Leica 35mm lens shootout...which is best?

Leica 35mm lens shootout...which is best?

  • number 1 is best overall

    Votes: 48 27.1%

  • number 2 is best overall

    Votes: 54 30.5%

  • number 3 is best overall

    Votes: 37 20.9%

  • they all stink, sell all your gear now!

    Votes: 38 21.5%
  • Total voters
    177
oh yeah, i also did a test the same day with a bunch of 50mm lenses. i used a collapsible summicron, a rigid summicron, a modern summilux and a nokton 1.5. the differences between them was remarkable with the lux taking the overall best pictures and the nokton a VERY close second. the rigid was miles better than the collapsible and not that far behind the lux. i showed the pics to my wife and she thought the nokton and lux were too harsh, the collapsible was way too soft and the rigid was just about perfect to her eyes.

bob
 
Well I got them all wrong! ha! however for my style of picture taking, ie wide open most of the time, the asph is superb, truly a 3d feel to everything. I hardly ever shoot beyond f2.8 with my rangefinders.
With regard to 50's, i'm now looking for something that's sharp but also gives me that similar 3d effect. 50 asph is way overpriced, so i'm looking at a zm zeiss planar. From what I've read on the net, this lens does the 3d look the best.
 
As I have said MANY times before.....

As I have said MANY times before.....

If you don't need the speed, the Summaron is the best of the best.
To be sure the test wasn't up to heavy hitting, but I no longer own a 35mm Summicron because it just didn't muster it for the kind of shooting (daylight) I do. Add in cost, and size it can only be beat by very few modern lenses (CV ain't one of them). AND, it has the look and the glow!
 
bob338 said:
i got the summaron in a big gear buy and never really thought much about it until i started using it purely out of boredom. it is now one of my favorite lenses, but in the examples above, i thought the 8 element summicron had nicer contrast and out of focus areas. but overall, the asph is the most pleasant picture to me. the full size files are much more detailed and much easier to see big differences(of which there are plenty,) but i cannot post them like that.

the main reason i did this test was to decide if i want to keep the 8 element summicron. i got it in the mail the other day and i have a week or two to decide. in the other pictures on the roll, i found it to have more detail and contrast than the summaron but the asph still looked most pleasant in most of the pictures. i'm going to try some tri-x with it this week and see what it does with that...

bob
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Bob: I have the 8 element 35mm Summicron lens. In my opinion, it is the best. I would never sell my lens.
 
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raid said:
Bob: I have the 8 element 35mm Summicron lens. In my opinion, it is the best. I would never sell my lens.
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yeah, i'm keeping it, i like the pictures it takes so far...if i ever decide to sell it, i know i can get the $729 i paid for it. i'm kinda surprised it sat on the tamarkin site for so long, it's been up there for weeks and i watched the same lens close on the auction site for $1200 today.

i plan to re-do this test when i get back from vacation next month, there were a few things that would have made it a lot more intriguing. i'll use a tripod, different apertures and figure out somewhere to host the full size files so people can see the real subtlties of the lenses.

bob
 
Summaron 35/2.8 and/or 8 element 35mm Summicron

Summaron 35/2.8 and/or 8 element 35mm Summicron

raid said:
In the 35mm-40mm test done by me [and Roland], we concluded that the Summaron 35/2.8 was a surprise "winner" lens.
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raid said:
Bob: I have the 8 element 35mm Summicron lens. In my opinion, it is the best. I would never sell my lens.
Click to expand...

There seems to be two winners here.
One on the professional opinion and
the other for the test result & probably Price.
 
bob338 said:
oh yeah, i also did a test the same day with a bunch of 50mm lenses. i used a collapsible summicron, a rigid summicron, a modern summilux and a nokton 1.5. the differences between them was remarkable with the lux taking the overall best pictures and the nokton a VERY close second. the rigid was miles better than the collapsible and not that far behind the lux. i showed the pics to my wife and she thought the nokton and lux were too harsh, the collapsible was way too soft and the rigid was just about perfect to her eyes.

bob
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would like to see some sample photos for 50mm lens test.
i think the colour produced by collapsible summicron is different from modern summilux. Bokeh for different 50mm may be different too.
 
there is a recent article in Viewfinder, where the 8 element summicron, summaron 35/2.8 and 7 element summicron were compared. the article is on summaron of course, the test shows among other things that summaron has a better resolution at the middle zone of the frame, better than 8 and 7 elements. The center resolution 8 element and summaron were tied whereas the 7 elements lags behind.
and many others have commented that summaron is actually a much underrated lens.
 
I honestly cannot see a tad of difference in this shot. Try re shooting and use an image with some good OOF areas as well that might help.

As an asisde I have a few Leica 35mm lenses - the Bokeh king (so called but probably deservedly so) which I think is the version IV, the summaron 35mm f 3.5 in screw mount and the same in bayonet mount. I would say that all are surprisingly good but the latest one has noticeably more contrast.
 
I prefer #1 because it has the most microcontrast and 3D perception
I dislike #2 because it looks flat to me
#3 is similar to #1 but #1 is better.
 
Orio said:
I prefer #1 because it has the most microcontrast and 3D perception
I dislike #2 because it looks flat to me
#3 is similar to #1 but #1 is better.
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We used to have a RFF member in Germany who was very big on the microcontrast of Leica lenses.:D
 
Nr.2's OOF appears somewhat splodgy on my monitor - Nr.3 manages to portray greater sharpness and better background OOF. Not sure how much I should be relying on my monitor to make such a judgement though!

Peter
 
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