Testing Leica and other 'legacy' 50mm lenses on the GF1

Nick De Marco

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I am off the Asia at the end of the month so narrowing down on my gear. I am taking the Mamiya 7 MF rangefinder camera (with 43mm, 65mm and 150mm lenses) so for digital I am taking the GF1 which I shall use for street, some portraits and some landscape work.

I have the 20mm Panny f1.7 lens which, as everyone who has used it will affirm, is a wonderful lens and will be the main one to use. I splashed out on the 7-14mm lens which I am awaiting. I wanted one LTM/M type lens to take, and one I could use for telephoto work. So I have been testing various 50mm lenses I own on the GF1 to see which gives me the best results.

The original pool of lenses I tested on the GF1 are:

1. Canon 50mm f1.2 LTM
2. Canon 50mm f1.2 LTM
3. Leica 50mm Summilux f1.4 (first version) - M fit
4. Jupiter 3 50mm f1.5 (copy of the Zeiss 50/1.5)
5. Leica Summicron 50mm f2 (pre-asph new version, 1980s-1990s) - M fit
6. Leica Summicron 50mm f2 (pre-asph, chrome older version) - M fit
7. Voigtlander Heliar 50mm f2 (collapsable)
8. Leica Elmar 50mm f2.8 (old M fit collapsable version).

This first test is shooting at 4 apertures, same subject indoors on a tripod. I have narrowed it down to three lenses on the basis of this. Just jpegs, no photoshop.
Click on the link to see the results: http://www.pbase.com/nickdemarco/gf1__50s.

I hope to do 2 further tests before going to select which one I take. The next test shall be shooting at 400 iso handheld on different days with Raw converted to black and white, which in part will test which lens suits my style of street shooting the best. The final and most important test (for my purposes) between the three will be of an outside landscape, at infinity focus on tripod.

It should go without saying that these test are not done under laboratory conditions, reflect my own subjective view of the lenses and how I best use them, and the fact that I may have varying quality copies of lenses. However, instead of approaching the test with my own prejudices of what I thought would be best, or 'brand loyalty' I am trying to select the 50mm which does best on the GF1.

I shall post the results of the further tests when complete.

Nick
 
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Isn't Caol Ila the most wonderful Scotch?

I would like to know what you think of the Panny wide zoom once you've had a chance to play with it.
 
Nick, your old cron looks pretty scratched up. Is it a collapse or rigid? I have a minty rigid here you might want to pick up before heading to the Philippines hehehe. Yeah I am in HK :) Always businessy lol.

Nice test. I recently got a GF1 myself and been using the rigid. I was blown away by the penny though. Waiting for some cine lens to come in.

From your test, I would go with the Canon 1.2 with the special glow on edges. When you shoot 100mm on the GF1 you want wide open anyway, no anti handshake on that thing eh. The modern cron isn't bad either. The lux is not too pleasing and the Canon 1.4 looks to modern for my liking.
 
INteresting test, thanks. The Jupiter comes out surprisingly well.

I like Laphroaig myself. Caol Ila is good, but it's a Diageo brand and they now produce malt centrally, use a lot of Swedsh barley, rather than Scottish, and age the whisky on the mainland, so its connection with Islay is getting more and more tenuous.
 
yehh...I like the signature of the Jupiter 3, if you stop it down to f/2 you get the sharpness your looking for with the cream. it's ergonomics and weight are a plus on the GF1... You should have run tests at 2.8 as that is a useful aperture in daylight with that camera.

cheers...
 
Thanks for the feedback

I am leaning towards the Canon 1.2 at the moment, which is annoying as it is not the lens I wanted to win!

But I can't make my mind up before I have done all thes tests so hold your horses.... I too was surprsied, btw, that the Jupiter 3 did well, but I'm pleased it is not amongst the final contenders. there is an irritating feature to that lens, which it shares with some others, the aperture stops don't stop, click in place. You have to move them carefully and they are right next to the focus ring. Very easy to move focus by mistake.

Japanese whisky - I am a virgin. I love Scottish single malt but saw this in the shop and thought i would try it. It's smooth. I like it. And I wanna do a photo of it with a Japanese camera.

Philippines - is it really so bad? I have taken photos in Bangkok, Phnom Pen, Yangon and many other palces and, whilst alwasy being carfeul , have never felt worried. Is Philippines so different?
 
I compared over twenty 50mm lenses recently with Roland, and we found that the Canon 50/1.4 and 1.5 were doing very well, and so did the two Heliars and the rigid Summicron. The Summilux was also a top performer. The Canon 50 1.2 was not as sharp as other Canon 50mm lenses.

Roland posted detailed close-ups on his smugmug site. Look under FERIDER for Roland.

Your results are similar but not identical to mine. The Heliars did very well also in my tests.
I used a heavy tripod and also a cable reelase cord for stability during the testing.
The test was replicated to get more uniformity and to avoid errors.

-----------------------------
1. Canon 50mm f1.2 LTM
2. Canon 50mm f1.2 LTM
3. Leica 50mm Summilux f1.4 (first version) - M fit
4. Jupiter 3 50mm f1.5 (copy of the Zeiss 50/1.5)
5. Leica Summicron 50mm f2 (pre-asph new version, 1980s-1990s) - M fit
6. Leica Summicron 50mm f2 (pre-asph, chrome older version) - M fit
7. Voigtlander Heliar 50mm f2 (collapsable)
8. Leica Elmar 50mm f2.8 (old M fit collapsable version).
 
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For a lens for travel in many cases weight is an important consideration.
That gives an advantage to the Jupiter 3 of the fast lenses.
 
The Heliar looks to me to be the best (most consistent) of the bunch closely followed by the Jupiter. However, any bar the old summicron would probably be fine. Nice dilemma to have ;)
 
Thanks for the feedbac

Philippines - is it really so bad? I have taken photos in Bangkok, Phnom Pen, Yangon and many other palces and, whilst alwasy being carfeul , have never felt worried. Is Philippines so different?

just be careful.. and watch your back.. even the small kids are taught to snatch phones..
 
Manila is a huge metropolitan area, it really depends on the district/location. Makati, which is the business district is very modern and relatively safe as well as other tourist areas. It is best to ask for a guide before you start walking around to shoot.

Enjoy your visit!
 
Round 2 - Hand held black and white

Round 2 - Hand held black and white

2nd test here:

http://www.pbase.com/nickdemarco/test_2_bw_handheld

This test is without doubt the least scientific. No tripods were used. Weather conditions were different in each lens test (and as I found them). The subjects photographed were different. There is no uniform aperture. And I was in a different state of mind when using each one. But for these flaws it is a useful test for me. t is as much about how you can use this lens, handheld, focussing and setting the aperture rather on the hoof, as it is image resolution etc, because this is how I am going to use the 50mm lens when abroad sometimes. It won't always be on a tripod and me have lots of time to set up.

All shots were taken in raw mode. The black and white conversions are all done using the same software (Alien skin, Ilford Delta 100), they have been sharpened to exactly the same %, and there is very little other photoshop work.

All three lenses were good enough in this test, and and I would be happy having any of them for black and white work on the GF1.

Each sub-gallery below contains 8 photos selected from those I took with each lens on a particular day in the past 2 weeks. Click on the sub-gallery to see the 8 shots with each lens.

I think if I had to rate them, though, I would have to give this round to the Canon. It was both sharp enough (when necessary) and had an attractive bokeh in the shots with more out of focus areas. I like the 'look' and 'character' of this lens on the GF1. I feel it produces photographs just the right amount of contrast and depth. Also, and just as important to me, it was the best one from the standpoint of using handheld. The lens is heavier and wider than the other two (though it is also shorter than both of them), but its size and design means it is easier to manually change aperture and focus, for me, than with the other two thinner lenses, especially the Heliar which I don't like from a useability standpoint, when on the GF1. The only thing to worry about is the infinity lock (which is useful on a manual focus lens), because it is next to the GF1 M lens adapter release, so you must be careful not to press the wrong button and have your lens fall off the side of a bridge etc!

The Summicron looks good. I felt it lacked contrast stopped down, for the best photos I had to shoot at f2 or f2.8, but then the bokeh is rather in your face and violent for me. Some of the stopped down architecture ones worked very well though, and it is a good lens for portraits, perhaps because if its low contrast (my copy at least).

The Heliar was again pretty flawless, good, tending on the high, contrast. But for me this made it look a bit too much like the modern lens it is. I don't find it has much character, which is what you half want from an M or LTM lens on the GF1. As above, I find the handling of this lens fiddly, and you notice this more when using the lens handheld and manually focusing.

Overall ratings handheld black and white:
Canon 9/10
Summicron 7.5/10
Heliar 7/10

Canon wins round two
 
Hi,
I am a newbie.. If you use a 50mm F/1.2 lens, can you set the aperture on the GF1 to 1.2? Or is max opening 1.7 like with the 20mm panasonic pan. lens?
 
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