Really like the look of those photos Huss. Nice work. Both the B&W and colors especially are really lovely.
Thank you!
Is there an annoying amount of post required on a digital M to take away obvious flaws? The thing about having the camera with me vs leaving it home really resonates with me as do the images.
There was some work required, but pretty much there is PP required with all my images using any lens if I want to get the end look I desire, so I am used to it.
B&W is much easier, as I do not have to deal with the smearing colour borders (especially on the right side). All I do is apply distortion correction (-8 in LR) and adjust exposure/contrast.
With colour I initially was happy that LR had a profile for the lens but after using it a couple of times realized it was junk. All it does is bleach out the border areas removing colour and detail. So if I want to remove the pink tone, I use the adjustment brush in LR and just desaturate it. Works every time. Then it is -8 on the distortion, adjust exposure/contrast. Everything takes maybe a minute.
On film there is no colour smear, so it would be just distortion and exposure/contrast. What is interesting is that this lens has a wavy distortion pattern, with emphasis on pin cushion. So you can fix it somewhat, but this is not an architectural lens, but more for people and 'stuff'.
Anyway, I do not see any of this as a fault of the lens. Every single lens I have 'needs' correction - you can see this by clicking on the profile in LR (if it has one) and watch the image change. For me I finally found the true calling of the Minitar lens - and that is to make the camera as discrete and pocketable as possible. So yeah my Summicron 35 is much much 'better'. But is is about 5 times the size (and the Summicron is a small lens!) so you are not comparing the same thing. If the Minitar gave the performance it does, and was the same size as the Summicron, then yeah I would maybe have reason to complain. Before I realized it is still a $350 lens, new, versus $2500+!
One thing that was cool was that I left the lens cap at home (tiny little thing that needs to be unscrewed) so I wouldn't lose it or have to fiddle with it. The front element of the lens is deeply recessed so there was no issue of anything rubbing against it, so no worry there.