M9 M9 M9 M9 M9

[jaapv]

Slightly off topic but I recently acquired a really nice Contax IIa with 50 1.5 Sonar. I took a series of shots along side my M6 with 50 lux. Same film same exposure both rolls processed in the same tank and same exposure on my enlarger. The results were absolutely amazing. A 65 year old Zeiss lens still performed very close to the latest 50 lux. If anything it was slightly higher contrast. Maybe not quite up to it but a 65 year old camera lens worth around £250 can still cut it against the very latest 50 ASPH on an M body. My point is simply at the highest end of the market things do not change all that much. There are large outlays for marginal gain. Certainly an M9 full frame would be nice. I would like to have the same perspective on both film and digital bodies, but Im betting image quality improvements are going to be marginal. I am not that bothered about high iso noise as I generally expose around the same ISOs with film and 640ISO with fast lenses is loads. It is already pretty dam good. Marketing is designed to make you feel insecure and that your equipment is obsolete. The camera shop has you lusting for the shiny gear and offers buttons for your old stuff in return.

Incidently can any technically minded help me out. My calculations are that by 10 Mega pixels for a 35mmx25mm sensor, Lens resolution is already limiting. This is based on assuming a column of 5 pixels is needed to resolve 2 line pairs. Guestimating the pixel density of a 35x25 sensor this gives around 200 line pairs per cm . No lens can get close to that. What am I missing?

beatiful light here this evenning

Best wishes


Richard
View attachment 70800

Not to be pedantic, but a number of the Leica Apo designs come close to 1000 Lp/mm, as do the Summilux 21 and 24 ...... Even the venerable Apo-Telyt 180-3/4 rendered 400 Lp/mm in the centre.

I did some test shots on the Summilux 24, and on the M8 the DOF at 1.4 is sensor-limited, which means it clearly outresolves the sensor.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Woah. That's not right. Maybe aerial resolution, but few lenses manage more than 100-150 lp/mm on film.

While your point is that correct that sensors will probably never reach the diffraction limits of some of these APO lenses, film would never do it either.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Quoting Puts:

"Let us make it clear from the start. Under practical circumstances,
we can achieve a visible and usable resolution of more
than 150 Lp/mm on microfilm (Agfa Copex and Kodak Technical
Pan).
At first sight this may appear to be a bit disappointing. But 150
Lp/mm are 300 separate lines in one millimeter and that
means that every single line has a width of 0.003 mm – an
exceedingly small number!
Between two black lines there is a single white separation of a
mere 0.003 mm in width. The smallest halo caused by the lens
or by the grain in the emulsion, will reduce that separation line
to a dark gray one, making the difference between black and
white disappear. The same holds for the slightest movement of
camera or subject.
Occasionally you will read about film emulsions that are capable
of resolving 700 Lp/mm or more in normal photographic
situations (film-lens combination). In this case we have a line
width of less than 0.0007 mm and that is minute in the extreme.
But these theoretical claims are not so important because
the results have never been seen or documented.
The 280 mm f/4 Apo-Telyt-R, which has a theoretical (i.e. computed)
resolving power of 450 Lp/mm (depending on the wavelength
that is being used), can resolve 250 Lp/mm with a contrast
of 50%, of which approximately 150 Lp/mm can actually
be recorded on film. The 180 mm f/2.8 Apo-Elmarit-R has
values that are a bit lower."

 

[jaapv]

As long as we are quoting Puts:

Note that resolving power/resolution is a visual, not a measurable standard

The results are subjective

It is best to relegate the resolution test for finding the maximum number of lines to the dustbin of history. I would seriously advise you not to look at resolution figures as a serious tool for the evaluation of optical performance

 

[Svitantti]

"imho, I get a million lpm with my lenses" ?

 

[Ben Z]

Could you please stop telling us what we want/need? It's really annoying.

By all means tell us what you want/need but please keep it at that.

A lot of wide-angle shooters are here on this forum, most notably 28mm and 35mm focal length shooters who really work well with the field of view, magnification and speed of these lenses.

I am one of those people.

Me too. On the M8 I use a 21 and a 28 instead. They give almost the same fields of view as the 28 and 35 do on full-frame. Some people prefer a 24/25 because the effective field of view is in-between 28 and 35 on full-frame. You can get a 24/1.4 to substitute the 35/1.4 if speed is an issue. You can even get a 21/1.4 to substitute for 28mm, whereas f/2 is the fastest M-mount 28. So I still don't see the tragedy to wide-angle shooters that you keep trying to blame on the cropped sensor of the M8. If you were addicted to the 12mm heliar on full-frame, then I could see why the 1.33x sensor would be frustrating. Otherwise it's a matter of a simple substitution of one focal-length wider to regain the lost field of view, and with no loss in speed.

 

[Kevin]

A 35mm lens and a 25mm lens have two completely different magnifications and the results of a 25mm lens on a 1.33 crop camera look completely different than the results of a 35mm lens on a full-frame camera, even though they both have almost identical fields of view.

Do you get it now?

 

[splitimageview]

Kevin, can you explain what to 'get?'

 

[Ben Z]

A 35mm lens and a 25mm lens have two completely different magnifications and the results of a 25mm lens on a 1.33 crop camera look completely different than the results of a 35mm lens on a full-frame camera, even though they both have almost identical fields of view.

Do you get it now?

No. Why don't you take some identically-composed shots with a 25mm lens on your M8 and a 35mm lens on a full-frame digital at the same aperture and show me/us how they look "completely different".

 

[Kevin]

I have neither a 25mm lens nor a full-frame digital camera but I think you really DO get the picture.

 

[splitimageview]

I haven't a clue what point you are trying to make, Kevin. A little more explanation perhaps? 😉 Maybe than the picture will be 'gotten.'

 

[Kevin]

Alternatively I will mount my 25mm pancake on my e410 giving it an efov of 50mm and comparing that with my 35mm on the R-D1 giving this an efov of 52.5mm.

Both lenses will be focused to approx 1.5 meters at f/2.8.

 

[Kevin]

Magnification? It has to do with how close objects appear in relation to objects further away. Compare your rear view mirror to the outside mirrors of newer cars.

A 25mm lens distorts reality much more than a 35mm lens. Even if I crop an image made with a 25mm lens it is still distored.

 

[Ben Z]

Magnification? It has to do with how close objects appear in relation to objects further away.

Now you have me really confused. I was always taught that magnification has to do with the relative size of the actual subject to the size it is on the negative or slide. Hence, 1:1=life size=subject of 6mm diameter is 6mm on the negative, and 1:2 it will be 3mm on the negative (shot from the same film-to-subject distance of course).

A 25mm lens distorts reality much more than a 35mm lens. Even if I crop an image made with a 25mm lens it is still distored.

Again you seem to be using different definitions that I'm used to seeing. I was taught that distortion is a lens-specific phenomenon more than a focal-length specific one. Eg there are rectilinear 15mm's and fisheye 15mm's, and some 25's distort a lot more than others.

In any case I think you are going on theory rather than practice. Without any cropping, i.e. both on full-frame, the "look" of a 35mm isn't hugely different from that of a 28, and a 1.33x crop isn't a huge crop. Likewise a 1.33x crop of a 21 isn't hugely different from a 28. I've made those comparisons myself, because at one time I too was operating under the same fear that you are. I concluded that a reasonably-small crop factor of focal lengths that are reasonable close to one another is not a monumental issue. Again, this is based on thousands of shot photos, not mathematical formulae and theory.

I would like to add though, that there is one argument in favor of the urgency of a full-frame M digital, which I think is very legitimate. That is that it's been touted for ages that part of the reason Leica lenses are so horrendously expensive is that it is very costly to correct them out to the fullness of the 24x36 image circle, which is not utilized by a cropped sensor. (OTOH, it's a boon for users of older and 3rd-party lenses which 1.33x crops out the area where a large part of the aberrations reside.)

 

[Kevin]

If magnification isn't the right word (I now know that perspective isn't the right word either) then I'll search around for the word which describes what I mean.

 

[Kevin]

Indeed, magnification is the correct word:

"In photography a longer focal length, or lower optical power, is associated with a larger image magnification of distant objects, or a narrower angle of view. Conversely a shorter focal length, or higher optical power, is associated with a wider angle of view."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_length

 

[lewis44]

Here's the deal.

If I put a 50mm lens on my M2 and take a shot and then put it on my M8 and step back until I frame the same area, the images from both will look identical.

However it I use a 35mm lens on the M8 to compensate for the 1.3x, and frame the same, the image will look like it was shot with a 35, as slight distortion will show and you will have greater depth of field.

You are just taking a small section of the same area the lens sees.

On DSLR's the viewfinder only shows the area the sensor will record, not what the lens is covering or how it renders it.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Ben Z]

However it I use a 35mm lens on the M8 to compensate for the 1.3x, and frame the same, the image will look like it was shot with a 35, as slight distortion will show and you will have greater depth of field.

What 35mm lens are you speaking of? I own 3 Leica-mount 35's (screw-mount Elmar from the 50's, Summicron III and IV) and there is no additional distortion whatsoever compared to any Leica-mount 50mm (of which I have 5) when the 35's are cropped by the M8. As to increased depth of field vs the 50, there too the actual visible, detectable difference in practice is small, perhaps one stop at most, and only if the plane of focus is at or near the close limit of the lens. It's not like a P&S with a tiny subminiature sensor where a 6-21mm lens equates to a 35-100. I shoot with a 5D, so I'm not unfamiliar with FF, and I also shoot a 20D (1.6x crop) alongside it, so I'm not unfamiliar with how they compare.

 

[JoeV]

Semi-Tough

Semi-Tough

"You will know it when you get it" -- Burt Reynolds, Semi-Tough

Ah, the old confusion between effective angle of view and the geometric perspective afforded by focal length, which is a physical attribute of a lens' focal length, and DOES NOT scale with sensor size. Neither does depth of focus, all other factors remaining unchanged.

In the "old days", when 120 film was the old "medium format", it was commonly understood that a 75mm lens on a Bronica may give you the same FOV of a standard lens on 135 format, but the geometric foreshortening effects were different, as were the DOF effects, these being physical attributes of the focal length and aperture, and hence don't scale with film format changes.

Remember just a few years ago when people would criticize the choice of 4"x5" over medium format because, although it has the same FOV, the DOF is much more limited than smaller formats? Physics is still physics; these principles have not changed in the intervening years.

~Joe

 

[JoeV]

Here's the deal.

If I put a 50mm lens on my M2 and take a shot and then put it on my M8 and step back until I frame the same area, the images from both will look identical.

However it I use a 35mm lens on the M8 to compensate for the 1.3x, and frame the same, the image will look like it was shot with a 35, as slight distortion will show and you will have greater depth of field.

You are just taking a small section of the same area the lens sees.

On DSLR's the viewfinder only shows the area the sensor will record, not what the lens is covering or how it renders it.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Correct. But also: with the 35mm lens the background will diminish in size more as compared to the scene through the 50mm, even though the foreground composition may be the same. Because perspective is a physical attribute of absolute focal length (and other lens properties) and doesn't scale with sensor size.

~Joe