New Summicron

[earful]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

people buy the noctilux. they also buy m9p's. if there is an m10, and i am assuming there will be, will no one buy it because it costs as much - or more - as the m9? i assume most expect it will, indeed, cost more and many will buy it. some will sacrifice in order to do so. harping on the price won't change it, any more than it will change everyone's hope that there will be an m10 to ooh and ahh over. and what will happen if it turns out that the new 50mm summicron is the perfect fit for the m10? demand will be there. i'm nowhere near being in the 1%, but i like to see leica pushing the envelope. a camera usable at, say, 6-10k iso with a smaller, more discreet f2 lens rather than the huge (imo) noctilux for someone who likes lowlight shooting is extremely tempting. i find myself saying, well, $15k for the monochrom and new summicron, is actually "just" $5k more than the m9 + 50mm summilux asph! yikes!

[Ecaton]

Leica is not into the business of creating mediocre products just to expand their production. They will, for turnover’s sake, seek out and rebadge excellent products from elsewhere, but for their own lines they will craft the best they can within a given set of parameters. As that is done with conventional production methods, just to preserve the character of those products, it makes for high prices and leisurely production rates. So be it. Mainstream products can bought from a large number of estimable producers elsewhere. Leica does not compete with those. When they talk about expanding their business they are not thinking of mushing their product down to a common denominator, they are thinking of drawing more people into their concept.

 

As for collectors, celebrities and the most fortunate in this world, the occasional foray into a luxury edition aimed at the more glitzy part of the market - what is wrong with creating a product that appeals to a select coup of customers?- does nothing to harm the brand. Leica has been doing it since the beginning of their camera venture nearly a century ago. Even then these products are as well built and usable as any other tool leaving their factory.

 

Your last sentence says it all. That is the way it is and it contradicts the rest of your post...

 

If they want1% market share they will have to compete. Not in the mediocre product lines but in the high end segments, the ones buyers who do understand the value for money proposition play a role in. It won't be the Hermes stuff which these market segments are looking for and neither the "USD 7000 and some for a 50mm f2 lens", no matter how technically brilliant it might be! Buyers who want the 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds car are not representing 1% of the market, but rather 0.001%.

[UliWer]

..., for MYSELF, I consider it much more interesting than a esoteric monochrome M and a supercostly Summicron that for me, as a Leica customer, are indeed "wrong" products in the sense that the chance I'll buy them is 0,01% (hate zeros by principle... )

 

If they made one in silver chrome, Luigi, I fear the zeros will move to the right hand side of the 1, and you might forget the komma.

[jaapv]

i beg to disagree. High-end implies the image of high quality and the trick is to get the message to the group that is able and willing to buy into that concept.That group is far larger than 1 % of the market, although, much to my disgust, the concept "market" excludes more than half of humanity.

Anyway, they aim of Leica to gain 1% of the high-end camera market may well be attainable, provide the right marketing choices are made. Imo those choices do not include low prices or reduced-quality produce, the idea is to draw in, elevate and educate if you will, a larger number of customers to the "Leica Philosophy" , which is antiquespeak for marketing concept.

[Jeff S]

Of course, if you are photographing a grey rabbit on concrete on a foggy day you will have no problems at all.

 

On the contrary, one of the difficult tasks, if done well, is to distinguish among very subtle gradations in tone, while maintaining the atmosphere of the foggy scene.

 

More seriously, though, the issue isn't just the printer, but the paper, the paper profile, the ink set, the print driver, the skill of the printer (the human one), and more. I know you understand this, but the questioner may not.

 

Jeff

[UliWer]

...

 

 

And here's another thought: Can you point to one single picture by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Eliott Erwitt – you name them – that would have been made more striking by five percent more resolution?

 

...

 

Of course I can't point to this picture.

 

Though, why did they make a Summar with more resolution than an Elmar, and why did others even make a Sonnar when they already had a Tessar? And today there is just no reason to think that a Summilux FLE is justified by any photographic reasons.

 

And if you mind some price tags: yes those for the 1,9/7,3cm Hektor and even the Summarex were lower than that for the newest Summicron. Though can you point to one single photographer who spent the fortune they demanded for those lenses in the 30s and 40s?

 

Those crazy optical designers and salesmen from the 30s and 40s just didn't care for well founded reasons.

[AlanG]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Fine restaurants often put one or more expensive items on the menu to anchor their pricing and make the other moderately priced items look more acceptable. So now $3K-$4K for a lens doesn't look too bad does it?

[Printmaker]

One of the more curious claims being made on this thread is the notion that the increased resolution offered by this lens will somehow magically lead us into the realms of medium format imagery. The look of medium format, as opposed to 35mm, was never about pure resolution. Look at a print made from a neg produced by, say, a 75mm Summicron with Pan F, then look at a print from a medium format Holga with Tri-X. The Leica print will have way more res than the Holga print, but the medium format look will still resolutely be with the Holga.

 

+1

[almoore]

If you, almoore, would have read what I wrote in a previous post ("a print in A3 size won't be able to show the differences") your writing would have been different ...What's the reason for all this bitterness? With all due respect: I suspect this bitterness has to do with not being able to pay those 6000 euros for the new 50 APO...

 

The difference isn't down to reading, it's down to understanding.

 

This isn't about the muddy little prints that the hobbyist spits out of his A3+ Epson to oohs and aahs from his family, it's about what a high end printer can achieve with a well prepared file and a limitless budget. Assuming the use of a 35mm format camera (things change with medium format - film or digital - or 5x4/10x8) once you reach the kind of sizes at which you, erroneously, believe that the new Summicron will pull away from lesser lenses, the decisions made on upsizing, sharpening, profiling, and paper choice will render it irrelevant what (modern) lens is used.

 

I really shouldn't rise to the pathetic bait of you squealing that I must be bitter at "not being able to pay those 6000 euros", but...The truth is I haven't bought any new Leica lenses since I was in my mid-twenties in the late 80s - a 28 Elmarit, and 35 and 50 Summicrons. They're more than good enough for me, but if they weren't I'd happily replace them and pay the going rate. In the scheme of things 6000 euros is a drop in the ocean (less than a single business class return flight between New York and Hong Kong), but as the price tag for a 50mm f2 lens it's entering the realms of the absurd.

 

For me, a Leica M is attractive because of it's viewfinder, smooth shutter release and compact size - the sharpness of the lenses is just a bonus (Zeiss, Canon, Nikon lenses are sharp enough). For others, it seems the bling and boast factor is what really counts.

[gjames9142]

Almoore.],

 

I am with you on this. I only have three lenses for my M9's, probably the same vintage as yours. Shot at optimum aperture with low ISO I find I can do totally convincing 40-inch prints. The thing is that that the technology both of image capture and printing has reached a remarkable maturity. I like Leica because I don't feel as if I am walking around with a computer attached to a lens. It's like the M4 I bought in the early 70's. The Nikon 800 E is awfully tempting, but I know I won't have it with me all the time. The gear is plenty good enough for me and for those who buy my work, I shall probably get the Monochrom, largely because I have stuck to colour with the M9 and I am going to have to face the difficult problem of making good black and white prints. I am probably going to have a dedicated B/W set up, and maybe I will take Jon Cone's (sp?) piezography course. The how is more important than the what, if you get my gist.

[haroldp]

I am a very satisfied owner of a 50 asph summilux, a 50 latest gen. non-asph Summicron, and a 50/2.8 collapsible elmar, all of which I use depending on mood and circumstance.

 

All of these meet my needs for my photographic purposes, within their known limitations.

 

I am glad that Leica (and others) are working on extending the state of the art for photo optics, particularly in light of some other threads we have had on the subject of sensor resolution. Perhaps a 36mp M10.

 

Price aside, as value is a personal judgment, to be interesting to me, this new 'cron' would have to be sharper wide open than the asph Summilux is at F2. This is quite a high bar and I am intensely curious.

 

... H

[Rick]

Price aside, as value is a personal judgment, to be interesting to me, this new 'cron' would have to be sharper wide open than the asph Summilux is at F2. This is quite a high bar and I am intensely curious.

 

... H

 

Harold. Sit down. The new APO 50 Summicron is sharper wide open than the 50 Summilux is at 5.6! Especially, in the corners. And, the reported overall color correction is much better. And, the distortion is .4%. By f5.6 the new APO 50 Summicron starts to look like the APO Telyt-R 280/4.0.

[onaujee]

I am a very satisfied owner of a 50 asph summilux, a 50 latest gen. non-asph Summicron, and a 50/2.8 collapsible elmar, all of which I use depending on mood and circumstance.

 

All of these meet my needs for my photographic purposes, within their known limitations.

 

I am glad that Leica (and others) are working on extending the state of the art for photo optics, particularly in light of some other threads we have had on the subject of sensor resolution. Perhaps a 36mp M10.

 

Price aside, as value is a personal judgment, to be interesting to me, this new 'cron' would have to be sharper wide open than the asph Summilux is at F2. This is quite a high bar and I am intensely curious.

 

... H

 

The new Summicron is sharper than the 50 Summilux based on the .pdf charts of both lenses compared.... Hope that helps

[Ecaton]

i beg to disagree. High-end implies the image of high quality and the trick is to get the message to the group that is able and willing to buy into that concept.That group is far larger than 1 % of the market, although, much to my disgust, the concept "market" excludes more than half of humanity.

Anyway, they aim of Leica to gain 1% of the high-end camera market may well be attainable, provide the right marketing choices are made. Imo those choices do not include low prices or reduced-quality produce, the idea is to draw in, elevate and educate if you will, a larger number of customers to the "Leica Philosophy" , which is antiquespeak for marketing concept.

 

It's 1% share of the entire camera market, not the high end market segment only, they said to go after.

[Studio58]

I have had some seriously good lenses in my time as a photographer.... For me, this new 50 looks like the best lens I have ever seen produced. I would definitely like to own one.

[lars_bergquist]

Of course I can't point to this picture.

 

Though, why did they make a Summar with more resolution than an Elmar, and why did others even make a Sonnar when they already had a Tessar? And today there is just no reason to think that a Summilux FLE is justified by any photographic reasons.

 

And if you mind some price tags: yes those for the 1,9/7,3cm Hektor and even the Summarex were lower than that for the newest Summicron. Though can you point to one single photographer who spent the fortune they demanded for those lenses in the 30s and 40s?

 

Those crazy optical designers and salesmen from the 30s and 40s just didn't care for well founded reasons.

I do respect your loyalty to Leica Camera A.G., but you seem to have got some basic facts all wrong.

 

"Summar with more resolution than the Elmar?" The Summar was very soft, and did not improve much with stopping down. Elmar resolution was miles above that of the Summar. That lens existed for the simple reason that it was some one-and-a-half stop faster than the Elmar. This was a time when fast films were about ISO 32 to 40. Paul Wolff, whom you may have heard of, never used the Summar when the light allowed him to use the Elmar.

 

The Tessar design had its ultimate limit at 2.8, and was pretty mushy then. Sonnar lenses were offered at speeds of 2.0 and 1.5. Same argument as before. Speed (though in this case, with at least on-axis sharpness).

 

7.3cm Hektor and 8.5cm Summarex? Not the same argument as before, I agree. Because for Chrissake, the Apo-Summicron is f:2, just as the old one, while these two also were speed lenses for their time. What it offers is just one thing: Extreme definition in the extreme corners. Now consider that there are lenses that far outstrip the Apo-Summicron. So why are we not using these? Because they weigh a ton, have a very small useable image angle, and are good only for projecting microchip patterns in the ultraviolet, which is all they are corrected for. They are not practical photo lenses.

 

The Apo-Summicron is not that extreme, because it has to be mounted on a M camera. But it too offers a marginal advantage that is not commensurate with the astronomical price. It too has passed the limit of practicality.

 

Max Berek, in Leica Brevier, published in 1948, the year he died, explained that he was capable of designing lenses that were technically superior to those now offered by Leitz. But these designs would have been beyond the reach of those working pro and amateur photographers, whose needs Berek saw as his job to satisfy. I have not heard many screams of dissatisfaction with the resolution of the current Summicron, because that lens does satisfy its owners – unless they want more speed, and in this case there is a Summilux and a Noctilux on offer.

 

But one thing is certain: The new Apo-Summicron will boost the sales of the 50mm Summarit. For don't imagine that the current Summicron will live long. They told us that the 24 and 21mm Elmarits were safe too, didn't they? If you want a Summicron, get it now.

 

The old man from the Age of the 7.3cm Hektor 1:1.9

[Studio58]

I

 

But one thing is certain: The new Apo-Summicron will boost the sales of the 50mm Summarit. For don't imagine that the current Summicron will live long. They told us that the 24 and 21mm Elmarits were safe too, didn't they? If you want a Summicron, get it now.

 

Interesting thought. I bought what was probably one of the last 24 Elmarits and recently the 50 Summicron. I think the 24 will end up being highly sought after.

I can see your logic regarding the 50 Summicron... why bother with it when you have the Summarit at the lower price point, the Summilux at what would now be the mid range and the two exotics above that... No room for the Summicron.

[Steve Ash]

Leica pronounced that the new summicron will not substitute the old one but is an addition to the portfolio. In this respect everyone should be happy. I actually think the new lens will be more appreciated than the summarit range of lenses who are sadly underrated by the customer base.

 

Steve

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jaapv]

 

But one thing is certain: The new Apo-Summicron will boost the sales of the 50mm Summarit. For don't imagine that the current Summicron will live long. They told us that the 24 and 21mm Elmarits were safe too, didn't they? If you want a Summicron, get it now.

 

The old man from the Age of the 7.3cm Hektor 1:1.9

Why? It has no impact on the rest of the lineup. It might eat slightly into Summilux sales by attracting buyers that want " the best" 50 mm lens, but the market positions of the regular Summicron and Summarit are unchanged. And the 24 and 21 Elmarits were replaced by the Super-Elmar and Elmar-M, not by the Summiluxes.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[IWC Doppel]

A few questions that I would like to understand before I dismiss or covet.....

 

What do the images look like, sharpness is one thing only

Will production tolerences mean reality is not as good as theory

How does it render and paint including OOF

How does this resolution sit with the M9 (non M)

Will we need to become technical gurus in post production 'display/print' to reap the benefits

 

 

We can all moan about £5k, but if it is simply stunning, it might be worth saving up for ?

 

I don't expect to want to however, still more interested in older glass, at least this will take the 'focus' away from F1 Noctiluxes and 75mm Summiluxes (please)

 

I am looking forward to see someone stick it on the front of a 50MP Sony NEX8 and blow up the corner to 200% and declare better resolution than the S2......