Best Prime lens for APS-C

[chris_tribble]

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COMMENT

1. All of these were with lenses fully open at 200 ISO. I was using a light Gitzo Traveller tripod - so perhaps the longer lens shots could have been sharper - though I did use a 2 second delay on the self timer to reduce shake.
2. I forgot to include the 75 Elmarit!
3. Glad we've got proper cowls on our chimneys to keep the jackdaws out!

As I continue to work with the CL, I find I'm enjoying it. I now need to work a bit with the 18-55 I have to hand and see how it behaves in real world work.  A bit busy over the next few days, so I'll see what I can fit in.

[jmahto]

Does it have electronic first curtain? Using that will help with long lenses on tripod. This is the main reason I don't use M240 with long lenses. Interestingly not all shutter speeds are vulnerable. If it is in seconds then you are fine (vibration from shutter opening has little effect on full exposure) but if the shutterspeed is close to the vibration from shutter opening then you see the effect.

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[LocalHero1953]

Does it have electronic first curtain? Using that will help with long lenses on tripod. This is the main reason I don't use M240 with long lenses. Interestingly not all shutter speeds are vulnerable. If it is in seconds then you are fine (vibration from shutter opening has little effect on full exposure) but if the shutterspeed is close to the vibration from shutter opening then you see the effect.

It has full electronic shutter

[AndreasB]

Maybe I´m wrong but think I feel the shutter in my hands when I shot a photo with the CL. Do you think it will result in unsharp photos with the 18/2.8 and the 23/2.0 TL lenses at some speeds?

Edited December 10, 2017 by AndreasB

[Learner]

"Maybe I´m wrong but think I feel the shutter in my hands when I shot a photo with the CL."

 

That's an interesting observation to say the least... Anybody else get that sensation?

 

Would not all lenses be affected, and at all shutter speeds?

Edited December 10, 2017 by Learner

[SrMi]

It has full electronic shutter

CL does not seem to have EFCS (combines advantage of the electronic and mechanical shutter). Any disadvantage of using electronic shutter instead of the mechanical one?

[chris_tribble]

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Maybe I´m wrong but think I feel the shutter in my hands when I shot a photo with the CL. Do you think it will result in unsharp photos with the 18/2.8 and the 23/2.0 TL lenses at some speeds?

 

 

With wide lenses like that I'd say no.  Certainly not an issue with either the CL or M with lenses shorter than 50 - I can hand hold at 1/15th and lower and get sharp images.

Edited December 10, 2017 by chris_tribble

[thighslapper]

Maybe I´m wrong but think I feel the shutter in my hands when I shot a photo with the CL. Do you think it will result in unsharp photos with the 18/2.8 and the 23/2.0 TL lenses at some speeds?

 

 ...... I took some shots this morning at first light in driving snow ....... 1/20 sec at 42mm (60mm full frame) and they were sharp. No luck at 1/10sec though. 

 

Unlike the TL/TL2 I can use 1/f as an auto default and be confident all the images will be fine unless I am careless. 

[jmahto]

 

"Maybe I´m wrong but think I feel the shutter in my hands when I shot a photo with the CL."

 

That's an interesting observation to say the least... Anybody else get that sensation?

 

Would not all lenses be affected, and at all shutter speeds?

With wides the image shift on the sensor due to shake is much smaller compared to teles. This is why 1/f (and equivalents) rule is used.

[SrMi]

If shooting at slow shutter speeds you may want to use Continuous Drive mode, and always shoot 3-4 images. Good chance one of them will be sharper than the others.

[LocalHero1953]

CL does not seem to have EFCS (combines advantage of the electronic and mechanical shutter). Any disadvantage of using electronic shutter instead of the mechanical one?

Nor does the SL or M240 (I don't have the M10, but I haven't heard it does).

 

There are well documented disadvantages to the purely electronic shutter: distorted moving objects and banding in certain artificial light sources caused by the slow readout time, even in fast exposures. These are common to all electronic shutters, not just Leica's.

[LocalHero1953]

Maybe I´m wrong but think I feel the shutter in my hands when I shot a photo with the CL. Do you think it will result in unsharp photos with the 18/2.8 and the 23/2.0 TL lenses at some speeds?

I checked the CL, SL and M240. With all three of them, there is a very slight feel of the shutter operating, detectable only when you think about it - I've never thought about it or noticed before. It seemed to be on shutter closure (as you can tell from setting slow speeds). I couldn't detect any difference between them. There is more of a feel of lens AF movement in the moments before the shutter opens, which may be confused with possible shutter movement.

I'll worry about it when I get shake blur which I can't explain in any other way!

[SrMi]

Nor does the SL or M240 (I don't have the M10, but I haven't heard it does).

 

There are well documented disadvantages to the purely electronic shutter: distorted moving objects and banding in certain artificial light sources caused by the slow readout time, even in fast exposures. These are common to all electronic shutters, not just Leica's.

 

The disadvantages of electronic shutter vary from camera to camera apparently: from significant (X1D) to apparently negligible one (Olympus M1m2). Wonder how it looks on CL.

[LocalHero1953]

The disadvantages of electronic shutter vary from camera to camera apparently: from significant (X1D) to apparently negligible one (Olympus M1m2). Wonder how it looks on CL.

I don't know. But this is how it looked on the SL last weekend!

90-280SL, 1/250s. Raw, Lightroom conversion, no other processing. I can't complain - there's no other way to get this shot during a performance.

I can't answer for the OMD-EM1ii, but I found the OMD-EM5ii was just the same.

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Edited December 10, 2017 by LocalHero1953

[schmolinski]

I don't have the 135 any more Chris, so I haven't tried it, but I'm certain it would be great - obviously there's no IS, so you'd need to keep the shutter speed up but otherwise . . fab!

 

I have tried the CL with the 28 lux and the 135 apo-telyt. Both are fantastic.

 

Following the link you'll find a picture with the 135 I have taken a few days ago :https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/279062-leica-cl-the-image-thread/?p=3415176

 

The colors are great and I would say you can shoot the 135 easily @1/125 sec. and 1/100 sec. slower speeds I haven't tested so far...

The focus peaking is great. I even without the digital magnifier.

 

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1/100 sec. f/3.4 ISO 3200

Edited December 10, 2017 by schmolinski

[scott kirkpatrick]

I compared the degree of distortion observed at various focal lengths in the 11-23 TL with that shown a few days ago in the 23/2.0 TL prime (using the SL platform and processing in Capture One with distortion corrections at 100% and the extra pixels in the corner visible onscreen).  At its 23 and 19 mm settings, the 11-23 has a bit less and about the same amount of correction dialed in as the 23/2.0 prime.  At 15 mm, there is a bit more, and at 11 mm, quite a bit more.  Each test shot was made at full aperture, but I believe distortion does not vary with aperture.*

 

Here's a shot with the 11/23 taken at 11 mm, fully corrected and cropped slightly at the bottom:

 

R1010607 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr f/3.5@11 mm, 1/800 sec ISO 50

 

and here a screen shot to show the extra pixels captured at the corners:

Screen Shot 2017-12-12 at 2.26.00 PM by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr

 

scott

 

*Curious fact:  My Macro-Summarit 120 S on the SL generates small distortion corrections that vary with focus distance.  I haven't seen this variation attempted in any TL lens, although corrections do depend on focal length.

Edited December 12, 2017 by scott kirkpatrick

[Jared]

I compared the degree of distortion observed at various focal lengths in the 11-23 TL with that shown a few days ago in the 23/2.0 TL prime (using the SL platform and processing in Capture One with distortion corrections at 100% and the extra pixels in the corner visible onscreen).  At its 23 and 19 mm settings, the 11-23 has a bit less and about the same amount of correction dialed in as the 23/2.0 prime.  At 15 mm, there is a bit more, and at 11 mm, quite a bit more.  Each test shot was made at full aperture, but I believe distortion does not vary with aperture.*

 

Here's a shot with the 11/23 taken at 11 mm, fully corrected and cropped slightly at the bottom:

 

R1010607 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr f/3.5@11 mm, 1/800 sec ISO 50

 

and here a screen shot to show the extra pixels captured at the corners:

Screen Shot 2017-12-12 at 2.26.00 PM by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr

 

scott

 

*Curious fact:  My Macro-Summarit 120 S on the SL generates small distortion corrections that vary with focus distance.  I haven't seen this variation attempted in any TL lens, although corrections do depend on focal length.

 

 

Not exactly surprising.  Quite a bit of distortion at the wide end--likes like five percent or maybe even more.  That's pretty common in this day and age for lenses where the camera corrections are designed from the start to be part of the optical formula.  Still, the results out of the 11-23 are nothing short of stunning, even at the 11mm end, and it's a very light and compact lens all things considered.  Nothing in what you are showing that concerns me, though it will obviously have an effect on corner resolution since there's a fair amount of interpolation required to keep the 24 megapixel count.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Remember that the transformation involved is small at the center, and much larger at the edges of the picture.  But, indeed, the picture  corrected for barrel distortion shifts pixel information in its final RGB form out to where the photons actually came from, filling more than 24 MPx, and then the "Adobe convention" is to crop to the original image chip size.  Since there are more "free" pixels on the sides than at the top and bottom of the picture, (and Capture One lets me do this) I sometimes crop outside the original dimensions, as in the previous example.

 

Here's one where you can see the effect. 

R1010627 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr corrected for barrel distortion using WarpRectilinear coefficients.

 

The corrected picture can be  downloaded from https://flic.kr/p/22nJNDm

and the uncorrected version from  

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. 

Put them both up onscreen in Preview or some similar viewer and flick back and forth between them.

 

scott

Edited December 14, 2017 by scott kirkpatrick

[scott kirkpatrick]

In case it is not apparent, I think this is a fine lens and am happy with the corrected results.  Redistributing the data (putting the photons back where they came from) will only introduce errors at spatial frequencies beyond the Nyquist limit -- beyond the inverse of the pixel spacing, and this information is questionable in the original image as well.  In time, I suspect we will have sharpening codes that tighten up the result in proportion to the amount by which it has been shifted. 

Edited December 14, 2017 by scott kirkpatrick

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[SaW]

A question from a Leica S user:

Any info concerning the possible use of S lenses with the CL ?

The Leica S-adapter T can be used but it does not look like the CL is ready for it.

If so, any plan from Leica to make this work (the CL could be a nice back-up body for the S) ? 

 

Thanks,

Vincent