pixelpeepshow!! eight 50ties compared..

back alley said:
after looking this over i can say that i'm happy i have a nokton on the way.

it seems to me that the nokton and the summitar are very close in rendition, very close.


anyone else see the similarities of the nokton and the summitar?
 
Joe, I noticed that the Summitar showed its definition and contrast very well in these photos. I concur that the Nokton appeared slightly better. Of course, I'm biased because I have a clean, sharp Summitar myself.

Jim N.
 
Hi Joe.
honestly from my experience with both lenses i don´t think that they share much character, when i developed the first pictures with the Summitar I immediatly thought i finaly have a ltm cron ;)

in my view the summitar draws like the old Summicron (also bokeh is very close) but wide open untill 4 it is only sharp in the middle of the frame wereas the cron is sharp corner to corner .... very tempting for portrait work thou.

The nokton is truly sharp but I seem to prefer the lower contrast of the other two lenses (also for color work)..it´s my night and winter lens! (as for your previous post.. the nokton is very comfortable to use even with gloves..easy to grip controls)

friedrich
 
thafred said:
Hi Raid,
My Jupiter 3 is very sharp as well but the focus shifts towards the camera on the right half of a frame! (in the shot of the building, the left part of the image is sharp and contrasty and the right part is blurred as if focused at 5m! the tree in front of my window which is slightly blurred with all lenses is sharp on the right with the J3...

I did the shimming myself and find it very easy to do when using a groundglass and 21 or 28 as a loupe....in the center my focus with bessa or M3 is spot on and when shooting closeup and wide open I naturaly can´t notice the effect... I guess the front or rear element is slightly tilted....looks like I need to buy another one!

Fred

Hello Fred,
You have a case that may be hard to fix. All I meant is the fact that not all J-3 are equal. This is problem with buying a J-3 lens.

Raid
 
This is problem with buying a J-3 lens.

thats true, fsu gear is hard to tell, sometimes you get a winner then a looser. (my Fed 2 broke a week ago...one of the shutter ribbons came loose..darn) otoh in my case every camera Item needed a little care after buying (the leicas..oh my)

Now to the rehabilitation of the Leitz Elmar! while browsing through my pictures I found a scan tagged with Elmar that I want to share for further discussion....this lenstest never tell the whole story ;)

The same Elmar at small f-stop on Agfa Ultra 100:
 

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thafred said:
Hi Joe.
honestly from my experience with both lenses i don´t think that they share much character, when i developed the first pictures with the Summitar I immediatly thought i finaly have a ltm cron ;)

in my view the summitar draws like the old Summicron (also bokeh is very close) but wide open untill 4 it is only sharp in the middle of the frame wereas the cron is sharp corner to corner .... very tempting for portrait work thou.

The nokton is truly sharp but I seem to prefer the lower contrast of the other two lenses (also for color work)..it´s my night and winter lens! (as for your previous post.. the nokton is very comfortable to use even with gloves..easy to grip controls)

friedrich


thanks friedrich, you would know better having some experience with the lenses. from the samples here i thought they look very close.
the nokton as a winter lens is good to hear as we have long winters here.
joe
 
raid amin said:
This is a situation where two lenses come out as winners; the Nokton and the Summicron. I slightly favor the performance of the Summicron here.

I'm not a Leica-phile by any stretch of the imagination, but I agree with Raid completely. I was surprised by how much I liked the Summicron. It's pretty close with the Nokton, but I think the size would put me off.

Either way, I have only one 50 (Hexanon) and am not looking for another.
 
I was surprised by how much I liked the Summicron

The lens shows the best performance on contrasty color film like U100 or Velvia i think. it struck me when I got the first Slides back that the color rendition is soo subtle and good...in contrary the Nokton has too much punch for my taste ...also on certain occasion I think I see color fringes or slight unsharpness on color film (havent investigated this might be just illusion) with the Nokton wereas the Cron is allways supersharp on this films (might have to do with shutter shake from Bessa vs. Leica too)

nobody commenting on the Elmar sample? I think uncoated (even hazy) lenses have much potential!
 
Friedrich,


I have a similar Elmar and I like its performance for pastel colors and creamy results with B&W.

Raid
 
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