Images a little soft out of the SL using M lenses

[Ranma13]

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I have both a M240 and SL. Based on the comparison images I've shot, I've noticed that the SL has slightly less micro-contrast in the corners as the M, and the SL exposes about half a stop to a stop lower than the M240 when both are using center-weighted metering. Unless you're A-B'ing them though, I doubt you'd see the difference. I will post 1:1 crops once I get home from work.

[Ranma13]

As promised, here are the comparison images. In all shots, left is SL, right is M240. Both were shot on a tripod with the 50mm f/2 APO at f/2, ISO 100, and 1/4000 for the SL and 1/3000 for the M.

 

https://imgur.com/a/wb6Oc (hosted on Imgur because this forum butchers the quality of attached images)

 

The 1st image of the asphalt is a crop from the lower left corner. The M shows more micro-contrast, especially in the asphalt cracks.

 

The 2nd image of the mud tracks is a crop from the upper left corner. The M is slightly sharper, particular around the edges of the fallen-down billboard.

 

The 3rd image of the roof is a crop from the lower left corner, above the asphalt. The M clearly shows better details in the roof lines.

 

The 4th image of the fire station sign is a crop from the lower center. You can see that the M is sharper around the words and the logo.

 

Overall, the SL looks the same as the M in the center of the frame, and loses slight micro-contrast and sharpness as it gets to the edges. It's small enough of a difference though that, unless the images are of the same shot, viewed 1:1 side-by-side, I doubt anyone would notice the difference.

[CheshireCat]

Overall, the SL looks the same as the M in the center of the frame, and loses slight micro-contrast and sharpness as it gets to the edges. It's small enough of a difference though that, unless the images are of the same shot, viewed 1:1 side-by-side, I doubt anyone would notice the difference.

 

 

No wonder, as M lenses were originally designed for film and the digital M bodies are designed to emulate film (i.e. keep the swnsor filter stack as thin as possible).

The SL has a thicker sensor filter stack than all M bodies, therefore most M lenses cannot perform as well.

The recent re-design (optimization) of some M lenses discussed in another thread, has most probably the purpose of reducing this performance gap.