75mm Summilux - your experience and thoughts

[Stuart Richardson]

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I never really liked color negative, and now that the prices are similar again, I just stick to E6 or digital. I grew up in a household where my dad shot Kodachrome, so the vibrant high contrast of slide film still just looks so much better to me than the desaturated extended dynamic range look of color negative. Not always of course, but usually.

As for the 75mm Summilux, I think it is a better lens on film than on digital, but that is not to say it cannot be used on digital. I just found that I noticed things like color fringing more on digital than I ever did on film. This may just be because of the ease of zooming in, or having every image available, rather than just scanning the good ones. But still, it is something I noticed. It is, however, still a great performer, even on the 47mp of the SL2 or the 40mp of the M10M. Soft wide open, but rendering detail, and very sharp when stopped down to f4 or 5.6. I have had the lens for about twenty years now and have no plans of ever parting with it.

[bags27]

I developed e-6 for the first time last summer and the real rush was seeing such fantastic images getting pulled out of the soup. I've shot only MF transparencies and the ones coming out of my "Fuji Leica" at 6x9 were like postcards. I'm intrigued by 35mm B&W transparencies. Mourn the loss of Tentenal, but Bellini is very good and Adox is bringing back a Tentenal-like developer. 

[Dr Cron]

Another test shot: as before, MP with Portra 800

 

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[costa43]

This is the lens that Leica should remake for their classic line. 

[evikne]

28 minutes ago, costa43 said:

This is the lens that Leica should remake for their classic line. 

If they could do anything to improve the notorious focus issues, that would be the only change they would need to make. Apart from that, this lens is perfect.

[costa43]

2 minutes ago, evikne said:

If they could do anything to improve the notorious focus issues, that would be the only change they would need to make. Apart from that, this lens is perfect.

What is the focus issue? I’ve never owned or used one but I really like the images I’ve seen from others. It’s not a focal length I have any experience with but I’m really tempted to try it. 
 

 

[costa43]

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6 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

Mine was a perfect copy but the focus nailing was a true hit and miss affair on M240 and an awkward fixed process on M10s - you could most of the time only nail focus if you started focusing from infinity backwards. Sold the thing and got the 75 APO and COULD.NOT.BE.HAPPIER.

Oh, that is good to know. Was this a common problem across copies? Thanks. 

Edited June 2, 2024 by costa43

[IkarusJohn]

17 minutes ago, evikne said:

If they could do anything to improve the notorious focus issues, that would be the only change they would need to make. Apart from that, this lens is perfect.

No focus issues here.  It has a thinner depth of field wide open than a 0.95 Noctilux wide open, so you need to be clear of two things - (1) is your lens well calibrated and (2) you take care to focus carefully.

[evikne]

13 minutes ago, costa43 said:

What is the focus issue? I’ve never owned or used one but I really like the images I’ve seen from others. It’s not a focal length I have any experience with but I’m really tempted to try it. 

It has proved to be very difficult to calibrate correctly, there are numerous examples here in the forum. My copy back-focused heavily and had to be taken to Wetzlar four times before it was fine.

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/283256-summilux-m-75mm-–-what-can-i-expect/

 

[costa43]

5 minutes ago, evikne said:

It has proved to be very difficult to calibrate correctly, there are numerous examples here in the forum. My copy back-focused heavily and had to be taken to Wetzlar four times before it was fine.

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/283256-summilux-m-75mm-–-what-can-i-expect/

 

Thank you, I might put my urge to bed. I do want to spend some time with the focal length though. Maybe the Voigtlander 75mm f1.5 is worth trying for now to see if I get on with it.

[evikne]

7 minutes ago, costa43 said:

Thank you, I might put my urge to bed. 

Sorry if I scared you away from buying a 75mm Summilux. It's a fantastic lens, and when it works properly, nothing compares. But I would certainly prefer to have the opportunity to try it before buying one.

[IkarusJohn]

1 hour ago, evikne said:

It has proved to be very difficult to calibrate correctly, there are numerous examples here in the forum. My copy back-focused heavily and had to be taken to Wetzlar four times before it was fine.

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/283256-summilux-m-75mm-–-what-can-i-expect/

 

Mine went straight to Wetzlar for CLA and coding - perfect ever since.

[Stuart Richardson]

I know this may sound counter intuitive, but don't shoot it at 1.4. You might ask, why bother with a 1.4 lens then? Because the rendering is so lovely from f2 to f4. The DOF is more manageable but still very shallow. Of course, you can use it at 1.4 to blur the world away completely, but the lux has a look of its own at wide/middle apertures that combines the pleasantness of older lenses with the performance of modern ones. I have had both the 75mm lux and the 75mm APO (Not to mention the 70mm Summarit S), and the Summilux is the most pleasing of all. If you just want a sharp, modern lens with a nice character, then get the 75mm APO. The Summilux has a different purpose: atmosphere.

[Ecar]

36 minutes ago, IkarusJohn said:

Mine went straight to Wetzlar for CLA and coding - perfect ever since.

Same here. Except it was Solms at the time.

[costa43]

2 hours ago, evikne said:

Sorry if I scared you away from buying a 75mm Summilux. It's a fantastic lens, and when it works properly, nothing compares. But I would certainly prefer to have the opportunity to try it before buying one.

No need to apologise, I really appreciate the input. If the right one comes along I’ll take a look but I do not have the patience to go through different copies and with Wetzlar being so slow to turn around their CLAs, it puts me off purchasing unless I’m sure. I sent them my 50mm Summilux v3 at the beginning of November last year and they still have it. 

[RexGig0]

6 hours ago, costa43 said:

Oh, that is good to know. Was this a common problem across copies? Thanks. 

I was told, by an employee at a Leica dealer, that 75mm Summilux lenses did tend to have problems with focus accuracy. I do not recall that he used the word “common.” I was interested in buying a pre-owned 75mm Summilux from that dealer, at that time, so, I saw no reason to disbelieve him, as he was discouraging a sale of a lens that they had, in-stock. He said that this particular lens “front-focused.” When I visited that same dealer, on another occasion, a different employee showed me this lens. She posed, and held a cola can in front of her, advising me to focus, with the rangefinder, on the can. Sure enough, when we reviewed the image, the can was slightly blurred, and her face was in sharp focus.

Knowing that I could focus, mentally adjusting for the difference, I was very tempted to buy this Summilux, anyway, but, another buyer acted before I did.

Having said this, the APO Summicron-M 75mm ASPH, that I bought a few years later, is not easy to rangefinder-focus, either. I am not finding mechanical inaccuracy, just difficulty in achieving focus. Not only is rangefinding more difficult, but, remaining steady is a challenge, while hand-holding. (I tend to sway, in the fore-and-aft directions, and am getting worse, with age. It is a best practice, for me, to snap several images, with any focal length longer than 50mm.)

Edited June 2, 2024 by RexGig0

[69xchange]

My 75 lux v1 was back focusing and I had to get it sent in for calibration. 

[MaticB]

1 hour ago, Al Brown said:

Try the 75 Summarits. Both are stellar. No problem whatsoever regarding focus.

Absolutely agree!

[LocalHero1953]

I have the Summilux-M 75 and I'm very happy with it. In the thread mentioned by @evikne I quoted comments by the company I sent mine to for 6-bit coding, cleaning and calibration checking. FWIW, after checking it (see my later post in the same thread), he said it was calibrated as well it could be for my intended use - portraiture - so he wasn't touting for business. His comments on why it is problematic for focus make sense to me, though I have no direct knowledge of whether they are correct. I have no interest in using it at distances beyond five metres or so; within that I find it well behaved, and produces images that you won't get from a modern Apo-Summicron. I also have the Apo-Summicron-SL 75, and have previously owned the Apo-Summicron-M 75. The latter two produce quite different images - I'm glad to have both Apo-Summicron and older Summilux.

Edited June 2, 2024 by LocalHero1953

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[didier]

9 hours ago, IkarusJohn said:

Mine went straight to Wetzlar for CLA and coding - perfect ever since.

So did mine, about 8 years ago.

And a joy to use ever since.

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