I Love Film
Well-known
But "fetishist sharpness" has been throughout practically your whole argument for the superiority of this lens!?
BobYIL
Well-known
Perhaps it's time to reconsider the Rangefinder concept under the light of today's technological realities.
The mechanical rangefinder began to be regarded as an antique means for focusing. Many consumer class digitals are able to focus & shoot within the duration of shutter lag of the M9 (not joking..) The features like AF-tracking, predictive focusing, multi-frames per second are offered by cameras costing less than $1K while our mechanical rangefinder was sharing almost the same technology as the one on the Linhof Technika... Morgan is a fine car, however Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini are of a totally different class.
For instance, I can not even dream to focus this fast & accurate with any on my M-bodies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-WLvEvqMZE
How I wish of being able to do these with a Leica!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlnzPjWg0JM&feature=relmfu
Once upon a time Leica was the fastest camera available.. today, most certainly amongst the slowest ones...
Moriturii
Well-known
Anyone who seriously thinks, without being drunk or high on drugs, that any rangefinder focusing mechanism is anywhere NEAR close to SLR/Live-view focusing, seriously needs their heads examined.
Rangefinder focusing (Leicas et al) is an INDIRECT method of focusing, SLR's and Live-view is a DIRECT method of focusing. Literally "what you see is what you get" and that is infinitely more accurate than any rangefinder ever could dream to be.
Anyone who says different ought to be banned for spreading miss-information to be honest, because it's not an opinion, or "a different way of looking at things", it's just WRONG and FALSE.
End of story, end of discussion.
Having said that, Rangefinder focusing is still, in real world practice, obviously, "good enough". Rangefinders has after all existed for, a century? And pictures seems to be in focus and sharp to me, but again, SLR's and Live-View from modern sensors has far surpassed rangefinders in focusing accuracy to the Nth degree.
Rangefinder focusing (Leicas et al) is an INDIRECT method of focusing, SLR's and Live-view is a DIRECT method of focusing. Literally "what you see is what you get" and that is infinitely more accurate than any rangefinder ever could dream to be.
Anyone who says different ought to be banned for spreading miss-information to be honest, because it's not an opinion, or "a different way of looking at things", it's just WRONG and FALSE.
End of story, end of discussion.
Having said that, Rangefinder focusing is still, in real world practice, obviously, "good enough". Rangefinders has after all existed for, a century? And pictures seems to be in focus and sharp to me, but again, SLR's and Live-View from modern sensors has far surpassed rangefinders in focusing accuracy to the Nth degree.
LCT
ex-newbie
Not at real aperture on manual mode. I don't use the AF confirm feature of my 5D with manual lenses any more. Too inaccurate compared to manual focusing with a split image screen. But the latter darkens at f/5.6 and on. RF is unbeatable here again.
Steve Ash
Established
I wonder why.
To shoot a subject at quite some distance at F8 as shown in the video is very easy.
I am with Jaap and prefer the rangefinder over liveview. To hold a camera at distance from my eyes is not the way I like to take photos.
Regards,
Steve
BobYIL
Well-known
- How about having to do it, say @f2.8? or in low-light? or at 2m distance? Especially after paying some $7K for a camera, we will take the subject to outside to employ zone focusing @f8 so that we could photograph?? (Try to do the below one with your rangefinder..)
- Have you ever noted some cameras having something called EVF or OVF enabling the user to see through an eyepiece what is seen on the LCD without needing to hold the camera at a distance?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipfO_JE8EB4
mfogiel
Veteran
I imagine, that as sensor resolution will increase, the distance in test results between lenses like the APO Summicron and Planar will increase as well. It is always nice to have a perfect product for critical work or benchmarking. I am actually much more interested to find out, if Leica or anybody else, can finally make a B&W sensor that could rival the tonality of film. I think that it does not take a "perfect" lens to make an acceptable B&W photograph, but it takes a "perfect" B&W sensor to make an acceptable digital B&W image. This is very evident when you take a look at jaapv B&W photos made with the M8. So, let's see by how much the M9M has improved in this field.
rdeleskie
Well-known
I do find it ironic that we are discussing a lens whose true capabilities apparently will not be revealed until sensor resolution increases dramatically...when Leica seems to have fallen rather far behind in this regard. This is a company whose first full-frame offering wasn't until 2009 and which, except for the M9M, hasn't been updated in over three years. Bleeding-edge resolution has never struck me as a goal of the digital M series. Isn't that what the S2 is supposed to be for?
LCT
ex-newbie
Sounds like you're missing DoF in your reasoning. Both SLRs and EVILs focus behind the lens and then struggle to find out the right focus when DoF is wide i.e. with wide angle lenses and at slow apertures. RFs are superior by nature in this respect. RFs do work without the intermediary of the lens and then happen to be the only direct method of focusing from this viewpoint.
BobYIL
Well-known
I believe the difference between the two will remain the same again as they both will get benefit of the increased sensor resolution.
For a given lens and sensor format, the best way (the most efficient way) to increase resolution is to increase the MP count of the sensor.
Example: The standard Summicron 50/2 (the current version) will deliver good resolution on a 12MP-FF sensor, excellent resolution on an 18MP-FF sensor and stunning resolution on a 36MP-FF sensor. Assuming the next year we will see 54MP-FF sensor (yes, Nex-7 APS-C is 24MP x 2.25 = 54MP; i.e. the technology is readily available.) then on such a sensor our Summicron will deliver OUTSTANDING resolution to make any sharpness freak’s jaw drop. (Note that the samples I have posted above were taken with a zoom lens..)
Here is a comparison test of the D800E against the Leica S2; performed again by Ming Thein who did the Leica Monochrome review as well as the Apochromatic Summicron test. On the D800E a Zeiss lens is mounted, on the S2 one of the lenses Mr. Karbe was claiming of having "above 200 lines/mm resolution". You be the judge:
http://blog.mingthein.com/2012/05/05/an-unfair-fight-nikon-d800e-vs-leica-s2-p/
f16sunshine
Moderator
LCT
ex-newbie
What's dude? Live view focusses behind the lens. Inferior system at real aperture when DoF is wide as i said above.
f16sunshine
Moderator
Maybe there is a communication breakdown so please forgive me if what I write next is redundant or already well known to you... .
The Sensor is behind the lens so yes you focus behind the lens.
With live view you focus were you focus. Live view shows you where you have focussed that's all.
Maybe you are referring to an AF system that focusses from the sensor like Contrast detection.
With live view you see what the sensor sees and focus the lens where you want it on your subject (at your chosen distance from the focal plane).
If the lens is stopped down the DOF will be accurate to the actual DOF you will achieve from your chosen focal distance.
It is still manual focus but, direct from the sensor without a mediator that requires alignment (RF in RF camera, Viewing lens in TLR, or, focus screen in SLR).
Nothing can be more accurate.
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
Huh??
The Monochrom is about 32 Mp equivalent, the M9 is 18 Mp without AA and the M10 will probably be 24 Mp . Strange ideas.... In case you haven't noticed, Mp resolution is not a quality parameter any more for the last five years...
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
I can - plenty of those football shots on my computer - a matter of focussing technique - practise, practise, practise.
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
Huh??
No, it is not.
One may say that manufacturers of Beyer array sensors and Foveon sensors overstate their pixel count (an assessment with which I would agree), but an 18 Mpix monochrome sensor has 18 million photosites and is therefore 18 Mpix -- not 32 Mpix.
To say otherwise is -- and I choose my words here carefully -- blatantly dishonest.
18 million pixels is not equivalent, in any sense, to 32 million pixels. Except, perhaps, in the fevered imagination of marketing flacks.
In electron microscopy, where people are paying millions of dollars apiece for 4k x 4k CCD and CMOS sensors, you would be an object of ridicule if you tried to claim that such a sensor was equivalent to "32 megapixels" of resolution.
rdeleskie
Well-known
Huh??
Whether the M9M is real-world 32MP is highly contentious outside of Leica marketing literature. Even if the M10 is 24MP it will be considerably smaller than the 36MP Nikon D800E which has no AA filter, is already available to purchase and will likely be supplanted by Sony or Canon by the time the M10 ships in quantity.
Admittedly, I know very little about sensor design, but since MP resolution is irrelevant, and other cameras are shipping without AA filters, by what magic is Leica going to produce a FF sensor in the near future that will require the resolution of the new APO Summicron 50mm? Particularly when this doesn't seem to be an issue for Sony, Canon, Nikon, etc.?
LCT
ex-newbie
Would you mind to elaborate?
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
Live-view allows direct assessment of focus at 100%. It is immune to misalignment of a rangefinder or an SLR focus screen, to parallax, and to focus shift.
For subjects not dead-center in the image, good live-view implementations allow direct focus, not focus-recompose. For lenses that have flat fields, this is important because focus-recompose results in front-focusing. For lenses that have significant field curvature (e.g. 35 Summilux ASPH FLE), this is important because it allows fine-tuning of which regions are critically sharp. For images where precise control over depth of field is important, it gives you a highly accurate DoF preview.
Now let's consider that 50mm 'con AA again. The MTFs provided by Leica will be for the plane of critical focus. MTFs fall off enormously, especially at higher spatial frequencies, as soon as focus is not critical. This decrease will be larger than the difference between (say) a Planar and a 'cron AA.
Thus, to see a meaningful difference, the 'cron AA must be used critically: tripod and/or short-duration strobe, and exceedingly careful focus.
For that, you want live view -- not a mechanically-coupled rangefinder.
Look at how Phase One does it: with a touch screen that allows you to tap to 100% live view (albeit with a slow refresh rate since they use a CCD) in any image region, to instantly check critical focus. Phase One knows exactly what they are doing here, and what their most critical users demand.
For subjects not dead-center in the image, good live-view implementations allow direct focus, not focus-recompose. For lenses that have flat fields, this is important because focus-recompose results in front-focusing. For lenses that have significant field curvature (e.g. 35 Summilux ASPH FLE), this is important because it allows fine-tuning of which regions are critically sharp. For images where precise control over depth of field is important, it gives you a highly accurate DoF preview.
Now let's consider that 50mm 'con AA again. The MTFs provided by Leica will be for the plane of critical focus. MTFs fall off enormously, especially at higher spatial frequencies, as soon as focus is not critical. This decrease will be larger than the difference between (say) a Planar and a 'cron AA.
Thus, to see a meaningful difference, the 'cron AA must be used critically: tripod and/or short-duration strobe, and exceedingly careful focus.
For that, you want live view -- not a mechanically-coupled rangefinder.
Look at how Phase One does it: with a touch screen that allows you to tap to 100% live view (albeit with a slow refresh rate since they use a CCD) in any image region, to instantly check critical focus. Phase One knows exactly what they are doing here, and what their most critical users demand.