New: LEICA SUMMILUX-M 28 mm f/1.4 ASPH.

[Rick]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Daniel, I know you have extensively shot the 28 Summicron (great photographs on your Flickr sight).  Could you compare the two lenses for me?  Do you feel the Summilux is heavy?  Do you miss the compact size of the Summicron for your type of travel pictures?  

 

Rick

[don daniel]

Rick, on my latest trip to Vienna I used my M240 and exclusively the Summicron 28mm. You'll find some of my shots that won't show my family here:

 

http://danielnussbaumer.com/2015/10/16/wien-2015/

 

The Summicron 28 is a joy to use. I'm a high school teacher. I don't teach English, so don't worry about the education level of the Swiss. During my sabbatical this year I worked as a (photo) journalist at a newspaper in Basel. Then I used the Summicron 28 on the Leica M almost every day for professional work. You can say, this lens is good enough. After that time I bought the Summilux 28 because of two reasons: The Summilux is sharper than the Summicron, you get more details. And it is faster: You can play better with the depth of field. And  since I sold my Summilux 35mm and my Summilux 50mm I haven't had a lens of that speed. So I wanted the Summilux 28 for several reasons. Until now I do not miss the lighter Summicron. I have used the Summilux the whole day and felt comfortable with it. But it is really heavier than the Summicron. I think the quality is worth to carry it around.

 

Since the Summilux is more expensive than the Leica Q you could also prefer to buy the Q instead of the Summilux. Personally I like the M's simplicity and prefer the rangefinder. In addition the Summilux is a lens of such high quality that will be usable on future bodies. To afford it I had to sell the Summicron. So I cannot do a side by side comparison of the Summicron and the Summilux. I have been thinking about buying a Summarit 35mm just to possess a very lightweight alround lens. But I like 28mm much more. I have a Summarit 50mm which is very compact too. 50mm for me is a focal length I use for portraits. And I have the Apo 50. So I don't use the Summarit 50 anylonger. The Leica M with the Summilux 28mm and the Apo 50 – this is a dream of a combo. Most of the time I decide which focal length I will use and then carry only one lens on the camera with me, except on those occasions when I do a job for the newspaper again. Then I always carry a second body (Nikon Df) and another focal length with me.

 

Does that help?

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Rick]

Thank you so much Daniel.  First off, your English is good enough that you actually could be an English teacher in many of our high schools.  

 

This was the answer I was looking for.  I have spent the morning coffee time looking at your excellent site.  Anyone with interest should look at Daniel's excellent and inspired photographs.  Also, be sure to read his 3 tutorials.  They are very good and I took something away from each.

So, thank you again and it is clear I will sell my 28 Summicron and maybe my 35 Summilux FLE, which I appreciate as a technical achievement, but just never feel inspiration when using.  

 

What subject do you teach and where is your home?  If, you want to disclose that in a PM that would be understandable.  I am torn that you teach science subject or you are in the humanities or arts?

 

Rick

[don daniel]

You are very kind, Rick. My subjects are German (literature and language) and History. But my work at school is not limited to these subjects. It is also my interest and job to document events at my school with my camera. I am commissioned to publish an official gazette. I live and work near Basel in Switzerland. My students are 15-19 years old. We don't have colleges here. When they graduate from our high school they change to university directly. 

 

Because I feel a little guilty about your wish to buy a Summilux 28 I want to add that this lens has also its flaws. There is a remarkable amount of chromatic aberration, purple fringe, that in some shots has to be treated in post processing. It is more than what you see from the Summicron. In Lightroom this is done by one single click, in Capture One, the converter I use, this can be little more annoying. And to complete this I must mention that the Summilux has a more complex distortion than the Summicron. The latter can be corrected easily, because it is a simple barrel distortion, the former needs a special profile which does not yet exist in LR. At first sight the Summilux seems better corrected than the Summicron, because you don't see the barrel. Lines bend to the outside again in the corners. In most situation this is not an issue. The amount of distortion is small, but in architectural shots you can notice it is there. Until now this has not been a pain to me. I hope I managed to put this into clear words.

[k-hawinkler]

Thanks for the details. Much appreciated.

[LeicaPassion]

Thank you very much for posting your images and comments. They are very helpful.

 

I just looked at lightroom 6.2 on adobe's website. It includes a profile for the lens. Is a "special profile" need in addition to this?

 

Incidentally, the lens will arrive at my home later this week.

 

Thanks again.

[don daniel]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I just looked at lightroom 6.2 on adobe's website. It includes a profile for the lens. Is a "special profile" need in addition to this?

This is very good news. This in Lightroom included profile will probably do the same like the other ones. You will be able to get rid of the distortion by simply activating it in the lens correction tool. 

 

Well, it is only good news for Creative Cloud customers. Those with a standalone LR-version will not get this update, I guess.

Edited November 22, 2015 by don daniel

[LeicaPassion]

Good detective work. I had not looked that closely. Adobe is steering customers in the CC direction, which I prefer to avoid.

[Peter Kilmister]

Good detective work. I had not looked that closely. Adobe is steering customers in the CC direction, which I prefer to avoid.

 

I agree about CC. It seems to me that a licence ought to allow for updates. Adobe charge for updates or want to replace Lightroom with a monthly charge system. FFS, we paid for the licence when we bought the camera.

"Cake and eat it" is a phrase that comes to mind.

[younes]

I am using the LR standalone version, which was updated to 6.3 a few day ago. This last version includes a profile for the Leica Summilux-M 28 1.4.

[LeicaPassion]

Thanks!

[don daniel]

Ah, I'll show you the effect of this profile as soon as I can reach my files.

[don daniel]

Now, this is a annoying. Yes, I could install LR 6.3 and the correction profile for the Summilux 28 does really work well. But I do not want to convert my files in Lightroom. I have changed to Capture One Pro because I like the results with DNGs from the Leica M240 more. And when I export a file from C1, LR does not want to find the lens profile and I cannot choose it manually. In Capture One there are lens profiles for different cameras and lenses. The only Leica lens that has a profile in Capture One is the Apo 50 which simply does not need any distortion correction.

[k-hawinkler]

Yup, I run into the same issue with the WATE.

[hiepphotog]

Ah, I'll show you the effect of this profile as soon as I can reach my files.

Hi Daniel,

 

I tried to send you a PM, but I guess your inbox is full right now. I'm really thinking about getting this lens, especially after seeing a couple of your urbanscape. The only reason I have not gotten one so far because I am not sure about its coma performance for wide-field astrophotography. I asked a few pages back and I got a picture with streetlights at night. It did look bad. However, recently, I saw a picture on Lloyd's blog and it seems to perform quite well, though Lloyd didn't expose for stars so the corners were quite dark with only a few stars.

 

I wonder if you can take one picture of the night sky at f/1.4. If the lens has bad coma performance, the stars around the edges/corners would have bat-wing effect. If you can post a full-res of that, that would be wonderful. f/1.4 and full starry night sky is a sight to be seen. Thank you in advance and I really appreciate your help on this.

 

Hiep

[don daniel]

Hello Hiep

 

Sorry that I didn't notice my inbox was full. I have taken care of that know. But I must disappoint you. I do not even have a tripod to do a shot as you wish. Maybe I can do a longtime exposure shot of citylights (aperture 1.4) this weekend putting the camera somewhere down on the floor or on a bridge railing. But it is possible that I do not have the time or enough motivation to test things I rarely use.

[pop]

Hello Hiep

 

Sorry that I didn't notice my inbox was full. I have taken care of that know. But I must disappoint you. I do not even have a tripod to do a shot as you wish. Maybe I can do a longtime exposure shot of citylights (aperture 1.4) this weekend putting the camera somewhere down on the floor or on a bridge railing. But it is possible that I do not have the time or enough motivation to test things I rarely use.

I can lend you a tripod.

[don daniel]

The missing tripod was a bad excuse, I know. Lend me some motivation, time and a clear sky. Then show me a place near Basel where it is dark enough for such a shot. Or even better: Come to me, I'll lend you the Summilux, do the test shots yourself and bring back the lens to me.

[pop]

 

They say that in the region around Metzerlen the sky was reasonably dark for watching stars. However, that was a few decades ago, if I recall that correctly.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[hiepphotog]

Hello Hiep

 

Sorry that I didn't notice my inbox was full. I have taken care of that know. But I must disappoint you. I do not even have a tripod to do a shot as you wish. Maybe I can do a longtime exposure shot of citylights (aperture 1.4) this weekend putting the camera somewhere down on the floor or on a bridge railing. But it is possible that I do not have the time or enough motivation to test things I rarely use.

 

Thank you Daniel. You can just point the lens straight up to the clear sky. ISO 1600 and f/1.4 and 8s would do. Here is a quick snapshot at ISO 2000 with the ZM 35/1.4 at WO during a full moon.

 

I totally understand if you don't have time for this . Thank you.