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Is there much difference between using native versus M lenses on the CL?


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Maybe just return to film for peace of mind. ;)

 

My R lenses have been used for 10+ years on Canon and Sony digital cameras. Are you suggesting that kind of flare would be normal on Leica digital bodies? 

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No - it can occur on all sensor-based cameras. A sensor surface is mirror-like, after all.

That you haven't seen it on other cameras doesn't prove a thing. I haven't seen it on a Leica digital since 2004 either. It is just something that may happen.

I'm sure I could provoke it on any of my cameras, Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Canon or Leica.  It is just not worth the trouble.

It might be of interest to you that the sensor in the CL is by Sony (99% certain)

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My attempts to use the forum search tools fail.  Can you think of a good search phrase for that thread?

I seem to recall that Doug Herr was a major participant. It was somebody who got a shifted reflection in a moon shot.

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Do you mean the culprit would be the CL's sensor?

 

It must be. In Scott's Sun flare shots, the artifacts are from M lens as well as from CL lens.

 

Just to check whether it is CL sensor issue, someone should try same M lens on another sensor (M or Sony FF/APS-C) at the same f stop. 

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It is a very personal call. Given that any lens can be provoked into flare ( the arguably best tele lens Leica ever built, the APO Telyt 280/4.0  R, will pick up sensor reflections from almost any digital camera, for instance), I see this more as information about which light situations to avoid than as a reason to avoid certain lens-camera combinations.

 

I recall the thread on that, which I searched for after getting a greenish tint on some of my 280's photos with an a7r2. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for my patience with that lens. Below is a list of camera bodies I used with the 280 APO, some bought specifically for use with the lens.  The only ones that worked reasonably well with the lens were the M240 and SL, presumably because the profiles mitigate some of the anomalies of the lens. Unfortunately the lens hadn't enough reach for my work on those bodies, and its look became very ordinary with either of the two APO teleconverters attached.

 

I recently ditched the 280 f/4 and have an eye open for another copy of the 280mm f/2.8 APO-Telyt-R, which I now regret having sold some years ago.

 

As for M vs native lenses on the CL, I use M and R glass only, and would only consider using the 35 Summilux, 60 macro, and 55-135 among the native lenses.

 

Leica T
Leica M240
Leica SL
Canon 7D Mk II
Canon EOS M3
Canon 80D
Olympus E-M5 Mk II
Olympus E-M1 Mark II
Sony a6000
Sony a7
Sony a7r
Sony a7II
Sony a7rII
Sony a6300
Sony a6500
Lumix GX8
Lumix GX85
 
(Mod, if this is too OT, feel free to delete. Catharsis from the venting has already taken effect!  ;))
Edited by tritentrue
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OK, here's one more try with the m 24 Elmarit-asph (coded), this time on my M10:

 

41988512014_6fceff1e9f_h.jpgL8002904 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr M10 with 24/2.8 @ f/16

 

BTW, shooting the sun with an optical viewfinder is not a good idea for my own sensors, but there was no sun star (at f/16) and no back reflection.

 

In processing this one I pumped up the exposure slider by one stop and the "shadow" slider to nearly 100%.  Still no spots.

Edited by scott kirkpatrick
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I recall the thread on that, which I searched for after getting a greenish tint on some of my 280's photos with an a7r2. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for my patience with that lens. Below is a list of camera bodies I used with the 280 APO, some bought specifically for use with the lens.  The only ones that worked reasonably well with the lens were the M240 and SL, presumably because the profiles mitigate some of the anomalies of the lens. Unfortunately the lens hadn't enough reach for my work on those bodies, and its look became very ordinary with either of the two APO teleconverters attached.

 

I recently ditched the 280 f/4 and have an eye open for another copy of the 280mm f/2.8 APO-Telyt-R, which I now regret having sold some years ago.

 

As for M vs native lenses on the CL, I use M and R glass only, and would only consider using the 35 Summilux, 60 macro, and 55-135 among the native lenses.

 

Leica T
Leica TL2
Leica M240
Leica SL
Canon 7D Mk II
Canon EOS M3
Canon 80D
Olympus E-M5 Mk II
Olympus E-M1 Mark II
Sony a6000
Sony a7
Sony a7r
Sony a7II
Sony a7rII
Sony a6300
Sony a6500
Lumix GX8
Lumix GX85
 
(Mod, if this is too OT, feel free to delete. Catharsis from the venting has already taken effect!  ;))

 

No it isn't; the interesting thing here is that this is one of the highest resolving lenses ever built. And the two cameras you mention have a specially designed microlens layer and thin filter stack on the sensor. What is more, the rear element of that lens is a flat clear filter. The problem must be provoked somewhere in one of or in a combination of those factors.

It will be interesting to see whether the shape of the last lens element has an impact by trying this with different M lenses, which have differently shaped rear lens elements.

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No - it can occur on all sensor-based cameras. A sensor surface is mirror-like, after all.

That you haven't seen it on other cameras doesn't prove a thing. I haven't seen it on a Leica digital since 2004 either. It is just something that may happen.

I'm sure I could provoke it on any of my cameras, Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Canon or Leica.  It is just not worth the trouble.

It might be of interest to you that the sensor in the CL is by Sony (99% certain)

 

...... but previous Leica's are not mirrorless ...... possibly it is exacerbated by the proximity of the sensor and the rear lens element ......

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No it isn't; the interesting thing here is that this is one of the highest resolving lenses ever built. And the two cameras you mention have a specially designed microlens layer and thin filter stack on the sensor. What is more, the rear element of that lens is a flat clear filter. The problem must be provoked somewhere in one of or in a combination of those factors.

It will be interesting to see whether the shape of the last lens element has an impact by trying this with different M lenses, which have differently shaped rear lens elements.

 

I tried the lens both with and without the drop-in filter, as well as with and without a same-era 77mm UVa filter and nothing made a difference--except the APO 2X teleconverter, with which colors reverted to normal in the same conditions that provoked the greenish tint with the lens alone.  

 

Resolution is indeed the reason I persevered with trying to find a camera that would render satisfactory results in most shooting conditions.  Even with the GX8's 20.3mp on m43 format (which extrapolates to roughly 78mp on FF), the resolving capability of the lens seemed limitless.

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My R lenses have been used for 10+ years on Canon and Sony digital cameras. Are you suggesting that kind of flare would be normal on Leica digital bodies? 

 

I have just trawled 3 years of images (TL,TL2,CL,SL) on a 'flare hunt' .........

 

I do a lot of landscape into the sun at sunrise/sunset ...... admittedly with ND and Grad filters and never had any issues ....... 

 

This is the worst I can find with CL from a few months ago ..... some barely visible magenta blobs ..... (the thing in the corner is another street light)

 

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Edited by thighslapper
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oh ..... and one from the trash folder ....... OOF and falling over ......

 

The regularity of spacing indicates to me it is reflection from the microlenses..... 

 

I'd be surprised if you couldn't provoke it on most mirrorless cameras ...... if you try hard enough ....  :rolleyes:

 

For me that's 2 in about 35,000 images .....

 

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Too many clouds here but i've done a couple of tests with a halogen lamp on 12 M lenses at f/16. Got the flare above, to a lesser extent, with 2 lenses only so far, the worst case being that of the CV 15/4.5 v2 ( https://tinyurl.com/y8nkyus5 ). So not a CL problem apparently but i will test other M lenses when i have some time to be sure. 

Affected lenses:
- CV 15/4.5 v2
- CV 21/4
Unaffected lenses: 
- Leica 35/2 asph v1, 40/2, 50/2.8 v2, 90/2.8 "thin" T-E, 90/4 C, 135/3.4
- Rokkor 40/2, 90/4
- CZ 35/3.5
- ZM 35/2.8
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OK, here's one more try with the m 24 Elmarit-asph (coded), this time on my M10:

 

41988512014_6fceff1e9f_h.jpgL8002904 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr M10 with 24/2.8 @ f/16

 

BTW, shooting the sun with an optical viewfinder is not a good idea for my own sensors, but there was no sun star (at f/16) and no back reflection.

 

In processing this one I pumped up the exposure slider by one stop and the "shadow" slider to nearly 100%.  Still no spots.

Scott, I guess you didn't get Sunstar since on RF there is slight difference between OVF and what lens sees. Use LV (on rear LCD if EVF in not there) and you will be able to see what lens sees. I would like to see the Sunstar with full Sun in the frame and not just peaking through to compare with CL's flare. But I can guess that on M10 you won't find this reflection (I guess microlenses are similar to M240). 

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oh ..... and one from the trash folder ....... OOF and falling over ......

 

The regularity of spacing indicates to me it is reflection from the microlenses..... 

 

I'd be surprised if you couldn't provoke it on most mirrorless cameras ...... if you try hard enough ....  :rolleyes:

 

For me that's 2 in about 35,000 images .....

 

attachicon.gifL1401314.jpg

It certainly seems like coming from sensor but why this pattern is visible only sometimes if Sun is in the frame? 

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Same test as above on the CL with 12 more M lenses at f/16. 4 out of them are affected by ghost images of the light source to various extents ("Affected"). 7 show some flare w/o those ghost images ("Unaffected"). 1 shows no flare at all ("No flare"). I won't bore you with my snaps here but i keep them for those interested. 

 
Affected:
- 21/3.4 asph
- 28/2.8 asph v1
- 35/1.4 v2
- 28-35-50 v1 at 28mm
 
Unaffected:
- 28/2 v2
- 35/2.5
- 50/1.4 asph
- 50/2.5
- 75/1.4
- 90/2 apo
- 90/4 macro
- 28-35-50 v1 at 35mm
- 28-35-50 v1 at 50mm
 
No flare:
- ZM 50/1.5 coded as 50/1.4 pre-asph
Edited by lct
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Scott, I guess you didn't get Sunstar since on RF there is slight difference between OVF and what lens sees. Use LV (on rear LCD if EVF in not there) and you will be able to see what lens sees. I would like to see the Sunstar with full Sun in the frame and not just peaking through to compare with CL's flare. But I can guess that on M10 you won't find this reflection (I guess microlenses are similar to M240). 

I agree -- parallax may have meant that I was blinded but the camera was not.  I'll shoot with LV and try again tomorrow.  But there was a huge highlight from the sun (which I removed in postprocessing) centered at the upper edge of the foliage without any star formation.

 

P.S.  In the post above, I misspoke.  Instead of "In processing this one I pumped up the exposure slider by one stop and " I actually decreased "exposure" by one full stop, and also pushed the highlight slider down before bringing up the shadow details to see if the red spots were lurking there.  That's why the sun highlight is relatively weak.

Edited by scott kirkpatrick
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Same test as above on the CL with 12 more M lenses at f/16. 4 out of them are affected by ghost images of the light source to various extents ("Affected"). 7 show some flare w/o those ghost images ("Unaffected"). 1 shows no flare at all ("No flare"). I won't bore you with my snaps here but i keep them for those interested.

 

Affected:

- 21/3.4 asph

- 28/2.8 asph v1

- 35/1.4 v2

- 28-35-50 v1 at 28mm

 

Unaffected:

- 28/2 v2

- 35/2.5

- 50/1.4 asph

- 50/2.5

- 75/1.4

- 90/2 apo

- 90/4 macro

- 28-35-50 v1 at 35mm

- 28-35-50 v1 at 50mm

 

No flare:

- ZM 50/1.5 coded as 50/1.4 pre-asph

I think the important question is whether the “effect” is reproducible all the time for a given lens+settings. Jaap’s comment above seem to suggest that it is not always and shows up only on a certain angle. Is it so?

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