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M240 and some wideangles


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Having had a wishy washy PR speak statement on why M240 deliveries were slow, we must be just about due another of the same explaining why the next iteration of firmware is so late.:p

 

Wilson

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Having had a wishy washy PR speak statement on why M240 deliveries were slow, we must be just about due another of the same explaining why the next iteration of firmware is so late.:p

 

Wilson

 

Don't be silly. Firmware is a privilege, not a right ;-)

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  • 2 weeks later...
I'd be curious to hear of any experiences with the ZM 4,5/21mm on the M240, thanks!

 

Not quite that lens but I am getting some LHS red edge on the M240 with the ZM 25/2.8, coded as a 24/2.8 ASPH Elmarit M. On my M9, if I am going to be using this lens wide open, I change the setting to the 21/2.8 Elmarit (Pre-ASPH), which eliminates pretty much all the vignetting. On the M240, changing between these two settings seems to make little if any difference. I get no red edge on either setting on the M9.

 

Roll on the new firmware.

 

Wilson

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  • 1 month later...

Hello,

 

While there was much talk in this thread about wideangle or super-wideangle lenses, I would be very interested to know the behaviour of moderate wideangle lenses on the M240, and by that I mean the Zeiss 35mm lenses.

 

I have the M240 and an very tempted to get a Biogon for it, but Jaap, in another thread, cooled off my urge by mentioning the little 35/2.8 C-Biogon is also affected by the red-edge problem.

 

Could anyone confirm this and maybe report on the Biogon 35/2?

 

I would be grateful.

 

Kind regards to all

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I had the 35 Biogon when I first got an M8 in Jan 2007. I thought it was an excellent lens apart from one minor aspect. It has a 43 x 0.75mm filter mount. This forced you to use a B+W #486 UV/IR filter rather than the Leica one which was 43 x 0.5mm. This resulted in a greenish cast to quite a lot of photographs and I had to make a special mask to correct in Capture One for images taken with the Biogon. On a full frame, there is a thought at f2, that the corners are slightly soft and that taking a Biogon to f2 is stretching the limits of the design a step too far. As I only ever used it on the crop frame M8, where this was not an issue, I cannot comment. I bought it originally, as I could not find a decent 35 ASPH Summilux. The four I tried all had back focus issues and pretty awful aperture shift. I then found a chrome one, which I still have, which is close to perfect, so I sold my Biogon to a friend, who I think still has it.

 

In my experience of using Zeiss lenses over 30+ years made by Zeiss themselves in Oberkochen, Kyocera and Cosina, the quality control (always by Zeiss technicians) is first class. The chances of a bad or indifferent one are very low. Mind you, now that Leica have really pulled their socks up on QC, I think the same now applies to them, which it certainly did not in the mid 2000's.

 

Wilson

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Thanks for your report Wilson,

 

I must add that I was also very impressed by the Biogon 35/2 on the M9. I simply adored it! That's why I'd give it another try on the M240, provided it functions as it should, and does not suffer from the red/italian flag right edge problem.

 

It seems so far that the M240 is more prone to this behaviour than the M9- I must say, I was very suprised to learn from Jaap that even the C-Biogon 35 is affected.

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Hopefully within a couple of weeks, Italian flag will be an ex-problem, when the new FW arrives. My main concern with the Biogon would be the soft corners wide open but then how often will you be using it wide open. The M240 with its 24MP sensor provides a sterner test of lenses than anything we have experienced before. The Hartblei 80mm Super Rotator tilt/shift R mount lens I bought has proven to be a disappointment on the M240. Its resolving power is just not good enough.

 

Wilson

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Interesting! Do you use firmware 1.102?

 

Any other owners of M240+SEM21 to chime in on their experiences with red edge/corner coloring with this combo? (see image samples in post #4 above)

 

No problems for me either with SEM21 + M.

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Hopefully within a couple of weeks, Italian flag will be an ex-problem, when the new FW arrives. My main concern with the Biogon would be the soft corners wide open but then how often will you be using it wide open.

Any new firmware in the coming years will not correct specifically for third-party lenses. I fear that if we insist on using Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses( like I do as well) we must continue using flat field correction postprocessing.

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Any new firmware in the coming years will not correct specifically for third-party lenses. I fear that if we insist on using Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses( like I do as well) we must continue using flat field correction postprocessing.

 

Jaap,

 

Unless the sensor of the M240 and its gherkin shaped micro lenses behave very differently from the M9, my guess is that the revised corrections will be good enough for many of the ZM lenses. I would think angle of incidence from the exit pupil to the sensor is the critical factor and other than the 12 and 15mm CV lenses, these angles will not be dramatically different from Leica's non retro focus and non telecentric offerings i.e the 21 SEM and 18 SEM. For the 12 and 15 CV lenses, I think you are probably correct and we will have to keep using correction profiles/masks. A second hand 15mm ZM Distagon, which is a retro focal design might be a good second hand buy although it is a big lens and even second hand they are expensive. The 15mm/f3.5 Super Elmar-R might be a better buy. The 15mm/f2.8 Super Elmarit-R seems to be rarer than rocking horse poo.

 

Wilson

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But believe me once you use one of those 15/2.8 another 15 is real sxxt!

 

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  • 1 month later...

I have been using a similar "retrofocal" lens, the Zenitar 16mm f2.8 with no problems. This is in comparison to the CV15mm/f4.5 which gives horrible red edges on the M240. Hopefully cured by tomorrow's Firmware update (just joking on the firmware!)

 

Wilson

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Please clarify how a coded lens is treated by a M with latest Firmware: Is the color cast corrected by the camera OS and recorded in the exif of the raw file and if that raw file is opened in PS CS6 with latest ACR plugin 8.1, that color cast correction would be recognized by PS ACR resulting in a color cast free image?

Or not like this and still have to open the DNG first in Cornerfix and then proceed post workflow in PS ACR?

Thx, Christoph

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But believe me once you use one of those 15/2.8 another 15 is real sxxt!

 

[ATTACH]396213[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]396214[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]396215[/ATTACH]

 

I commented before when you posted this in the M240 photographs thread. These are spectacular photos.

 

Do you know how the 15-R compares with the 16-WATE?

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