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It's April. Are the 35 APO SL-SC's arriving?


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  • 2 weeks later...

Will the APO 35 SC have enough resolution for 47 MPx?  Well, the way to test that on-center is to put it on a CL, which has 4 micron next-generation pixels.  I compared my copy with the CL's 35/Summilux, which is also an outstanding high contrast, high resolution lens, but the APO SC out does it wide-open.  The two are pretty much indistinguishable, and render very similarly at f/4.0 and f/5.6 for distant scenes.  But here is a 50% crop of a test shot at f/2.0 with the APO 35 SC on the CL.  Clicking through to Flickr should give the full resolution at which I rendered it.

C1130342 1 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr

C1130343 1 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr

The full set of notes from my test shots across the CL's APS-C frame (2/3 of FF dimensions):

TL 35 SX:  excellent on-center from 1.4 to 2.8, sweet spot (best sharpness and contrast) f/4.0 and almost as good at f/5.6, some falloff of quality at f/8 and diffraction softening at f/11.  At the corners, a little soft at f/1.4, but good from f/2 to f/8 with f/4.0 again the best.  Soft at f/11.

SL APO 35 SC on the CL: excellent sharpness and contrast center to edge from f/2.0 to f/5.6.  Not quite as contrasty at f/8 and some diffraction softening at f/11.

 

Edited by scott kirkpatrick
Posted the wrong one. So now I've put up both f/2.0 and f/4.0. Can you tell them apart? Both are cropped so that Flickr should provide a full resolution version if you click twice..
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  • 1 month later...

Long time lurker on the forum :) I received my APO yesterday, and, in line with interviews Mr. Karbe has given in the past, I believe it may have gone through a redesign based on previous posts in the forums here. It does not make grinding noises at all during focusing, and the focus ring, while still not M or Q level-dampened, is smoother and easier to turn than what I've read about and experienced on a demo unit in a Leica store...which I had to crank on to focus.

And of course, it delivers bonkers sharpness and image quality.

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6 hours ago, cba20k said:

I believe it may have gone through a redesign

Ah!  This goes a long way towards explaining what happened.

I coudn't understand why such a famous company would risk trashing its reputation by announcing a showstopper product with great fanfare, and then not supplying anywhere near enough to meet demand.

Consequently here we are 5 months later and you still cannot walk into a Leica dealer and buy one.  You can see the anger this has caused among cashed-up customers, despite all the "tutt-tutt" and "just be patient" bromides from more passive hobbyists.

But… serious manufacturing problems and having to redesign and reengineer - now that makes sense :)

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On 8/10/2019 at 6:09 PM, cba20k said:

Long time lurker on the forum :) I received my APO yesterday, and, in line with interviews Mr. Karbe has given in the past, I believe it may have gone through a redesign based on previous posts in the forums here. It does not make grinding noises at all during focusing, and the focus ring, while still not M or Q level-dampened, is smoother and easier to turn than what I've read about and experienced on a demo unit in a Leica store...which I had to crank on to focus.

And of course, it delivers bonkers sharpness and image quality.

Possibly ..... but I'm more inclined they are flat out trying to meet the Leica Q2 demand ..... and possibly sorting out issues in the first run of the SL2. Leica have always worked on batch production and rotate between whatever lenses and bodies are in their schedule. Trying to balance supply and demand with a new product where there are only speculative sales figures is always going to be problem. If I had the option of sitting on a pile of unsold $5k lenses or running a waiting list, I know which I would choose ....

The M APO 50/2 vanished for more than 6 months whilst Leica tried to fix internal reflection issues.

This was never acknowledged until long after production and supply was restarted..... and then never 'officially' as far as I recall. 

Edited by thighslapper
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21 hours ago, cba20k said:

Long time lurker on the forum :) I received my APO yesterday, and, in line with interviews Mr. Karbe has given in the past, I believe it may have gone through a redesign based on previous posts in the forums here. It does not make grinding noises at all during focusing, and the focus ring, while still not M or Q level-dampened, is smoother and easier to turn than what I've read about and experienced on a demo unit in a Leica store...which I had to crank on to focus.

And of course, it delivers bonkers sharpness and image quality.

I suspect Leica got the focusing issues out of the way when they were developing the 75 and the 90, which have the same internal gadgetry as the 35.  Jono Slack mentions that he worked with several 75s during the whole year 2017 (they shipped in January 2018) during which time he saw no changes in their optical quality.  He got a 35 SL to play with in January 2019, and they shipped in April, with an announcement in March 2019.  Mine went out from the shop to me in May 2019, as there were several people in line ahead of me.  For any but the biggest Leica stores, receiving 1-2 lenses per month from a new product line is considered normal.

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