Apo-Summicron 50/2 Asph. Test!

jaapv said:
the Apo-Summicron will only reveal its full potential on the Monochrom or maybe the future M10. And in very large prints. The MTF curves are clearly much better than the Zeiss, but on current sensors and a computer screen that is not readily visible. For most of us it would be money wasted. However, in Berlin Leica had a series of 100 cm prints of the lens on the M9 and they were mind-blowing. The color transmission, micro-contrast and bokeh were unrivalled. No way are you going to see that on Internet JPGs.
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In other words, "Oh Yea of Little Faith...."
 
No faith here. I still have those prints on my retina .:angel:I wish I could find a rationale to buy that lens...:roll eyes: And have the photographic ability to use it....:bang:
 
I agree with most things jaapv says. Really, are the people running Leica just dopes making an unnecessary camera and a do-nothing fraudulent lens that offers no advantage so they treble the price in the hopes of selling some to suckers? No. It is exactly as jaapv says so far as the 50 AA goes. And that Monochrom is a fantastic idea and a successful execution I'll bet. Give them some credit. The knockers here sound like those who say Apple is just a company clever at marketing. Like Apple Leica now keeps kicking goals. Learn to live with it.
 
You think they would test it on a film "M" camera and blow that up, and compare two
or three lenses and see what it really can do! Slides anybody!

Range
 
MTF charts, micro contrast, resolution, colour transmission ... blah blah blah!

Where's my fifty dollar J-3? :D
 
Richard G said:
I agree with most things jaapv says. Really, are the people running Leica just dopes making an unnecessary camera and a do-nothing fraudulent lens that offers no advantage so they treble the price in the hopes of selling some to suckers? No. It is exactly as jaapv says so far as the 50 AA goes. And that Monochrom is a fantastic idea and a successful execution I'll bet. Give them some credit. The knockers here sound like those who say Apple is just a company clever at marketing. Like Apple Leica now keeps kicking goals. Learn to live with it.
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Strawman, much?

That's not what people here are (mostly) saying.

What they are saying is that Leica may have gone far beyond the point of diminishing returns.

Mandler's v. IV Summicron was already a spectacularly competent lens. The Planar has a slightly different mix of characteristics (including slightly less curvature of field and slightly more linear distortion) and overall is about equally as good at about 1/3 the price. The Summicron AA is a bit better than either in most respects but it costs TEN TIMES as much as the Planar.

If you are racing F1 or MotoGP, it is worth paying 10x as much for a 2% advantage. That is the difference between possible victory and consistent defeat.

If you are taking pictures -- especially handheld, as the Leica M is designed to to do*, especially with a focusing mechanism as crude as a rangefinder, and of three dimensional objects rather than brick walls or test charts -- a 2% improvement will almost always be invisible. Even if the difference is visible, it is unlikely to matter. There may be special cases that one could formulate where this new lens might offer a useful improvement, but those special cases will be few and far between.

Leica is focusing intense design expertise and effort on improvements to a show-piece that will not improve peoples' photographs, or even markedly expand their photographic tool kit. Such an effort might be described as corporate self-gratification. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Right?

*If the M was designed to be used on a tripod it would (1) have live view so that one could actually focus accurately (and not just at the center of the image); and (2) it would have a mechanically stable tripod socket, which it emphatically does not.
 
semilog said:
Strawman, much?


If you are taking pictures -- especially handheld, as the Leica M is designed to to do*, especially with a focusing mechanism as crude as a rangefinder, and of three dimensional objects rather than brick walls or test charts -- a 2% improvement will almost always be invisible. Even if the difference is visible, it is unlikely to matter. There may be special cases that one could formulate where this new lens might offer a useful improvement, but those special cases will be few and far between.[/I]
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Very well said.

Joe
 
Also, I have a 50mm v IV summicron and love it, I just can't see this lens giving any better "real world" results. At least not enough to justify the price.

Joe
 
Well, in a way you are right. This is indeed a showpiece. Peter Karbe had this ambition to build a lens that came as close to optical perfection as was technically possible regardless of cost, and finally got the go-ahead to do so. The reason he got the go-ahead was the advent of the M Monochrom that is “better” than any other lens in the Leica lineup can resolve.So even if the 50 Apo will show its quality on any other sensor (the prints I mentioned were on the M9) or even film and the MM is spectacular with any other lens, the two together are the killer combo.
Leica did not build these products with the ambition to sell large numbers, but still I think they will sell well over their target.
As for accuracy of focussing, the RF is not as crude as you make out. Set up properly and used expertly it will outperform any other system, including live view. Those systems are only useful when adjustment errors or user error creeps in. (or indeed focus on the edge of the screen.In daily use the advantage is doubtful. What is worse, focus-recompose or wave the camera about at arms-length? Or use the limited qualities of an EVF which needs to resort to aids like focus-peaking?)
semilog said:
Strawman, much?

That's not what people here are (mostly) saying.

What they are saying is that Leica may have gone far beyond the point of diminishing returns.

Mandler's v. IV Summicron was already a spectacularly competent lens. The Planar has a slightly different mix of characteristics (including slightly less curvature of field and slightly more linear distortion) and overall is about equally as good at about 1/3 the price. The Summicron AA is a bit better than either in most respects but it costs TEN TIMES as much as the Planar.

If you are racing F1 or MotoGP, it is worth paying 10x as much for a 2% advantage. That is the difference between possible victory and consistent defeat.

If you are taking pictures -- especially handheld, as the Leica M is designed to to do*, especially with a focusing mechanism as crude as a rangefinder, and of three dimensional objects rather than brick walls or test charts -- a 2% improvement will almost always be invisible. Even if the difference is visible, it is unlikely to matter. There may be special cases that one could formulate where this new lens might offer a useful improvement, but those special cases will be few and far between.

Leica is focusing intense design expertise and effort on improvements to a show-piece that will not improve peoples' photographs, or even markedly expand their photographic tool kit. Such an effort might be described as corporate self-gratification. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Right?

*If the M was designed to be used on a tripod it would (1) have live view so that one could actually focus accurately (and not just at the center of the image); and (2) it would have a mechanically stable tripod socket, which it emphatically does not.
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How can a mechanical RF mechanism be more accurate than live view ... please explain jaapv because I'm not convinced here! :D
 
jaapv said:
As for accuracy of focussing, the RF is not as crude as you make out. Set up properly and used expertly it will outperform any other system, including live view.
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I predict that you will be telling us how live view is superior for critical work after Leica releases a camera with live view.
 
I rather doubt that, using several cameras with live view already and vastly preferring RF.
 
Suffice it to recall how difficult it may be to focus manual lenses on SLRs with wides or at slow apertures. The wider the DoF the more difficult focussing through the lens proves to be and live view cannot do anything against that. RFs are unbeatable there, nothing new under the sun.
 
We were talking about critical work. On a tripod. Where one might have some hope of extracting the performance delivered by the 50mm Summicron AA. Which was the topic under discussion in this thread.

Any other issues aside, focusing by RF is not harder than focusing by live view, when the camera is on a tripod.

If the camera is not on a tripod, or supported by a 1/10,000 s strobe, the user is unlikely to extract much of the performance advantage offered by the 50mm Summicron AA. In that setting, live view is superior, because it allows you to directly examine the image falling on the sensor.

So except as an exercise -- and not even a particularly extraordinary one, given the optical design challenges presented by microscope objectives, integrated circuit steppers, aerial surveillance lenses, cell phone cameras, etc. -- what, exactly, is this lens for?
 
From my observations, creating extraordinary photographs, also handheld. Things like superior color and contrast transitions, extraordinary shadow detail separation and beautiful OOf rendering are not dependent on tripods. That only carries the lens into fetishist sharpness, which may not be desired anyway.
 
jaapv said:
From my observations, creating extraordinary photographs, also handheld. Things like superior color and contrast transitions, extraordinary shadow detail separation and beautiful OOf rendering are not dependent on tripods. That only carries the lens into fetishist sharpness, which may not be desired anyway.
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And all those things aren't dependent on using a lens such as the Apo- Summicron, either :D I think your argument is weak. Are you saying a landscape photographer using a tripod to get the best out of his/her equipment is a fetishist? All that is being said here is you won't benefit from the overall advantages of using this lens by hand holding your camera.
 
LCT said:
Suffice it to recall how difficult it may be to focus manual lenses on SLRs with wides or at slow apertures. The wider the DoF the more difficult focussing through the lens proves to be and live view cannot do anything against that. RFs are unbeatable there, nothing new under the sun.
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Even cheap dslr's like the Nikon D3100 have a 100% zoom on live view that allows critical focus with even an 11mm. RF leaves a lot to be desired if you don't have a strong line in the subject to focus on. RF is generally and reasonably accurate but I believe slr and live view are easier to hit a precise focal point in many cases.
 
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