New article on overgaard.dk - "Leica 75mm Summilux-M f/1.4"

[Overgaard]

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I just finished my article on Leica 75mm Summilux-M f/1.4 as well as 85mm Summarex f/1.5 and with a comparison of 50mm Noctilux- ASPH f/0.95 to the 75mm.

 

Enjoy!

 

leica.overgaard.dk - Thorsten Overgaard's Leica Pages - Leica 75mm Summilux-M f/1.4 samples and article

 

As always, feel free to comment and suggest new ideas!

[billo101]

Wow

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[MarkP]

Thanks Thorsten,

 

I'm so glad I bought my 'superior' , made-in-the-Fatherland 1.4/75 Summilux-M when I did. Thorsten's article has just increased it's value by at least another $1000 . Not that I'm planning on selling this beautiful lens .

 

Your comments about the 1.4/75 Summilux-M and 0.95/50 Noctilux-M are interesting. I also have the 1.0/50 Noctilux and I have considered the Summilux to be a better-corrected version of the Noctilux with respect to rendering, colouring and character. This is probably reversed (but maybe only just) with the 0.95/50 Noctilux.

 

My personal preference though is to stop the Summilux down a stop or so. I have slightly better control over focus and I much prefer just a bit more DOF in my photographs. There is also that bit more contrast (unless I want that really dreamy look) - there is a big difference between 1.4 and 2.0.

 

Regards,

Mark

Edited October 31, 2014 by MarkP

[MarkP]

Mods,

 

Should this thread be in the M-lens sub-forum?

[M9reno]

Thank you very much for your piece, Thorsten. I hope you will at some point consider adding to your discussion the Hektor 73mm f/1.9. Leica's first super-fast lens and the Noctilux-equivalent of the 1930s. I have just today been playing with one. Cheers.

[Jeff S]

You wrote...

 

"Likewise, when I moved from using a 80mm on a Leica R9 film camera to a R9 with a digital back, I didn't change lens. I just stepped a little back so as to have the same frame. The perspective was unchanged."

Perspective is indeed changed when one varies camera to subject distance. Are you merely accounting for film/sensor plane?

 

Jeff

Edited November 1, 2014 by Jeff S

[bocaburger]

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My personal preference though is to stop the Summilux down a stop or so. I have slightly better control over focus and I much prefer just a bit more DOF in my photographs.

 

What's really the point of the expense and size/weight of it if not for f/1.4? I sold my 75 Lux long before digital but the main problems I had with it were size/weight, slow (long throw and stiff) focus, and finder blockage. I never really had much love for the FOV either, but when I got an M8 I bought the CV Heliar f/2.5 to get back the 90mm FOV and still have the lens but haven't used it since moving back to full frame. Perhaps if I used the EVF on my M240 I would like the Lux better, but it was $1600 when I got mine. Now I'm not going to spend what it currently costs.

[MarkP]

I didn't say that I never use it at 1.4 and at f2.0 it is still very different to the 2.0/75 APO-Summicron.

 

The weight doesn't bother me.

 

I really like the 75mm FOV.

 

These lenses (1.0/50 Noctilux and 1.4/75 Summilux) still have very special and different rendering even at other apertures - try it some time

 

Unfortunately I paid much more than 1600 $, but less than what many of the lenses are currently selling for (or perhaps not selling for).

Edited November 10, 2014 by jaapv

[MarkP]

last sentence should have read:

Unfortunately I paid much more than $1600, ...

[pico]

The focus cam is different.

[01af]

Enjoy! [...] As always, feel free to comment and suggest new ideas!

Uh oh. Thorsten, your articles on M cameras and lenses are always a joy to read and adorned with many nice, often excellent, pictures—even though there always seems to be a statement or two I cannot fully agree with ... which however often is just a matter of varying opinions.

 

But this time, there's not just a single statement or two that's debatable. The whole article is full of errors; it can, and will, do damage to your reputation as a lecturer of photography.

[erudolph]

What errors do you find?

[01af]

What errors do you find?

Many!

 

First of all, the Summilux-M 75 mm wasn't discontinued from production in 2007 but in 2004, right before the Apo-Summicron-M 75 mm Asph was released. It is true, however, that it was possible to buy brand-new copies from official Leica dealers for two or three more years, as stocks were available and sales were slow back then.

 

 

Traditionally, 90 mm and 75 mm lenses have been considered good portrait lenses, most likely because one can isolate the subject from the background.

Uh! Come on ... a seasoned photographer and lecturer is making an assumption as to why short telephoto lenses traditionally have been considered good portrait lenses!? Seriously?

 

They are good portrait lenses because the narrower angle of view enforces a longer shooting distance which will lead to a more natural perspective on the sitter's head, compared to a standard lens, that's why. It has nothing to do with depth-of-field, or lack thereof.

 

 

If you do the math, a 50 mm f/1.4 will have as much narrow depth of field as a 90 mm f/2 when you crop the subject the same size ration.

This sentence doesn't even make any sense, grammatically. When trying hard to re-interpret it in a way that does make sense grammatically then it becomes wrong technically. A picture taken with a 50 mm lens at f/1.4 has approx. the same depth-of-field as a picture taken with a 90 mm lens at f/2.5 when the former gets cropped to the same field-of-view as the latter. At f/2, the 90 mm lens has narrower depth-of-field.

 

But then, portraiture isn't about particularly narrow depth-of-field anyway. That's just a current hype but has absolutely nothing to do with tradition. Super-fast lenses used to be desirable for dealing with poor light and slow film. Narrow depth-of-field usually was considered an unwanted but unavoidable side effect.

 

 

The favorite lens of Professor Mandler

Mandler's academical grade was Doctor, not Professor.

 

 

Few want a lens that reproduces precisely what is. No, what we really want is a lens that reproduces reality so the beauty is amplified and the errors are erased.

For some photographic uses such as portraiture, a "beautiful" rendition might be desirable indeed. For others, not. So no blunt generalisations about what "we" want, please.

 

 

It doesn't change the perspective of the lens, which is important to take a note of. [...] A 35 mm lens doesn't change perspective when cropped. It is still a 35 mm perspective.

Now it's getting weird.

 

First of all—perspective is not, repeat: NOT a lens property. It's a property of the point of view. So when using the same lens on cameras with different image formats then you'll get different fields-of-view but equal perspectives when shooting from the same point, or equal fields-of-view in the plane of focus but different perspectives when adjusting the distance for the same magnification of the main subject. So in order to get the same field-of-view and the same perspective, you'll have to use different focal lengths for different image formats.

 

That's why, in my opinion, it was an error that many bought 28 mm lenses for their Leica M8 cameras so as to have a frame similar to the 35 mm lens they were used to on the Leica M7 and Leica MP film rangefinders.

It is hard to believe that we must read such a bizarre statement here.

 

 

Likewise, when I moved from using a 80 mm on a Leica R9 film camera to a R9 with a digital back, I didn't change lens. I just stepped a little back so as to have the same frame. The perspective was unchanged. What on Earth am I talking about?

Yes, good question. What on Earth are you talking about?

 

When you step back, you do change perspective.

A 90 mm lens has a 27 degree angle, a 75 mm has a 33 degree angle, and a 50 mm lens has a 45 degree angle.

Says who?

 

Says the 35-mm-format photographer. The DMR user, M8 user, APS-C user, µ4/3 user, view camera user etc have totally different ideas about those focal lengths' angles-of-view.

 

 

Using a 75 mm or 50 mm and just stepping back or forward, will give the same magnification of course. But the foreground-to-background relation will change.

Aha!? And what exactly is 'perspective' in your opinion? How can someone write this who also wrote that only a few paragraphs earlier:

 

... when I moved from using a 80 mm on a Leica R9 film camera to a R9 with a digital back, I didn't change lens. I just stepped a little back so as to have the same frame. The perspective was unchanged ...

All in all, this article on the Summilux-M 75 mm lens reveals a fundamental—and surprising—lack of understanding of the terms angle-of-view, field-of-view, focal length, image format, crop factor, and perspective.

[jaapv]

I fear Olaf is correct in all aspects

[jaapv]

Mods,

 

Should this thread be in the M-lens sub-forum?

 

indeed

[elmars]

I fear Olaf is correct in all aspects

 

 

Yes, he is.

 

Elmar

[IWC Doppel]

I still enjoyed the article

 

Olaf, thanks, the accuracy on factual points is helpful. The 75mm Summilux is indeed a lovely lens

[Tmuussoni]

Great acticle indeed! Thank you! I Fear this will increase the Lux 75 prices even further

 

Anyway, I've read this several times from Mr Overgaard and having difficulty understanding what it means in practical terms:

 

"If one should sum up very quickly what has been changing in lens design since the 75mm Summilux f/1.4 was born in 1980, it would be that new designs see better in the dark. The distincive difference between older lenses and the new 50mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4, Noctilux f/0.95, Leica 35mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4 FLE, Leica 21mm Super-Elmar-M ASPH f/3.4 and mainly the 50mm APO-Summicron-M ASPH f/2.0 is that they see shadow details more crisp than the human eye.

 

The 75mm Summilux doesn't have this ability to see in the dark, and that is what a future 75mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4 would mainly improve "

 

 

I own the SEM 21 and Lux 50 ASPH, but I can't say I've noticed these lenses seeing any better in the dark (shadows) than older non-ASPH lenses with similar aperture. Older lenses have more spherical aberrations which render the images differently. And the new ASPH lenses are sharper and maintain the details slightly better, when pulling shadows on post-processing, but I still don't understand what this means. It simply depends how one exposes the shot, right?

[k_g_wolf ✝]

One more discussion like this and we might not see any more contributions by Mr. O.

 

He's "just" an artist.

 

 

 

Best

GEOFG

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[IWC Doppel]

There is something about the rendering that for me is magic. The very first time I took the lens out (early 2012 I bought mine) I could see the magic. In the winter when the light is unpleasant the 75 Summilux is wonderful. For me it has a crayon like feel and weight to the blacks and has some Noctilux magic, but individual too. This was at f1.4 and the only reason I took the shot was because the lens was on it's first trip out. On days like this it's a great lens to take out.

 

It is lovely for textures of fabrics and has a softness to the bokeh that for me is lovely.

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