50 Lux what is it?

[Julius Bjornsson]

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Hi there all. I have a question about image quality from the 50 Summilux which I find very hard to define and still harder to answer. I think there is something about photos from that lens that is different from most other lenses, some kind of three dimensional quality that I think I see and which is not present in photos made with other lenses. I have seen this before in one lens I owned some time ago, the Nikkor 85 f 1,4 which also had this 3D quality, especially in portraits. A face captured with these lenses appears to in some way stand out of the background, and to tell the truth after I sold off all my Nikon gear the 85 is really the only lens I miss. It had this elusive quality and after looking at lots of examples from the 50 Lux, there it is again.

 

Please forgive my rambling about this, I am really talking here about something I find very hard to define. Is it the big aperture (1,4), or something else that makes these lenses behave in this way. I hope someone understands what I am talking about and some explanations/speculations about this elusive quality would be very welcome. What is it?

 

If someone can convince me that this is just a manifestation of lusting after a new lens, ok I will accept that, but you have to be convincing. The 50 Lux is horribly expensive, but perhaps there is also some lens that will replace it.

 

But the main thing here for me is to try to understand what makes the two lenses mentioned here stand out in this manner. Any explanation will be greatly appreciated.

[wizard]

Exactly which Summilux 50 are you refering to? There are at least 5 different optical computations of this lens out there, namely

 

- Summilux-M first version (1959 - 1961)

- Summilux-M second version (1961 until quite recently)

- Summilux-M asph. (current lens)

- Summilux-R first version (mostly E55 filter thread)

- Summilux-R second version (E60 filter thread)

 

Cheers,

 

Andreas

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[Julius Bjornsson]

I am referring to the Summilux-M Asph, the newest one, I think.

[carstenw]

The 50 Lux ASPH is IMO the best 50 ever made, for any camera. There are fans of other lenses, like the Noctilux, the Noct-Nikkor, the 1.2 Rokkor, and so on, but none are as consistently good, from what I have seen. Of course, some have a look which is worth having in addition to the 50 Lux ASPH, such as the Noctilux, but that is for later

 

The 50 Lux ASPH is quite expensive, but worth every cent. I love this lens, truly, and can hardly wait to use it on a FF digital M. Sadly, I find the focal length a little tight on the M8, and prefer the 35 Lux ASPH, which, while a great lens in its own right, I don't like quite as much as the 50 Lux ASPH.

Edited March 19, 2009 by carstenw

[firststream]

Julius:

 

The ASPH is the best 50mm lens made - full stop. It has a resolution throughout it's image plane that is the highest of all lenses in this focal length of all manufacturers.

 

Erwin Puts has an excellent essay on the ASPH here:

 

Summilux1.4/50 asph

 

The higher the lens resolution, the greater is the three dimensional quality of the image captured.It is so sharp in fact, that there are many photographers that find it too much so. For those people, the 50mm Summilux pre-ASPH is the preferred lens. Some of these same photographers also argue that the bokeh from the ASPH version is less preferable than that of the pre-ASPH.

I originally desired the ASPH version, but found a good late version of the pre-ASPH for a third of the price. Both are extremely fine lenses, and combined with the peculiar nature of the M8 sensor's anti-aliasing filter, very sharp images with the three-dimensional feel are evident.

[lct]

...If someone can convince me that this is just a manifestation of lusting after a new lens, ok I will accept that, but you have to be convincing...

Yours is a great lens indeed but the latest pre-asph 50/1.4 and the 50/2 # 11819 as well as the Summicron-R are better still as far as 3D rendition IMHO. Of all my Leica 50's, the 50/1.4 asph is clearly the sharpest at wide aperture but it is so contrasty that i have to reduce contrast in PP to allow for better rendition of volumes personally. It is not difficult in most cases fortunately.

[Guest malland]

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The 50 Lux ASPH is IMO the best 50 ever made, for any camera...

To me that is not a meaningful statement: perhaps it's the best lens in terms of resolution, but lenses have many different properties of which resolution may not be the most important one because good modern lenses are generally very sharp. Also, what is "best" for one photographer may not be best for another one. Many people, myself included, prefer the Summilux-50 pre-ASPH to the ASPH version. Here are a couple of pictures with the Summilux-50 pre-ASPH:

 

 

 

 

Leica M8.2 | ISO 640 | Summilux-50 (pre-ASPH) | Paris

 

 

 

 

Leica M6 | Tri-X | Summilux-50 (pre-ASPH) | Bangkok

 

 

 

 

—Mitch/Potomac, MD

Portraits - a set on Flickr

Edited March 19, 2009 by malland

[Julius Bjornsson]

Yours is a great lens indeed but the latest pre-asph 50/1.4 and the 50/2 # 11819 as well as the Summicron-R are better still as far as 3D rendition IMHO. Of all my Leica 50's, the 50/1.4 asph is clearly the sharpest at wide aperture but it is so contrasty that i have to reduce contrast in PP to allow for better rendition of volumes personally. It is not difficult in most cases fortunately.

 

OOPS I wish it was mine! But someone here earlier said that the 3D quality was a function of sharpness!. Ergo, the sharpest lenses should have most of this quality. Is this correctly understood? One other question. You mention the 50/2 and a number #11819, what is this number - serial? And I presume that you are talking about the Summicron!

[lct]

OOPS I wish it was mine! But someone here earlier said that the 3D quality was a function of sharpness!. Ergo, the sharpest lenses should have most of this quality. Is this correctly understood? One other question. You mention the 50/2 and a number #11819, what is this number - serial? And I presume that you are talking about the Summicron!

I'm no techie, Julius, just sharing my modest experience. Contrast and OoF rendition must play a role as well i guess. #11819 is the code number of the Summicron-M 50/2 from 1978-1994.

[tgray]

I don't think there is another term that bugs me more than the whole 3D thing. I read a 20 page thread on another forum about '3D rendering' or whatever, where the participants were trying to define it, and I don't think there were 2 people who agreed. Some thing it had to do with contrast, macro or micro, some think it was just shallow depth of field, some thought it was the steepness of transition from in focus to out of focus. Oh, and most were illustrated with examples that were too hard to compare.

 

That being said, I think the 50 ASPH Summilux is a great lens. It's sharp, even wide open, so nothing gets hazy at f/1.4. It also has pretty decent close up performance, which some lenses don't have, and goes down to .7m, which some of the other fast 50's for RF don't do. I've yet to take a picture with mine with goofy or harsh bokeh. It has a built in hood which I like as well. I also often can't tell the pictures I take with it apart from the Canon 50/1.4 for my SLR.

[wizard]

I also often can't tell the pictures I take with it apart from the Canon 50/1.4 for my SLR.

 

Shame on you. Give your Summilux to someone who is more likely to appreciate its qualities .

 

Andy

[Julius Bjornsson]

I don't think there is another term that bugs me more than the whole 3D thing. I read a 20 page thread on another forum about '3D rendering' or whatever, where the participants were trying to define it, and I don't think there were 2 people who agreed. Some thing it had to do with contrast, macro or micro, some think it was just shallow depth of field, some thought it was the steepness of transition from in focus to out of focus. Oh, and most were illustrated with examples that were too hard to compare.

 

.

 

This is exactly the thing I was thinking about, I think I can see this undefinable quality, on screen and on printouts, but defining what it exactly is has eluded me. So I am somewhat reassured that others also have a problem understanding this. But anyway thanks everyone for your input, I would not say that this is any clearer for me, but in any case I now have something more to think about and will be looking at comparisons between the horrobly expensive new lens and the pre-asp. It would be great if someone has a direct comparison . e.g. two portraits taken of the same subject, with the same camera at the same time from e.g. the Summicron and the Summarit. That would really help, I think.

[Julius Bjornsson]

I'm no techie, Julius, just sharing my modest experience. Contrast and OoF rendition must play a role as well i guess. #11819 is the code number of the Summicron-M 50/2 from 1978-1994.

 

Is this a number I should find on the lens itself?

[JHAG]

Is this a number I should find on the lens itself?

 

No : it's the reference number on Leica Catalog. It's on the Warranty card of the lens, along with its serial number and its barcode.

 

I have both 50 pre-ASPH and ASPH, and the difference is enormous.

But, like LCT, I'll keep both (also for historical reasons, because the 50

was my first Leica lens, and I love the first batches I shot with it.)

 

That said, the ASPH computation is not that expensive : look ffordes.co.uk.

Much less than so many expensive useless jewel watches.

[lct]

Is this a number I should find on the lens itself?

Ditto Hel Stampes above. It is a small lens with a separate hood and a convex or concave focus tab.

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[tgray]

Shame on you. Give your Summilux to someone who is more likely to appreciate its qualities .

 

Andy

 

Haha. Just trying to inject a dose of reality. When I use my lenses to take actual pictures, I find that I really like some shots from a 'crummy' lens just as much as I do from an 'overpriced' one. The Summilux certainly makes me happier using it, but *nobody* who sees my photos cares one bit about what it was shot on. They are more likely to make some silly comment about the fact that I use film.

[adan]

It is always hard to use words to describe things that are completely non-verbal and subjective. It's why wine connoisseurs (and other critics) get paid the big bucks.

 

For me, what defines "3D quality" in Zeiss/Leica lenses is not so much the background-soft/subject-sharp relationship (although obviously that can also impart its own effect) as it is the shading and sculpting and separating of small localized details (fingers, toes, eyeballs)

 

In the shot below of the woman applying eyedrops (90 Summicron pre-APO, film) the image is not all that sharp - slowish shutter speed, f/2 - and yet there is a round "fleshiness" to the arms, fingers, toes, ankle-bones, etc. that is what leaps out at me from almost all Leica lenses, and what "I" call roundness or 3D.

 

(If I were to make a WAG as to what creates this effect optically, I'd say it is a combination of high micro-contrast to define edges and shapes, with a moderate overall (macro) contrast. In lenses with high macro-contrast, getting the highlights and shadows to hold detail tends to muddy the contrast in the middle of the tonal range, reducing the sculpting.) I think that's what lct is referring to, also.

 

Now, back to the 50 'luxes. The other shots (M8) are roughly comparable portraits with both the pre-ASPH and ASPH lenses, that I think point up their different characters, even though they are not identical enough to be "tests". I'll let them speak for themselves.

 

It is funny, but I have spent literally the past 2.5 years (since getting the M8) trying to find a used 50 pre-ASPH in the most recent mount (built-in shade, closer minimum focus, black barrel) and just 5 minutes before logging on to this thread finally tracked one down and ordered it.

 

Darn - forgot to label the 50 ASPH shot, but it is the frontal portrait. I will add ONE comment - I actually prefer the bokeh of the ASPH - that hard-edged cat's-eye highlight in the pre-ASPH is disturbing and it tends to produce double images (chair backs at left). But I prefer other characteristics of the pre-ASPH, and it is "sharp enough", so that's what I went with.

 

There seems to be a huge drought in used 50 luxes of all kinds - I found about a dozen altogether on E-bay and all the other on-line sources I could track down, and most of those were ASPH or the older pre-ASPH that only focuses to 1 meter.

 

People seem to be hanging onto this lens, in all its iterations.

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Edited March 19, 2009 by adan

[adan]

Just for the record, the current SummiCRON f/2 50 with built-in shade (11 826) is IDENTICAL to the 11 819 with no shade - in terms of optics and the image it will render.

[lct]

Just for the record, the current SummiCRON f/2 50 with built-in shade (11 826) is IDENTICAL to the 11 819 with no shade - in terms of optics and the image it will render.

Interesting, Andy. I don't know where it comes from but the last time i tried a current Summicron, i had the feeling that its OoF rendition was harsher than that of my 11819. Did you have the opportunity to compare them?

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[UliWer]

In my experience the pre-Asph 50 Summilux is characterized by its rapid decrease of sharpness outside the center of the image underlined by vignetting more than other post-war 50-mm Leica lenses. You can see this well on MTF-Charts of this lens, where the curves drop very deep. I think this feature adds to the three-dimensional impression of some photos you can get with it. It is - on a much higher level - not unlike the old 50-Summar, which was shunned because of its decrease in sharpness in outer zones and strong vignetting, but which is prasied as well for it's 3D-effect.

 

Compared to this, the new aspherical Summilux uphoplds very crisp sharpness almost on the whole frame. With the crop factor of the M8 you have no significant loss of sharpness in the outer zones and no vignetting. So the new version's results might look more even (you might say "flatter") on a very high level, but you could take this as well as a loss as far as the impression of 3D is concerned.

 

What I found astonishing comparing results of both lenses were the differences in colour rendition: the pre-asph maintained a much more blueish - almost cold - character whilst the asph shows a tendency to earthy warmth. The new version seems to be well harmonized with the 28 as well as the 75 Summicron-asph.

 

I have still some suspicion that those differences in colour rendition are no results from the lenses but from the UV/IR-filters, for I use a Leica filter on the new and a B+W filter on the old version. Perhaps I have a chance to make some comparisons on the next weekend with both lenses and same filters.

 

It would be interesting to know if anybody shares my observation about colour rendition of both lenses.