Much differance between the 35mm Cron and the 35mm lux

[Guest NEIL-D-WILLIAMS]

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Guys,

I had a 35mm Cron when I first bought my M9 but as soon as I had the 21mm Lux I never used it again and sold it. I am now thinking of buying a 35mm lux.............what’s everybody’s take on that

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[Ecar]

You can't go wrong - the Summilux 35 is as good as it gets. I prefer the rendering of the pre-FLE version, but you may be bothered by the focus shift issue.

The real question is whether you like the 35mm focal length or not: only you can answer that. Perhaps you already did when you sold the Summicron...

[pgk]

There's a whole stop of difference. Only you can decide whether this is sufficiently important to you to make the Summilux purchase worthwhile to you. There's a huge wealth of info on the forum about both lenses - I have a Summilux and to me it is far more useful than the Summicron which I sold. If I didn't actually use the speed of the Summilux I'd buy a Summarit again instead.

[philipus]

Guys,

I had a 35mm Cron when I first bought my M9 but as soon as I had the 21mm Lux I never used it again and sold it. I am now thinking of buying a 35mm lux.............what’s everybody’s take on that

 

Forgive me, I don't understand. The focal length of the Summilux will obviously be the same. I'm saying this as it seems you sold the 35 Summicron because you preferred 21mm over 35mm.

 

To me, as a film photographer, the extra stop of the 35 Summilux makes a real difference and I chose it over the Summicron for that reason.

 

However, if I had a digital M I would have opted for the smaller Summicron since I'm not a bokeh addict.

 

You do get a very cool hood with the Summilux though, so that might be a reason to go for that one.

 

Seriously though, in terms of image quality the Summilux is great. In my experience it isn't as good as the 50 Summilux but it's pretty close.

 

Philip

[lupico]

I have been using the 35 Lux FLE on my M Typ 240 for the past few weeks and have become very fond of it. Comparing it to my Cron ASPH it does have the edge.

 

But IMO it is way too expensive if you use that focal length only once in a while.

I am a "heavy user" of the 21mm Super-Elmar myself and although I found that the 35 Lux FLE is a great lens to accompany that when traveling, I will probably stick with my Cron (for now anyway). If it comes to bokeh the 50 Lux ASPH is still my first choice and I often find myself not using 35mm all that often.

 

Anyone who is on the fence undecided between the two lenses - if you are interested, have a look at my take on the lenses here:

 

Lens Review: Leica Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH FLE | Lupico

[pfhrased]

Apart from the extra stop the biggest difference I saw when I compared shots from a cron to my fle is how sunstars appear (10 pointed for the cron vs 18 pointed for the lux). If you don't need more light, and you don't care about that - the cron is easier to focus, is lighter, and is smaller.

 

Edit: the lux has moderately more barrel distortion as well.