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Elmarit-M 90 (11807) vs Zeiss 100 Makro - Comparison


CheshireCat

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Rationale:

 

I just purchased a used Elmarit-M but I had doubts about the results. I found the rendering (colors, crispness, pop) much less pleasing than what I got with the Zeiss.

 

So I compared yesterday the Elmarit 90 on the Leica M vs the Zeiss 100 Makro on the Canon 5D2.

Yes, testing lenses on the same sensor would make more sense, but the problem here is I was not happy about the Elmarit performance compared (by heart) to the Zeiss on the 5D2.

 

Anyways, hope my findings are helpful for you guys.

 

Execution:

 

- Beautiful sunny afternoon with perfect natural light.

- Several different scenes.

- Shots in RAW format.

- Zeiss 100 shot @ f/2, f/2.8.

- Elmarit 90 shot @ f/2.8.

- Leica M with EVF. Manual focusing in Live View.

- Canon 5D2 with Z-Finder and ML firmware. Manual focusing in Live View.

- Comparison made on a wide gamut display.

 

Findings:

 

- The difference in focal length (100 vs 90) is nicely compensated by the different sensor resolution (21 vs 24).

- Canon auto white balance is more similar to what my eyes saw. However I set the white balance manually on every shot before comparison.

- My copy of the Elmarit is amazingly sharp to the corners of the image. I believe the Zeiss at f/2.8 is at least as sharp, but the M output looks noticeably sharper because of the lack of AA filter on the sensor. I can state that the Elmarit is ok on 24 MP sensors.

- The extra stop of the Zeiss totally changes the character of the lens. At f/2.8 and lower aperture the lens is clinical, at f/2 it gives a very special look I personally love. In order to be fair, I compared the two lenses at f/2.8, but this makes me wonder whether a Summicron would give me the extra magic on the M.

- The Zeiss longitudinal chromatic aberration (LoCA) is awful. This is the real downside of this lens. LoCA is still quite visible at f/2.8 and much worse than the Elmarit. Whenever I shoot the Zeiss 100 wide open I fear that the shot might be ruined by LoCA (very difficult to predict). This uncertainty is what made me get a Zeiss 135 APO, which is in a totally different class. Seems I can't let the 100 go though...

- The Elmarit seems to flare in the presence of... stray light. Even when the sun or light source is well outside of the frame. This can wash out the contrast on part of the image, in a way that is very difficult to correct. In the same conditions, the Zeiss is perfect. I wonder if the coating in the Elmarit is outdated (my version is from 1994), especially not taking into account digital sensors (backward reflections). Maybe the slide hood is insufficient. In any case, being so unpredictable, this issue is as nasty as the Zeiss LoCA.

- The Elmarit is great also at MFD, even wide open. The lack of a FLE is not an issue. Just needs critical focusing that is only possible with Live View. The Zeiss otoh is a Makro lens down to 2:1, and this is a big plus when one wants to capture little details.

- Colors. This is the most important part for me, and still remain an unsolved mystery. Out of camera, colors are muted on the Elmarit. The lens has a lower contrast than the Zeiss, and this has a huge impacts on colors that can only be resolved in post. To reveal fine color nuances, one needs to increase contrast dramatically. I am not sure whether the sensor is part of the equation (I really doubt it) and this is something I plan to test better adapting the Zeiss to the M. Nevertheless, this explains why I have to edit each and every shot, and this does not make me happy at all. Wonder if the Summicron AA would really make the difference.

 

P.S. A lens comparison without pictures is like a book without pictures... but we are all grown ups, right ? ;)

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Ok, some pictures (OOC Lr5 default; only white balance adjusted, converted to sRGB).

 

Center of the frame, 2:1.

Note the sharper rendering of the M sensor, but flatter colors.

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Edited by CheshireCat
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Another weird finding is that the Elmarit (4 elements) seems to be at least half a stop slower than the Zeiss (9 elements) at the same f/2.8 aperture.

The M sometimes tags files as being shot at f/3.4 or f/4, even if the lens is wide open. Old coatings ?

 

It is also interesting to note that the M set to Auto lens detection is thinking my uncoded Elmarit-M is a Tele-Elmarit.

 

[Do not compare sharpness in the shots below. The focus was off in the M shot.]

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Here is the proof that a 90/2.8 at MFD requires critical focusing rather than FLE.

Critical focusing is almost impossible to achieve with a RF (notice how the upper border of the leaf is not in critical focus) even if perfectly calibrated.

I had to use Live View on the M at full magnification using the EVF. As crappy as Leica's EVF is, it works much better than the RF for this kind of shots.

 

The picture shows a 953x591 pixels 1:1 center crop straight out of camera using Lr5 default parameters. It can be postprocessed to look much sharper than this, of course.

I had to convert it to grayscale, as sRGB is not able to handle the reds and purples in the original shot.

 

Bokeh is very smooth, considering there were other plants and leaves in the background.

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Another weird finding is that the Elmarit (4 elements) seems to be at least half a stop slower than the Zeiss (9 elements) at the same f/2.8 aperture.

The M sometimes tags files as being shot at f/3.4 or f/4, even if the lens is wide open. Old coatings ?

 

Your camera can only guess the aperture used, if it is off by a stop that is in the ballpark for a guess.

 

One of the joys of the Elmarit M is the gentle colour rendering and not showboating with modern in-your-face-wham-bam-thank-you-mam irritatingly high contrast. Contrast and colour saturation can be increased in post processing, but it is much harder to decrease it, so it is the safe option at least. Besides which it is a trait of Zeiss lenses that they do often have more micro contrast than Leica lenses, and not just the Elmarit M. The micro contrast shouldn't be mistaken for sharpness which it often is.

 

I can appreciate that if you are shooting a wedding and every single portrait needs a tweak in post processing it could be irritating, and the answer may be to buy more Zeiss lenses that render in your style. But for the majority who are looking for one keeper in a hundred exposures it isn't a lot of work to do a contrast adjustment and add a zap of colour,.... if that's what you like. Suggesting the Elmarit M is a lens that requires a lot of work is a bit over the top for most people to relate to.

 

Steve

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I think that this is another of those apples and oranges discussions.

The Zeiss Makro Planar 100 is a fine lens with different characteristics to the Elmarit M. For a start the Elmarit M of course is a stop slower , it is also much much more compact. Each is capable of great results and they are designed of course for different camera systems and do different things.

Different reproduction ration if you want to do close ups (not true macro) then the Zeiss is superb.

I bought both of mine used, the Elmarit M cost half the price of the Zeiss.

Alyce, MUA photo - Geoff Hopkinson photos at pbase.com

Becky photo - Geoff Hopkinson photos at pbase.com

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Why didn’t you put the Zeiss on the M to equalize sensors?:confused: This test has too many variables to tell you anything, unless you want to compare complete systems.

 

I am comparing my two systems, as coming from 5D2+Makro100 I had different expectations on M+Elmarit90.

All the variables you mention are actually what made my expectations different, and I have reported my findings as objectively as I can. In that sense, the test told me a lot.

 

This is not a "Is Leica better than Zeiss ?" thread, sorry, the title is misleading. It is rather a "Can I replace my DSLR kit with a much more compact Leica kit and never look back ?". And my very personal answer is "Not yet. Let's check the Summicron 90 APO first". I believe other users are in the same boat, and this thread could tell them something too.

Edited by CheshireCat
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Your camera can only guess the aperture used, if it is off by a stop that is in the ballpark for a guess.

 

Fair enough, indeed this is not the problem.

If you check the actual exposure data of both shots, you will see that the Leica kit is much slower at the same f/2.8 aperture.

So much that the camera guess is usually wrong, as it is actually guessing T-stops rather than f-stops (there should be a way to express this important difference in EXIF data).

 

I hope to be terribly wrong, but I am starting to think that the Elmarit is a T3.4 lens. And this does not make me very happy.

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Just bought an EF to M adapter, so I could test both lenses on the M 240.

 

Time for a quick color comparison using a color checker board in perfect natural light. I actually used the Zeiss APO Sonnar 135/2, as it subjectively renders the best colors (Zeiss MP 100/2 is almost identical though).

The chart was shot with both lenses; the RAW files were developed in Lr5 with default settings (Adobe standard camera calibration profile) apart from white balance calibration on mid-gray (see picture) which interestingly resulted in both pictures having: Temp=4650; Tint=10.

You are looking at a sRGB JPG export of the result. The red channel has an extra kick when examining the original RAW file on a wide gamut display, but the difference transposes nicely to sRGB.

 

The difference in color rendering is amazing.

It is really noticeable how the gamma of the two lenses is different. The Leica lens renders light colors much brighter, and this explains why the Zeiss keeps highlights better.

It is also interesting to note how the only brighter color on the Zeiss is the yellow, thanks to a brighter green channel.

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I hope to be terribly wrong, but I am starting to think that the Elmarit is a T3.4 lens. And this does not make me very happy.

 

I probably was terribly wrong :rolleyes:

The difference seems to be caused more by the sensor than the lens. The 5D2 sensor seems faster.

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Why did you do the test with the Zeiss 135mm when the whole idea, & title of this thread, was to compare the Leica 90mm vs Zeiss 100mm?

 

Because I am lazy.

I shot the color chart with both the 100 and 135. Planned to compare the three lenses because the 135 is the latest and greatest tele from Zeiss, i.e. non-plus-ultra.

But then I couldn't notice any difference in color rendering between the 135 and the 100 (I have the new version), so skipped the 100 and went directly to the 135 as the benchmark lens.

I will double check 100 vs 135 as soon as I have some spare time.

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  • 1 year later...

I think the best comparison for the 90 Elmarit-M's character may be the V4 28mm Ellmarit-M. Both are very late model pre-asph lenses and one hears the same comments: 'it is high contrast, no it isn't, yes it is'. I think the reason is that it is fairly high contrast - higher than the older Mandler lenses - but not as high as some modern asph lenses from Leica.

 

My 90 Elmarit-M is not as high contrast as my 24mm Elmar f3.8, but perhaps similar to my 24mm Lux at middle apertures. The 90 is higher contrast than my 35mm f2.8 Summaron for sure, but lower than my 75mm Summarit-M...

 

Personally, I find it very sharp even wide open, but also very smooth and fairly gentle. I do not regard it as a harsh lens and have never seen any greater propensity for blown highlights than with my current asph lenses (actually less so). I'm not sure it is fair to compare it to a Zeiss SLR lens simply because that's not a common point of reference for M users. Perhaps a better test would be against the 90mm Summarit and APO f2.

 

IMHO this lens gives a superb combination of modern performance with some old school gentleness. I regard my 35mm Summarit in the same light. I think this is a reason why the last model 90mm Elmarit-M is popular: it is found at a good price, it is solidly made, performs very well wide open, yet is not harsh and clinical like some regard later lenses.

Edited by batmobile
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Just bought an EF to M adapter, so I could test both lenses on the M 240.

 

Time for a quick color comparison using a color checker board in perfect natural light. I actually used the Zeiss APO Sonnar 135/2, as it subjectively renders the best colors (Zeiss MP 100/2 is almost identical though).

The chart was shot with both lenses; the RAW files were developed in Lr5 with default settings (Adobe standard camera calibration profile) apart from white balance calibration on mid-gray (see picture) which interestingly resulted in both pictures having: Temp=4650; Tint=10.

You are looking at a sRGB JPG export of the result. The red channel has an extra kick when examining the original RAW file on a wide gamut display, but the difference transposes nicely to sRGB.

 

The difference in color rendering is amazing.

It is really noticeable how the gamma of the two lenses is different. The Leica lens renders light colors much brighter, and this explains why the Zeiss keeps highlights better.

It is also interesting to note how the only brighter color on the Zeiss is the yellow, thanks to a brighter green channel.

 

This result could also be understood as a sign that the Zeiss lens renders less contrast than the Elmarit 90mm. Now is this good or bad thing?

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