M8/M9/M Users: Leica Lens 3D quality vs. Japanese lenses

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eleskin

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What makes Leica glass render more of a 3D look? I know my M8 prints pop out more that others that I have seen from Olympus, etc,,,

It would be nice to see two shots of the same subject. One with Leica, the other with another brand name to illustrate the "3D" look if you will.
 
Unfortunately I do not have any Leica lenses as of now to make this comparison, however Olympus-Zuiko lenses are really good and can give you that 3-D look, depending on the lens of course. SHG lenses from Zuiko are great for that purpose. All my pictures with 150mm f/2 have that 3-D look. Most of the pictures with 14-35 f/2 share similar characteristics, but I would say 150mm is better in that regard.
 
Apples to apples, I suggest comparing M-Leica lenses with the Japanese lenses from "Zeiss" and the Cosina-Voitlander lenses. My non-scientific practical experience has been that they are a lot more similar than I would intuitively expect given the immense difference in price.
 
eleskin said:
What makes Leica glass render more of a 3D look? I know my M8 prints pop out more that others that I have seen from Olympus, etc,,,

It would be nice to see two shots of the same subject. One with Leica, the other with another brand name to illustrate the "3D" look if you will.
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I do not think you can lump all non leica as simply Japanese. Zeiss lenses are an interesting cross. How would you classify them? Do you just mean rangefinders / medium / large format? Personally I have some interesting 3d effects with all sorts of lenses. I think it is more to do with high contrast images and shallow depth of field. The rest is in the lens and interpretation of the viewer!

Maybe you could post us a few examples? I'll make sure I do not get too close to the viewing screen just in case.

Richard
 
eleskin said:
What makes Leica glass render more of a 3D look? I know my M8 prints pop out more that others that I have seen from Olympus, etc
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Nikon:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=17981776
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1021&thread=32614117

Canon:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=31838361

Olympus:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=32660715

Fuji:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1020&message=26932018

Feel free to add your own brand.

This is Joe Wisnewski's (somewhat inflammatory) explanation of the 3d look.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=17984174

My own take is that I've never mistaken a flat 2D image for a 3D one. Now where is that page with the Fuji images again....

Cheers,
-Gautham
 
I agree with Joe's explanation of the 3D look. It doesn't just apply to Leica though. I was once directed to some ridiculously long thread on fredmiranda that tried to define the 3D look and not one of the explanations was the same. They ranged from esoteric mumbo-jumbo to shallow DOF.
 
The illusion of depth is a fascinating subject, and it is a pity that so often, it degenerates rapidly into unprovable assertions, often for or against Leica. This one couldn't deteriorate as it started out with this assumption!

It's something that I've thought about quite hard, for quite a long time -- there's a big module about it on my site, http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/ps perspective 1.html -- and while I am convinced that some lenses exhibit it more than others, I don't think Leica (or anyone else) has a monopoly.

Indeed, given that books of photography talked of 'plastic' and 'three-dimensional' rendering long before the Leica, to accuse Leica users of inventing the term is pure piffle, as is a flat assertion that all Leica lenses deliver more of a three-dimensional impression than all non-Leica lenses.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
I don't think Leica (or anyone else) has a monopoly.

Indeed, given that books of photography talked of 'plastic' and 'three-dimensional' rendering long before the Leica,
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Right. What's more, Leitz does not have one eternal house style in its lens design. They originally pioneered the modern small format press lens - that ugly bokeh, high definition, macro contrast enhanced lens which recently fell out of favour along with Nikkor glass. It is little more than twenty years ago that Leica went all micro contrast and OOF rendering. Back in the fifties/sixties, most what we now consider the "Leica look" was the domain of Zeiss and most of all their subsidiary Voigtländer - who advertised the "three-dimensional plastic look" of their lenses to little success, as pictures made with them did not look anywhere as good in contemporary news and magazine print as the results of Leica or Nikon lenses...

Sevo
 
Wide aperture, transition from focus to oof areas, nature of bokeh and subject combine to give a 3d effect and are not exclusive to a single brand nor can a particular lens guarantee a 3d effect at any aperture with any subject.
 
Something of an aside I suppose given the focus on RF lenses here but some SLR lenses prove pretty good too. Here is a photo taken with a Nikon 17-55mm AF DX f2.8 shot wide open,

3805708800_1b9519d34d_b.jpg
 
I agree that Leica lenses don't have a monopoly of the effect. Source of light, contrast, focal length, aperture, and differential figure/background distance and lighting seem to be factors.
 
Peter_n I am using mine on a D200. Which is fine for now but will eventually upgrade. I suppose Nikon will phase out DX cameras eventually at least on their top amat. cameras. So it I upgrade in a couple of years that may be to an FX camera. If so I think I will be tempted to keep the 17-55 as I am told that it will shoot fine on an FX camera if you keep it above 28mm wide - which makes it a pretty big lens for a pretty small range but the IQ is so good that I would be reluctant to let it go easily.
 
Lighting, perspective, preservation of shadow detail and highlights. I find that older, single-coated lenses and uncoated lenses generate this illusion more readily than modern, high-contrast lenses.
 
peterm1 said:
Peter_n I am using mine on a D200. Which is fine for now but will eventually upgrade. I suppose Nikon will phase out DX cameras eventually at least on their top amat. cameras. So it I upgrade in a couple of years that may be to an FX camera. If so I think I will be tempted to keep the 17-55 as I am told that it will shoot fine on an FX camera if you keep it above 28mm wide - which makes it a pretty big lens for a pretty small range but the IQ is so good that I would be reluctant to let it go easily.
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Just one more OT but yes it is a cracking lens - I was stunned by the quality when I got mine. However I'm told that the 24-70/2.8 FX is just as good or better so you might have some thinking to do when you upgrade...
 
This is certanly not a Leica monopoly and you cannot compare leica glass on a M8 with other glass on another body. This ignores sensors, image processing etc. Try comparing CV, Zeiss and Leica on a M8.
 
rxmd said:
Leica made one, too, the 33/3.5 Stemar. I think they had a similar lens already in the 1940s.

In fact there is even a dedicated Zorki Stereo Attachment. No dedicated lens, it works with a standard 50mm Industar.

Now you guys can all go debate which 3D lens delivers the best 3D effect.
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Leica introduced the Stereoly beamsplitter VORSA, and a matching viewer VOTRA, in 1931. Both used prisms. I had the set: I bought it for £25 when I was a student in the early 70s, and lived on muesli for three weeks to pay for it. I sold it a few years later for many times what I paid for it.

Pentax made the Asahi Pentax Stereo Adapter, and the British Stereax was a generic version from the early 1950s. These used mirrors instead of prisms. Late Retinas and leaf-shutter Contaflexes could also be fitted with beamsplitters, prism I think, which incorporated the front (interchangeable) element of the lens.

There was also a Zeiss version of the Stemar, the Stereotar. Did the Nikon version (which I have never seen) antedate the production Stemar (1954) or was it later? Prototypes of the Stemar were made during WW2, with both Elmar and Hektor lenses, well before the first Nikon, of course.

Then there are twin-fixed-lens stereo cameras, and stereo slides; the one from Leitz (FIATE) was sold from 1928 to 1940.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Pentax made the Asahi Pentax Stereo Adapter, and the British Stereax was a generic version from the early 1950s.

Cheers,

R.
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Pentax? Did someone said Pentax? 😉
I´dont think that 3D is an only Leica thing.

The nice Pentax FA77 can things I like also:



Like Mike Johnston from luminous-landscape.com wrote:

"You'll never convince a Leicaphile that anyone else in the round world can make a lens. Trying is a fool's errand — Leica's not a camera any more, but rather a religion, and its priests will vociferously consign you to the nether regions if you blaspheme. So let's put aside for a moment the historical competition among the great marques of manual focus and ask a different question: who makes the very best lenses that money can buy?
And nobody pays all that much attention to Pentax. Pentax does have some pretty pedestrian optics in its bag, it's true. What many photographers aren't aware of is that Pentax still also makes some of the best SLR lenses on the planet.
Yet the very best AF SLR lenses made today are the Pentax Limiteds. There are only three, and they have focal lengths apparently chosen by means of occultish numerology: there's a 31mm f/1.8 wide, a 43mm f/1.9 "true" normal, and a 77mm f/1.8 short tele. All three are made of metal (imagine that), focus manually more than passably well, and are of an size and weight that doesn't constantly penalize you, whether you're lugging them around or holding them up to your eye on a camera. They have beautiful matching metal lens hoods and a feel of quality that puts them above virtually all other AF lenses.
Yet all things considered, the 77mm may be the best lens of the three. A nearly ideal short tele, the 77mm Limited is superb — contrasty, excellent for portraits wide open, with a truly beautiful, delicate bokeh that compliments the almost 3-D vividness of the in-focus image. Tops in its class? There are certainly a lot of great short teles out there. But I can't name an AF SLR short tele I'd put above it."



Best,
Rainer
 
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