Jump to content

On Leica System.


mr_aznar

Recommended Posts

Did you buy it because of AF speed or because of aperture ?

If because of AF speed, then better change it for a SL 75 or 24-90.

If because of aperture - you got the best. Enjoy.

 

 

Even for AF speed, it is the fastest Leica Summilux by far. (It is special to see a Summilux do AF).

Try it - it is only slow for the few with very high expectations. For me it is fast enough. Precision is more important for me.

Edited by steppenw0lf
Link to post
Share on other sites

Did you buy it because of AF speed or because of aperture ?

If because of AF speed, then better change it for a SL 75.

If because of aperture - you got the best. Enjoy.

good question. hoping both. i came from a7rii with using 50mm most of my work, so i wanted to make sure i was right at home with same length.  thx for your input!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Advertisement (gone after registration)

The AF is pedestrian. No doubt about it.

 

However the optical performance is spectacular. Think of it as an Otus with bonus AF.

 

Also, in low light I set the camera to MF and then get close and then use the joystick to AF the last bit. Works just fine.

 

Gordon

Link to post
Share on other sites

I came to the SL from the A7rII as well.

 

What you will find at first is that the size and quality of the EVF will be startling; every time you lift the camera to your eye you will think 'wow'. Then after a while you'll stop noticing it and just enjoy using it. Then after even more time, out of curiosity you will pick up the A7 again and the moment you lift it to your eye, you will shudder and put it right back down.

 

The experience is not unlike when I go home to visit my parents who still live in the teeny tiny house I gew up in. As the time, the size of the house felt fine, but now I live in a much bigger house, I wonder how the hell we ever managed.

 

I don't have the 50SL Lux; I have the M 50mm Lux instead. I like the size of it, the low element count and the way manual focus is a little more involving. Sometimes though I do find myself wishing I had the optoin of AF.

 

I keep looking but I've still not seen anything shot with the 50mm SL Lux that I didn't think looked ghastly. It being compared to he Otus might be accurate but it's not a compliment. Both are super sharp and free of aberations but lacks micro contrast. The 50SL also has way too much global contrast; the colours are over saturated in my opinion and the out of focus areas are horrible. The bluring is OK and there is clear separation between foreground and background as a result of this, overall high global contrast makes the background too intrusive.

 

I think I'm the only person in the world though to hold this view so I wouldn't pay too much attention to it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

I have actually yes and as a set some of those portraits are lovely (though a lot of them look like outdoor HSS flash and i'm not keen on that look); the indoor ones are very nice and give me some encouragement that perhaps this lens might have something to offer. They are the reason I keep looking and am still open to having my mind changed.

 

I really should try to hire a copy and try it myself but so far I haven't found anywhere in London/the UK that has one for rental.

 

In summary though, the only things that this lens seems to offer above the M version of it, are autofocus and weather sealing. I don't know how much I value weather sealing; I have had a problem once before with my M lens on the SL when caught in a shower but I'm not that interested in shooting in the rain (I'm not professional so have no axe to grind).

 

Regarding AF, it's tricky because sometimes I do wish I could just push a button and not worry about critical focus and then I reflect and think that actually MF discipline does improve my work. So AF is a pretty marginal benefit for me.

 

My whole issue with this lens has always been that it costs an absolute bloody fortune, is at best only as nice as the M version, potentially it's worse (by my personal standards), and only seems to offer AF and weather sealing to justify the price.

 

But I genuinely remain open minded about it. Please keep directing me to examples of work, ideally portraiture. There must be something out there that I can love.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I get the cost and handling differences but is there really that much difference in the look between the 50 Summilux-M and the native SL Summilux? Both are attached to the same digital camera which IMO makes the more significant contribution to the overall "look". For a given subject and lighting, a real step change in the look surely requires a bigger sensor or piece of film and the opportunity to use a longer focal length for a given field of view. That said, I doubt that the 50 Summilux-SL is incapable of being used to create wonderful photographs. I'm sure if you give the camera and lens to a photographer like Nadav Kander, Phillip-Lorca diCorcia or Annie Leibowitz they'd be able to go away and do something interesting with it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

is there really that much difference in the look between the 50 Summilux-M and the native SL Summilux

 

Well the differences between any lens of the same focal length and aperture sued on the same camera will always be small, so you have a point. But for some people a small measured difference in rendering will make a big difference in how they feel about the results.

 

 

That said, I doubt that the 50 Summilux-SL is incapable of being used to create wonderful photographs

 

I agree. It's a shame though that there aren't examples of this out there to see. You list some wonderful photographers there; diCorcia in particular is a personal favourite (his series 'Husters' is so compelling). Kander's work though illustrates what matters most; lighting. That has more impact than anything else.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree. It's a shame though that there aren't examples of this out there to see. You list some wonderful photographers there; diCorcia in particular is a personal favourite (his series 'Husters' is so compelling). Kander's work though illustrates what matters most; lighting. That has more impact than anything else.

 

 

Yes, Hustlers is outstanding – really beautiful work. I agree about Kander and his control of light (the same can obviously be said of diCorcia too) but he also has produced some wonderful non-commercial, personal stuff. I've seen some beautiful portraits of his children.

Edited by wattsy
Link to post
Share on other sites

I got to shoot a pre-production copy of the 50 SL some time after it was announced. To my eye it was much more resolving than any current M lens in the 35-75mm range except the 50AA and the 50 Noctilux, neither of which I've tried. (I own the 35/1.4 FLE and 75 AA and have shot the 50 1.4 ASPH.) The increased resolution was in fact quite startling and readily visible even in the viewfinder.

 

The reason that you may not see the advantage in any web rendition is that jpeg compression discards very tiny structural details the kind that the 50 SL manages to capture. Try to find some DNGs on the web and process them for yourself and the differnces should be apparent. Little strucutres like fabrics, leather etc are rendered with medium format like clarity.

 

The AF is slower than the 24-90 which you will sense immediately. But I don't personally think it's terrible or unusable as some have described, just not instantaneous.

 

For me a lens like the 24-90 is more useful but I walked away quite impressed with the 50 SL and excited about the potential of the SL system.

 

I have actually yes and as a set some of those portraits are lovely (though a lot of them look like outdoor HSS flash and i'm not keen on that look); the indoor ones are very nice and give me some encouragement that perhaps this lens might have something to offer. They are the reason I keep looking and am still open to having my mind changed.

 

I really should try to hire a copy and try it myself but so far I haven't found anywhere in London/the UK that has one for rental.

 

In summary though, the only things that this lens seems to offer above the M version of it, are autofocus and weather sealing. I don't know how much I value weather sealing; I have had a problem once before with my M lens on the SL when caught in a shower but I'm not that interested in shooting in the rain (I'm not professional so have no axe to grind).

 

Regarding AF, it's tricky because sometimes I do wish I could just push a button and not worry about critical focus and then I reflect and think that actually MF discipline does improve my work. So AF is a pretty marginal benefit for me.

 

My whole issue with this lens has always been that it costs an absolute bloody fortune, is at best only as nice as the M version, potentially it's worse (by my personal standards), and only seems to offer AF and weather sealing to justify the price.

 

But I genuinely remain open minded about it. Please keep directing me to examples of work, ideally portraiture. There must be something out there that I can love.

Edited by cpclee
Link to post
Share on other sites

I got to shoot a pre-production copy of the 50 SL some time after it was announced. To my eye it was much more resolving than any current M lens in the 35-75mm range except the 50AA and the 50 Noctilux, neither of which I've tried. (I own the 35/1.4 FLE and 75 AA and have shot the 50 1.4 ASPH.) The increased resolution was in fact quite startling and readily visible even in the viewfinder.

 

The reason that you may not see the advantage in any web rendition is that jpeg compression discards very tiny structural details the kind that the 50 SL manages to capture. Try to find some DNGs on the web and process them for yourself and the differnces should be apparent. Little strucutres like fabrics, leather etc are rendered with medium format like clarity.

 

The AF is slower than the 24-90 which you will sense immediately. But I don't personally think it's terrible or unusable as some have described, just not instantaneous.

 

For me a lens like the 24-90 is more useful but I walked away quite impressed with the 50 SL and excited about the potential of the SL system.

 

 

If you know of any that would be awesome. One caveat though is that 'resolving power', sharpness or any other variable linked to detail isn't what I think is lacking with this lens. The contrast to MF is relevant though; the way that big sensor MF manages the transition in tones is what makes those images so special. That's what I've not yet seen with the 50SL

Link to post
Share on other sites

The AF is pedestrian. No doubt about it.

 

However the optical performance is spectacular. Think of it as an Otus with bonus AF.

 

Also, in low light I set the camera to MF and then get close and then use the joystick to AF the last bit. Works just fine.

 

Gordon

ooh good call on the otus comparison.  love the technique on the low light. will try this. do you have the af point at single?

Link to post
Share on other sites

I came to the SL from the A7rII as well.

 

What you will find at first is that the size and quality of the EVF will be startling; every time you lift the camera to your eye you will think 'wow'. Then after a while you'll stop noticing it and just enjoy using it. Then after even more time, out of curiosity you will pick up the A7 again and the moment you lift it to your eye, you will shudder and put it right back down.

 

The experience is not unlike when I go home to visit my parents who still live in the teeny tiny house I gew up in. As the time, the size of the house felt fine, but now I live in a much bigger house, I wonder how the hell we ever managed.

 

I don't have the 50SL Lux; I have the M 50mm Lux instead. I like the size of it, the low element count and the way manual focus is a little more involving. Sometimes though I do find myself wishing I had the optoin of AF.

 

I keep looking but I've still not seen anything shot with the 50mm SL Lux that I didn't think looked ghastly. It being compared to he Otus might be accurate but it's not a compliment. Both are super sharp and free of aberations but lacks micro contrast. The 50SL also has way too much global contrast; the colours are over saturated in my opinion and the out of focus areas are horrible. The bluring is OK and there is clear separation between foreground and background as a result of this, overall high global contrast makes the background too intrusive.

 

I think I'm the only person in the world though to hold this view so I wouldn't pay too much attention to it.

 

 

Please don't take this the wrong way since my intent is not to be argumentative.  I'm literally trying to sort out a few terms here, and the definitions seem to be inconsistent from one photographer to the next...

 

How can a lens have too high global contrast?  I was under the impression that global contrast was really a function of processing choices--how one decides to spread the tones from pure black in the darkest areas of the image to pure white in the lightest areas.  Perhaps you mean it suffers very little veiling glare?  Or that images loose details in the shadows?  Not certain what you are referring to.  

 

When discussing lens contrast, I thought what one always meant was micro contrast. Assuming Leica's MTF graphs are accurate, I would actually expect this to be one of the strengths of the lens.  On-axis contrast at 40 lp/mm is above 80%.  What is it you are seeing in sample images that makes you state micro contrast is poor?  I'd love to hear a more detailed description so I can understand better.  Do you mean that in mid-tones when looking at finer structures there is little difference in tone?  Or perhaps it's something you are seeing in the shadows?  Please provide more details.

 

As far as colors being oversaturated... Isn't that also just a processing choice?  Or do you mean that because of an absence of veiling glare you are seeing more saturated colors?  

 

I don't own this lens, so I'm not trying to be defensive.  I often suspect that when photographers get in fights over contrast, resolution, sharpness, and rendering it is because of the lack of precision in the terms or inconsistent definitions.  I'd love to know what you are seeing in the posted samples.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Jared,

 

Thanks for the positioning statement - all taken in good faith and the spirit of open minded debate :)

 

 

How can a lens have too high global contrast?

 

I don't know; some lenses do seem to have much higher contrast than others, but that might be down to coatings as much as, or maybe more than, lens design (I previously had a Voigtlander 40mm Nokton SC that had a very low contrast look that was single coated).

 

 

 I was under the impression that global contrast was really a function of processing choices

 

Yes it might well be. Keep in mind that all the comments I've made are based on a still relatively limited survey of the available images made with this lens. There aren't that many, which is frustrating. It is entirely possible that what I am seeing (that I don't like) is more down to the photographer than the lens. This is why I still have an open mind.

 

 

 Perhaps you mean it suffers very little veiling glare?

 

No it's definitely not that.

 

 

Do you mean that in mid-tones when looking at finer structures there is little difference in tone

 

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I mean.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...