28mm lenses

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Last year I bought the v4 Elmarit; the previous owner had had it 6-bit coded. But I immediately found the focus was 'all over the shop'. Sorted by Malcolm Taylor it proved stellar (as I suspected would be the case). A friend at Leica Mayfair thinks it is optically superior to the ASPH that took its place. One thing (for anyone without experience of 28mm on a Leica) converging verticals will be far more evident than with the 35mm focal length. Still, the M240 update let's us see angling of horizontals/verticals on the live view screen . The current large hood for the 28 Summicron fits the v4 lens: 12451.

[semi-ambivalent]

I'm debating buying a 28mm lens and am torn between the Elmarit and the Summicron. I'm attracted to the Elmarit because of its size and, for Leica, it's relatively cheap. There, however, seem to be rather mixed reviews on this lens. The Summicron is by all accounts a sterling performer albeit it's much larger and the additional speed, though nice to have, isn't absolutely essential ( I have the Lux 35 FLE). So, I'd be interested in opinions from those that are or have been real world users of either one or both of these lenses.

 

P.S. Of course, there's also the upcoming(?) Summilux 28 though I guess that'll be huge both physically and price wise.

 

The subject of contrast will by now have come up. I don't have the Summicron but do have the current Elmarit ASPH and struggle with contrast, although here in the West contrast is always a problem. I'm posting to offer this quote from Puts, via the Wayback machine:

 

"Stopped down to 4, contrast becomes very high and the optimum is reached with a very even performance over the whole image area, excepting the extreme corners. At 5.6 we se a small drop in microcontrast of the fine textures and from 8, the overall contrast drops a bit. We have to put this in perspective, of course as we relate it to the optimum aperture. At 5.6 and smaller, the Elmarit-M 2.8/28 is a bit behind the new Summicron 28."

 

I believe he's referring to the non-ASPH Elmarit that preceded the current design. There are many here who own both, or all three, and their experiences vis-a-vis contrast are valid. Shooting film, 1:2 is very alluring but I just couldn't bring myself to spend that much money. The little Elmarit has been a delightful surprise, but I'm not immune to GAS although I don't use the 28 as much as I used to. At the very least, the Summicron is pretty sexy but it's up to you to put a price on that. My rule of thumb is to buy what you want and move on.

 

s-a

[jedi996sps]

I had both the current versions of the summicron and elmarit. Whilst the images from the elmarit are to me a little bit more 'punchy' than the summicron, and i preferred the look of the images of the summicron, because i rarely used the 28mm lens, i let the summicron go to fund the purchase of the M240. My thinking being that i would retain the elmarit as a small light travel lens.... I now miss using the summicron with the reduced depth of field at f2 over the elmarit at f2.8

[Jennifer]

I bought the Elmarit. Mint for about half the UK price new. Very pleased with the lens though infinity seems a little off. Does anyone know at what distance this lens should start focusing at infinity?

[jaapv]

Umm.. To quote Günther Osterloh: if you want the horizon to be sharp, you have to focus on the horizon.

[tobey bilek]

Got a ASPH 2.8 to replace my version 3 2.8 (49mm filter) which had not so great corner on M.

 

It has good corners at 4.0, 2.8 acceptable. Colors are superb. Size is what I wanted, small.

 

reading MTF charts, the 24 3.8 is better, but I wanted a 28. The F2 Summicron has similar MTF to the 2.8. I don`t have one and have little use for a fast wide. You also get a nice big fat hood with it which you will use as a lever to mount,dismount lenses and then loosen the front cell.

 

Buy the 2.8 unless you need 2.o.

[farnz]

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Jennifer,

 

I had the 28/2.8 Elmarit asph for several years and traded it for a 28/2 Summicron asph. They are both excellent lenses but quite different in performance in my opinion. The Elmarit is quite contrasty, which enhances the impression of sharpness in images whereas the Summicron is much gentler, although just as sharp, so its transition from dark to light and vice versa is more gradual than the Elmarit and offers more tonal separation.

 

The Summicron is one of the most flare resistant lenses I have ever used so I never needed to use its cartoon-sized hood.

 

My clear favourite is the Summicron because a high tonal range can be 'flattened' in post-processing to produce a low tonal, contrasty look but not the other way around. And the extra stop comes in very handy sometimes.

 

Pete.

[rickp13]

jennifer

if you have the chance to try the elmarit v3 (mandler design), you might be pleasantly surprised. here's some backup reading for a cool autumn night.

greetings from hamburg

rick

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/customer-forum/45854-praise-mandler-lenses.html