Should I wait for SL 2 ?

[Fedro]

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6 minutes ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

There's usually just the one model, Anna.  I have to wonder how she puts up with it.

must have been a while since you looked at it .. the girls have multiplied

 

Edited August 10, 2019 by Fedro

[sillbeers15]

16 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

There's usually just the one model, Anna.  I have to wonder how she puts up with it.

Anna + her Russian friends.

[Chaemono]

Am 7.8.2019 um 14:43 schrieb jonoslack:

No - at least, not technically, the SL has no chromatic aberration and is certainly sharper and has better micro contrast . . .  

Well stated, although the green/purple fringing of the 75 Noctilux-M at extreme highlight/shadow edges can easily be dealt with, mostly. The rest requires some effort like the one thorn on the crown. The 75 Summicron-SL is completely free of it. It's amazing.

Am 7.8.2019 um 14:43 schrieb jonoslack:

However,  it's much easier to design an APO lens at f2, and the very rapid loss of contrast as you go away from the point of focus means that the depth of field doesn't look so different.

The DOF won't look so different in many situations but it depends on the distance of the in-focus and out-of-focus areas. Many of your close-up 75 Noctilux shots in your gallery would have looked differently had they been taken with the 75 Summicron-SL IMO.

Here are two from yesterday wide open to show the difference in sharpens and micro contrast but also background blur. These are handheld.

Less compressed JPEGs here: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-z6hwzJ/

75 Summicron-SL on S1

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75 Noctilux-M on M10

Edited August 11, 2019 by Chaemono

[Chaemono]

And here is one with the fringing on the thorn dealt with.

75 Noctilux-M on M10

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[Fedro]

thanks

interesting, I actually don't find them all that different and in this case I even prefer the SL75 version of the picture (a little less blurry OOF)

Where I find the Nocti really "good looking" is a little bit further away from the subject wide open and how it manages to isolate subjects even at those distances 

[Chaemono]

vor 59 Minuten schrieb Fedro:

Where I find the Nocti really "good looking" is a little bit further away from the subject wide open and how it manages to isolate subjects even at those distances 

The 75 Summicron-SL holds its own in this respect because Leica has tightened and raised the sharpness DOF curve (visualise it as a parabola) so that f/2 on the SL Summicrons separates the subject like f/1.4 even with less background blur. It's what Jono referred to above as "the very rapid loss of contrast as you go away from the point of focus..." Bokeh will be creamier with the 75 Noctilux but because of this effect the SL Summicrons isolate the subject so well that the less buttery bokeh is not distracting. 

[Fedro]

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3 minutes ago, Chaemono said:

The 75 Summicron-SL holds its own in this respect because Leica has tightened and raised the sharpness DOF curve (visualise it as a parabola) so that f/2 on the SL Summicrons separates the subject like f/1.4 even with less background blur. It's what Jono referred to above as "the very rapid loss of contrast as you go away from the point of focus..." Bokeh will be creamier with the 75 Noctilux but because of this effect the SL Summicrons isolate the subject so well that the less buttery bokeh is not distracting. 

it does, but I prefer the look of the Nocti75 at longer distances for separating subjects. Separation on the cron tends to flatten out faster as you move further away from the subject. Mind you the Nocti has and extra 1 and half stop ..

to be honest with you, I am not sure I will keep the Nocti long term, it is a mechanical marvel, but as you and Jono point out the SL cron is very close and at a much more reasonable price (plus AF, weather sealing etc). Sure you cannot use it on the M but there are plenty of options for great portrait lenses on the M

[Chaemono]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb Fedro:

Mind you the Nocti has and extra 1 and half stop ..

And its paper thin DOF needs to be used creatively...

vor 5 Stunden schrieb Fedro:

it does, but I prefer the look of the Nocti75 at longer distances for separating subjects. Separation on the cron tends to flatten out faster as you move further away from the subject. Mind you the Nocti has and extra 1 and half stop ..

to be honest with you, I am not sure I will keep the Nocti long term, it is a mechanical marvel, but as you and Jono point out the SL cron is very close and at a much more reasonable price (plus AF, weather sealing etc). 

...to justify owning the 75 Noctilux for use on the SL. I agree. I've only taken one photo with it that I couldn't have taken with any other lens, I think. USD 12.8K for one good photo is a lot of dough. But to me it was well worth it. I consider it the best picture I've ever taken and it was straight out of camera, no post processing, no nothing. 😁 I could probably sell prints of it.

I posted more test shots from today to show that if one absolutely, positively has to separate a paper thin object like a Chevy Camaro SS logo or a Corvette cross flag emblem, she or he should accept no alternatives. 😁 I posted them in this thread here: 

 

Jaap doesn't like it when we flood discussion threads with pictures, even if it is to illustrate a point. He likes to keep the forum organized. BTW, I do realize that this discussion here is totally off topic but we have some time to kill until Christmas. 😁

Less compressed JPEGs here: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-z6hwzJ/

[jonoslack]

22 hours ago, Chaemono said:

And its paper thin DOF needs to be used creatively...

...to justify owning the 75 Noctilux for use on the SL. I agree. I've only taken one photo with it that I couldn't have taken with any other lens, I think. USD 12.8K for one good photo is a lot of dough. But to me it was well worth it. I consider it the best picture I've ever taken and it was straight out of camera, no post processing, no nothing. 😁 I could probably sell prints of it.

 

Oooh, can we see?

I think it's an interesting discussion - I guess my overall feeling is pragmatic (banal even), which is that most of the time, if I'm shooting something important (either professionally or personally) I don't really dare shoot at f1.4, f2 seems to be a sensible minimum - so I use the 75 APO summicron on the M (a long term favourite) and the 75 APO SL on the SL (a recent favourite). I loved the 75 Noctilux, and in a perfect world I'd have one of them as well, but I don't think it would get as much use, and I can't imagine any picture I could take which would be a failure with the summicrons but a success with the Noctilux. 

All the best

[Chaemono]

Jono, it’s the first one, the red Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Speciale 1957, in the gallery here: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-232Tmz/ It was inspired by Holger Forst, a member of this forum, who had actually used the 75 Summicron-SL to shoot the event before me. I saw his pictures and tried to copy some of them. My 75 Noctilux-M picture of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Speciale was taken on the M10-P. The JPG version I show in the linked gallery was exported from Preview where the DNG file was just opened and not touched at all. 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Chaemono

[jonoslack]

Lovely photos - and a lovely car too! Certainly it wouldn't have been quite the same with the 75 SL, but I'm not sure that it's quite $8,000 better than it would have been! I would also like to have a go  with the 75 APO M . . .  possibly on the M9 (perhaps a purple one 😂😋). 

 

 

[Chaemono]

No, it’s not $8,000 better than it would have been. But if I manage to take a second nice looking picture with the 75 Noctilux, the difference drops to ‘only’ $4,000 on average. Four pictures $2,000, eight pictures $1,000, and so on. All of a sudden the 75 Noctilux starts to look like a bargain. 😁 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Chaemono

[scott kirkpatrick]

The Alfa Giulietta Sprint Speciale and the Ferrari166 MM Barchetta are how I wish cars still looked today.  The '50s and '60s Fiat Spyder also had the simple elegance of those two.  I imagine all three of them would have been maintenance nightmares and not to be driven in the rain, but lovely pictures!

[jonoslack]

2 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

The Alfa Giulietta Sprint Speciale and the Ferrari166 MM Barchetta are how I wish cars still looked today.  The '50s and '60s Fiat Spyder also had the simple elegance of those two.  I imagine all three of them would have been maintenance nightmares and not to be driven in the rain, but lovely pictures!

Not quite the same class, but our 1994 Saab turbo S convertible came back from it’s annual cuddle today, still looking and running beautifully after 208,000 miles (to be honest, we have only done 168,000 of those miles)

[scott kirkpatrick]

7 hours ago, jonoslack said:

Not quite the same class, but our 1994 Saab turbo S convertible came back from it’s annual cuddle today, still looking and running beautifully after 208,000 miles (to be honest, we have only done 168,000 of those miles)

I never managed to go much beyond 100,000 miles on some perfectly nice cars, operating them in New England where we put salt on our icy roads.  Each would get to the point where if you had to jack them up to change a tire, it wasn't clear if the car would rise or only the jack point.

[geddon_jt]

Not to go too off the OP topic here, but FWIW the Noctilux 75 is my favorite lens (and my wife's as well, and she is primarily a portrait shooter). While there may be some CA wide open I will also say to my eyes it is in a different universe in terms of optical precision to the 50 Noctilux f/.95, which of course is also a beloved lens. The 75 is so good that I feel *pretty* confident that it will hold up extremely well to the presumably larger MP sensor in the SL2, much like the native SL primes are expected to. I worry a bit about the 50 f/.95 in that regard, images definitely pop wide open and have a magic to them but there can be some pretty big problems while pixel peeping  even on 24MP sensors.

I haven't tried any of the SL primes yet, if I had to get one I'd try to find a 35. If we get a 47MP sensor on the SL2 you will be able to crop the heck out of that one (much like people are doing with the Q2 with great success)... and of course the wide angle SL primes coming next year will make it even easier... almost like Leica planned it that way for their roadmap all along....

[Guest]

2 hours ago, geddon_jt said:

Not to go too off the OP topic here, but FWIW the Noctilux 75 is my favorite lens (and my wife's as well, and she is primarily a portrait shooter). While there may be some CA wide open I will also say to my eyes it is in a different universe in terms of optical precision to the 50 Noctilux f/.95, which of course is also a beloved lens. The 75 is so good that I feel *pretty* confident that it will hold up extremely well to the presumably larger MP sensor in the SL2, much like the native SL primes are expected to. I worry a bit about the 50 f/.95 in that regard, images definitely pop wide open and have a magic to them but there can be some pretty big problems while pixel peeping  even on 24MP sensors.

I haven't tried any of the SL primes yet, if I had to get one I'd try to find a 35. If we get a 47MP sensor on the SL2 you will be able to crop the heck out of that one (much like people are doing with the Q2 with great success)... and of course the wide angle SL primes coming next year will make it even easier... almost like Leica planned it that way for their roadmap all along....

My mates old lady has the 75mm naughtylux. If the SL2 is as good as the X1D II then I will get them both (SL2 75mm Naughtlux)

neil

[Chaemono]

Neil, I’m sure the 75 Noctilux and the SL2 with IBIS will be in good hands if you were to use them. Besides the very shallow DOF, there is one more distinguishing property of this lens, the extremely smooth transition from the in-focus to the out-of-focus area. The challenge for me is to combine these two effects in order to create pictures that couldn’t have been taken with any other lens. 

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, Chaemono said:

Neil, I’m sure the 75 Noctilux and the SL2 with IBIS will be in good hands if you were to use them. Besides the very shallow DOF, there is one more distinguishing property of this lens, the extremely smooth transition from the in-focus to the out-of-focus area. The challenge for me is to combine these two effects in order to create pictures that couldn’t have been taken with any other lens. 

Hi 

lets see if there is going to be a new SL2 first. Rumor on the streets in Asia is that Huawei are making a run for Leica so we might end up with ............ 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[Chaemono]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb NW67:

Hi 

lets see if there is going to be a new SL2 first. Rumor on the streets in Asia is that Huawei are making a run for Leica so we might end up with ............ 

Thanks for the information. I hope the Chinese buy the Blackstone stake. This will bring great software capabilities to Leica to compete against Panasonic, Sony, and Olympus. It’s too late to derail the SL2, btw. It’s coming.