7artisans 50mm F1.1 Leica M Mount

[Rus]

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13 minutes ago, Naampje said:

Dear god, I ordered the new 7Artisans 28mm 1.4 today and just a few minutes later I stumble upon this little gem of a 50mm 1.1 instruction video.

I am trying to convince myself not to shoot myself in the face right now. I hope the quality of these lenses is nothing near this brand representation......

Anybody out there anything useful to add after some months usage of the M lenses?

The quality of the video instruction does not really represent the quality of the lens, from the reviews and sample images I've seen so far. 

Rest assured that there are plenty in China who speak worse English; then again there are also plenty who speak much better English. And if you could somehow find a way to "listen" past the accent, the instruction itself is alright. 

Edited November 28, 2018 by Rus

[Naampje]

Well if she were to put a lens on my camera in that way, I would get a bit nervous.... to put it mildly... But no experience with the lenses, just looking at photo's online then?

[carbon_dragon]

Well, there are a few things about the video that make me nervous, one was when she put the lens back on the camera, one was when she left it without a lens facing up (dust?).

But I've seen a video before and I understood this lens came with the screwdriver and a focus target. I suspect THAT is designed to fix the focusing up close. She seems to be addressing infinity focus. I have heard some people say you can't get it to work right in both -- and I've heard that some people say it works perfectly for them in both. I'm not sure quite what to think. I'm kind of tempted, but I'm not handy with tiny instruments.

[DezFoto]

The photos are fine as long as you temper your expectations. Images from it are about as far from a modern Leica lens as you can get, with lots of coma, astigmatism and residual spherical aberrations. BUT, that's how you get that "glow" around edges and the vintage "swirly bokeh". Colours are muted and skewed warm (but not Canon yellow/orange warm, thank god). Global contrast is low, even stopped down and vignetting is high until around F5.6. It's not particularly sharp or contrasty at any aperture. It's essentially a retro special effects lens, kind of a lesser version of the old rangefinder Canon 1.2/50.

[DezFoto]

6 minutes ago, carbon_dragon said:

Well, there are a few things about the video that make me nervous, one was when she put the lens back on the camera, one was when she left it without a lens facing up (dust?).

But I've seen a video before and I understood this lens came with the screwdriver and a focus target. I suspect THAT is designed to fix the focusing up close. She seems to be addressing infinity focus. I have heard some people say you can't get it to work right in both -- and I've heard that some people say it works perfectly for them in both. I'm not sure quite what to think. I'm kind of tempted, but I'm not handy with tiny instruments.

It's very quick and easy to adjust focus, it's a general setting for the lens and I would imagine they did this to avoid spending a lot of time in the factory adjusting the focus just to have people whinge about focus being off when their copies arrive because it's not playing nice with their particular camera's rangefinder.  

[miguel]

3 hours ago, Naampje said:

Dear god, I ordered the new 7Artisans 28mm 1.4 today and just a few minutes later I stumble upon this little gem of a 50mm 1.1 instruction video.

I am trying to convince myself not to shoot myself in the face right now. I hope the quality of these lenses is nothing near this brand representation......

Anybody out there anything useful to add after some months usage of the M lenses?

We have found one of the 7 artisans. Where are the other 6?

[carbon_dragon]

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17 hours ago, DezFoto said:

It's very quick and easy to adjust focus, it's a general setting for the lens and I would imagine they did this to avoid spending a lot of time in the factory adjusting the focus just to have people whinge about focus being off when their copies arrive because it's not playing nice with their particular camera's rangefinder.  

Can you explain to me why Leica and Zeiss and Voigtlander (Cosina) and others can deliver a lens that works properly rangefinder coupled where 7 Artisans gives you instructions on doing your own calibration? Maybe you could do bench testing on a lens and find out there were minor imperfections on the focus but it hasn't been too obvious to me, even with Russian lenses. What exactly is going on with the 7 artisans lenses? I mean it looks like an easy process, but why is it necessary for those lenses? I'd really like to understand this.

[lct]

Those are inexpensive lenses with little to no quality control i suspect. Great idea to let customers do their own calibration though.

[howiebrou]

I beg to differ. I see no issue with the quality of the lenses. They appear to be of high quality certainly on par with other manufacturers. To me, being able to adjust the lens is merely a bonus. I have not had the need to do so on my 50mm F/1.1

[lct]

19 minutes ago, howiebrou said:

I beg to differ. I see no issue with the quality of the lenses. They appear to be of high quality certainly on par with other manufacturers. To me, being able to adjust the lens is merely a bonus. I have not had the need to do so on my 50mm F/1.1

I have no issue with my 35/2 either but quality control is expensive and there is no free lunch. Just a guess from my part though. 

[Naampje]

Well that escalated quickly. I guess when Erwin Puts like it as do many many others I have faith in my order of the 28mm 1.4 and might even order the 50mm 1.1. Here’s a nice little unboxing of the new 28mm. It does look great. And luckily smaller than I had guessed. https://youtu.be/rxN__oW_zuQ

[DezFoto]

2 hours ago, carbon_dragon said:

Can you explain to me why Leica and Zeiss and Voigtlander (Cosina) and others can deliver a lens that works properly rangefinder coupled where 7 Artisans gives you instructions on doing your own calibration? Maybe you could do bench testing on a lens and find out there were minor imperfections on the focus but it hasn't been too obvious to me, even with Russian lenses. What exactly is going on with the 7 artisans lenses? I mean it looks like an easy process, but why is it necessary for those lenses? I'd really like to understand this.

I think it's fairly obvious, Time = Money. If you're spending time fine calibrating each lens to a median benchmark, you're spending money and therefore, increasing your manufacturing costs. Compound that with the fact that the lens is still going to have slightly off focus when delivered because each body's rangefinder is likely not 100% in spec, and you end up with people complaining about their lens not focusing correctly. This way everyone gets to adjust their lens to their individual body in a few minutes and DJ Optical spends less labour on each lens and listens to fewer complaints. 

As for Cosina lenses, a simple price comparison should answer your question, for instance I paid 3X the cost of the 7Artisans'  for my VC 1.1/50. Also, a lot of their lenses have had focus issues on digital bodies, if you remember. 

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by DezFoto
typo

[carbon_dragon]

I don't know, I don't find this argument convincing. This seems like they could keep a series of representative bodies, make sure THEY are calibrated and then just calibrate them prior to sale. I can't believe it's that hard. 

[DezFoto]

29 minutes ago, carbon_dragon said:

I don't know, I don't find this argument convincing. This seems like they could keep a series of representative bodies, make sure THEY are calibrated and then just calibrate them prior to sale. I can't believe it's that hard. 

In a perfect world, that would be great but unfortunately it doesn't work that way, which is why I've received several brand new lenses from Leica that did not focus correctly on my body, despite my other lenses focussing correctly. There's a reason my local tech charges me $250 for a lens calibration and requires my body to do so, he knows that if calibrates it to his body with a collimator it will not necessarily focus correctly on any of my Leicas. 

It's not hard to calibrate a lens to spec, or to a body, it's just TIME CONSUMING and limits the number of lenses you can get out of your factory in a day, which means that each lens costs more money to produce.

[pico]

4 minutes ago, DezFoto said:

[...]
It's not hard to calibrate a lens to spec, or to a body, it's just TIME CONSUMING and limits the number of lenses you can get out of your factory in a day, which means that each lens costs more money to produce.

As if Leica's prices are nor great enough. Leica supposedly builds body and lenses to a standard. I would expect Leica if it  standardizes their platforms to proof them. Leica Germany clearly does not do an adequate job on all products as evinced by their corrections for returned items. Are the defectives from Portugal or Germany? Does it matter when Leica is responsible? I suspect some serious compromises are being made.

 

 

[DezFoto]

Leica does what they can, unfortunately during the mere act of shipping a body to a customer, a rangefinder can be knocked slightly out of spec. Leica used to also have looser tolerances for calibration because film was more forgiving to focus calibration than digital. 

Unless you send your body to Leica to be calibrated along with your brand new lenses, they're likely not going to be 100% calibrated together. Just a fact of life, not a flaw in Leica's QC. 

Your comment though, exactly illustrates my point about people buying Leica gear and then whinging about focus problems because of their ignorance of how tight tolerances have to be with a rangefinder body and lens on a digital camera. If you want fewer calibration problems, buy slower lenses. 

[carbon_dragon]

I'm not  whining about focus problems. I've never had any focus problems. Ok, maybe I'll accept that it's possible that selling a lens with a decent focusing cam is harder than I'm thinking it is. I guess it's a good thing that those master craftsmen in Russia and the Ukraine did such an amazing job on all their screwmount lenses. I'll have to appreciate my Jupiter 8 lens more.

[DezFoto]

Just now, carbon_dragon said:

I'm not  whining about focus problems. I've never had any focus problems. Ok, maybe I'll accept that it's possible that selling a lens with a decent focusing cam is harder than I'm thinking it is. I guess it's a good thing that those master craftsmen in Russia and the Ukraine did such an amazing job on all their screwmount lenses. I'll have to appreciate my Jupiter 8 lens more.

I find it doubtful that an old Jupiter-8 lens focussed correctly on a digital body without being calibrated and likely the cams re-ground to current specs at some point. That being said, and f/2 lens would have an almost 2-stop DOF advantage over an f/1.1 lens and therefore would be much more forgiving of small focus calibration problems and focus shift. Furthermore, because of the Jupiter-8's somewhat telecentric design, the falloff between in-focus to out-of-focus is more gradual, which again makes it more forgiving of small calibration or focus errors. 

[pico]

22 minutes ago, DezFoto said:

Leica does what they can, unfortunately during the mere act of shipping a body to a customer, a rangefinder can be knocked slightly out of spec. Leica used to also have looser tolerances for calibration because film was more forgiving to focus calibration than digital. 

Unless you send your body to Leica to be calibrated along with your brand new lenses, they're likely not going to be 100% calibrated together. Just a fact of life, not a flaw in Leica's QC. 

Your comment though, exactly illustrates my point about people buying Leica gear and then whinging about focus problems because of their ignorance of how tight tolerances have to be with a rangefinder body and lens on a digital camera. If you want fewer calibration problems, buy slower lenses. 

In my modest experience of almost 50 years using a Leica RF, it does not get whacked out of specifications during ordinary, even occasional unusual treatment and shipping incurs hardly the abuse of everyday use by, for example, by a photojournalist.

Forget your silly idea that a body is calibrated along with calibrating one lens. It completely defeats the design objective of interchangeability, which has been a foundation of Leica principles forever.

And about my 'whinging' and my 'ignorance' please point me to a post where my own Leica gear has failed.

"Buy slower lenses?" That's just silly.

Edited November 29, 2018 by pico

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[DezFoto]

I never said YOU were whinging, did I? 

My digital rangefinders have gotten knocked out of calibration on a regular basis, my M6 has only been calibrated once and that was when I did the MP rangefinder upgrade. Again, as I already posted, film is much more forgiving of calibration and focus errors. 

My point is about body calibration is that unless you make sure both your lens AND your body are calibrated within spec, you're likely to run into problems. The calibration on bodies drifts out of spec over time, unless the camera lives in a display case and is never used.