you need advice on how to spend more money 🙂

Seriously though, the Summilux is a sharp lens. Beats most anything I have used at f2, and is very good at f1.4. I suspect, whoever reports softness used it on a mis-adjusted camera.

The only thing you might not like is some veiling flare ("Leica glow"?) at closest focus, wide open. It does that as does its little sister, the 50/1.4 pre-asph v2. Kind of funny, since, in a world of flickr bokeh shots, it seems that this is what it's mostly used for these days. I'm convinced it was optimized for long focus distances. For example (on Arista 100):

620173560_GarDJ-L.jpg


This veiling flare disappears if you close down half stop, or at 1.5m focus distance and more. The picture also shows you how thin the DOF can be.

I found mine for US 1800 and bought it for re-sale. After some photos taken with it, I couldn't.

Roland.
 
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Roland,
It is a "sacrifice" to dedicate one excellent camera to the excellent Lux.
I can see the need to do so.
When so much money is spent on such a lens, you should get your money's worth by having a careful calibration of all factors that could affect ultimate performance.
I may dedicate the M6 to the Lux. Did you send your set to DAG for matching?
 
I haven't noticed veiling flare with mine wide open and love using it close up.

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I do notice the lower contrast wide open though, so if the subject is sleeping, I will usually bracket 1.4 and 1.7 or 2 if close up and subject isn't moving.

Digital is probably better with this lens close up and wide open. Film curls too much 😉
 
With a good sample, and I've been fortunate to have 2, you can use them on any properly adjusted M body accurately, wide open, and at min. distance.

The adjustment of these is very tricky, Solms has a special device specifically for adjusting these. If your Canadian unit hasn't gone to Solms at some point, and is tricky to focus, you might want to have it sent there, if you know your bodies are in perfect alignment. Not just my opinion, you can read about others experiences, on other forums ...
 
ferider said:
Hi Raid, I have a late M3 adjusted by Sherry that I use and that is spot on with the Lux.
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So you use an external meter. I like such an option too.
The Lux appears to do well on the M6, but I may want to get professional checking for the Lux with the M3. This way, the M6 can be used with other lenses.
 
Totally makes sense to me, Raid. The M3 90mm framelines work well with the Lux, in particular at close distance, and when you want to crop to 8x10 later. And when it's dark and for portraits, I prefer external meters anyways. My M6 is my travel camera and gets banged around a lot.
 
We have the same basic M cameras, Roland.
Even though my M6 is more recently bought "newer" than my M3, the M3 looks still mintish and shiny chrome.
 
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