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7 hours ago, sinjun said:

Having recently had a 50mm summarit f/1.5 and collapsible summicron serviced, with elements recoated, I thought I'd do a quick comparison with a Zeiss sonnar-C and summilux ASPH. I'm not normally one for testing but I set up a target and used a tripod-mounted Sony A7s, Kolari thin filter modified. I did this rather than using my trusty M9 so I could be certain I was getting the focus correct - using zoomed-in EVF.

Interesting set. I think you'd see even more differences in a more challenging light - a strongly backlit scene, for example.

Out of curiosity, where did you get your lenses re-coated? 

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6 hours ago, Ecar said:

Interesting set. I think you'd see even more differences in a more challenging light - a strongly backlit scene, for example.

Out of curiosity, where did you get your lenses re-coated? 

Agree - this is no test for flare or veiling effects. I had the lenses cleaned and recoated by Malcolm Taylor here in the UK. I should add that he polished out the scratches from the front element of the summicron and reground to maintain correct curvature. It think he did a very good job.

3 hours ago, AndreasG said:

Good comparison, very well done! How did you focus - nose, eyes, ear? The crops show visible differences of the bear's face between the lenses which might be caused by focussing and not only by lens performance?

You are right, lens focus is critical here. I did my best to focus on the eyes in each picture, and refocussed for each aperture in case of focus shift - known to be significant with the Sonnar. The printed card is very close to, but not exactly on, the plane of the eyes. One thing I noticed was how much easier it was to focus the Summilux given its high contrast than say the Summarit.

Perhaps what surprised me most about this test was just how good centre performance of the Summarit was at f2 compared with the Sonnar. However, it is worth noting that the latter is not at its best at close distances.

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15 hours ago, UliWer said:

[...] With the Summilux asph you'll see a leap forward in all respects. [...] 

With some sharper bokeh around f/2.8 though.

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1 hour ago, sinjun said:

Agree - this is no test for flare or veiling effects. I had the lenses cleaned and recoated by Malcolm Taylor here in the UK. I should add that he polished out the scratches from the front element of the summicron and reground to maintain correct curvature. It think he did a very good job.

You are right, lens focus is critical here. I did my best to focus on the eyes in each picture, and refocussed for each aperture in case of focus shift - known to be significant with the Sonnar. The printed card is very close to, but not exactly on, the plane of the eyes. One thing I noticed was how much easier it was to focus the Summilux given its high contrast than say the Summarit.

Perhaps what surprised me most about this test was just how good centre performance of the Summarit was at f2 compared with the Sonnar. However, it is worth noting that the latter is not at its best at close distances.

Thanks for sharing this test.

Did Malcolm Taylor provide this recoating service recently?

Best, JM.

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1 hour ago, lct said:

With some sharper bokeh around f/2.8 though.

Here's the summilux at 2.8. I suppose I can see something of what you are talking about but I don't think it's a big deal.

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1 hour ago, JMF said:

Thanks for sharing this test.

Did Malcolm Taylor provide this recoating service recently?

Best, JM.

No problem. Yes, I got the lenses back within the last couple of weeks. It took a while though - I think he has been ill recently.

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1 hour ago, jankap said:

Please explain this picture. Left <-> right? Right onion rings? How did you produce these?

Just a test i did 10+ years ago on a Maglite torch in a dark room. Left: 50/1.4 asph, normal contrast. Right: ditto with reduced contrast in PP. Another test hereafter. Above: 50/1.4 asph at f/2.8. Below: 50/1.4 v3 at f/2.8. FWIW.

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Well, even re-coated, Summarit 50 1.5 shows its pre-war optics (I read in Puts book).

I had no issues with it on C-41 and BW film, but it just old lens on digital @f1.5. IMO.

Cron V1 seems to be not so bad @f2. If I would know, I would have stopped sell/buy and still using it. But I went through all of the Cron versions after it. While been good on digital, I'm finding all of Crons after collapsible to be flat on bw film, prints.

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On 10/21/2019 at 1:35 PM, JMF said:

Thanks for sharing this test.

Did Malcolm Taylor provide this recoating service recently?

Best, JM.

On 10/21/2019 at 3:26 PM, sinjun said:

No problem. Yes, I got the lenses back within the last couple of weeks. It took a while though - I think he has been ill recently.

Malcolm has been ill recently. He is much better now, but he is limiting the amount of work he takes on (although he did offer to sort my 111f out). He re-cemented and coated my Summitar which is another surprisingly good 50 from the 40/50's being the design just prior to the collapsible Summicron I think. The Summitar has a bonded compound lens as the front element whereas the Summicron has two separate elements (I might be wrong there though). The Summar which preceeded the Summitar had a single and smaller objective element.

Pete

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