Summaron 35/3.5 questions, and pictures...

[Ko.Fe.]

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8 hours ago, pippy said:

No offence taken, thank-you.

As I said earlier; "I think the J-12 is a very fine lens and I like mine very much indeed" but being someone who also has multiple examples of the J-12 and has owned a 35mm f3.5 Summaron for 40 years I think we'll have to agree to disagree. My Summaron has better edge- and corner-performance than any of my J-12s. I have done tests specifically to evaluate these lenses on my M-digital bodies and the results are incontrovertible.

If your examples and experiences are different from mine then that's perfectly fine by me.

Philip.

 

 

My examples J-12 speaks louder than any words. Those were from first batch of J-12 in fifties.

Here is the latest batch from 1991 on M4-2, dr print:

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I had another one from something in the middle of production years and Kiev mount version. Again, not far from Summarit-M 35 2.5 ASPH on film, paper. 

Did you re-shimmed any of J-12s for M? I often see comments like yours, but most of the time it was due to not aligned lens. J-12 is most simple lens to re-shim, BTW.

 

[pippy]

2 minutes ago, Ko.Fe. said:

My examples J-12 speaks louder than any words. Those were from first batch of J-12 in fifties.

Did you re-shimmed any of J-12s for M? I often see comments like yours, but most of the time it was due to not aligned lens.

I'm not going to argue with you on this, Ko.Fe.

My LTM J-12s are uniformly pin-sharp over 85% of the picture-area on my digi-M bodies. They do not need to be shimmed, re-aligned or anything else. I'm really happy with how they perform and have posted many snaps taken with them both here in the Leica Forum and on the FSU sub-forum over on the RFF but sharp as they absolutely are they do NOT have the same IQ as my Summaron at the edges and corners. PLEASE just believe me on this. I have several examples ranging from early '57 Arsenal plant for my pre-war Contax and Kiev film cameras through to end-of-play black LTM versions so I'm not basing my views on one particular example and I DO know what I am talking about.

P.

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[Ko.Fe.]

10 minutes ago, pippy said:

I'm not going to argue with you on this, Ko.Fe.

My LTM J-12s are uniformly pin-sharp over 85% of the picture-area on my digi-M bodies. They do not need to be shimmed, re-aligned or anything else. I'm really happy with how they perform and have posted many snaps taken with them both here in the Leica Forum and on the FSU sub-forum over on the RFF but sharp as they absolutely are they do NOT have the same IQ as my Summaron at the edges and corners. PLEASE just believe me on this. I have several examples ranging from early '57 Arsenal plant for my pre-war Contax and Kiev film cameras through to end-of-play black LTM versions so I'm not basing my views on one particular example and I DO know what I am talking about.

P.

Did you test any of those which weren't sharp with focus 45 degree target, before making conclusions what they didn't need re-shimming?

Not sure why you still insist instead of looking at pictures I have provided. 

[pippy]

1 minute ago, Ko.Fe. said:

Did you test any of those which weren't sharp with focus 45 degree target, before making conclusions what they didn't need re-shimming?

Not sure why you still insist instead of looking at pictures I have provided. 

ALL of my lenses are sharp!  It's just that they are not AS sharp AT THE EDGES AND CORNERS as my Summaron! How many times do I have to say this? Where is there any confusion here? I have looked at your images. PLEASE believe me that your M4-P photographs are nowhere near as sharp as the images my LTM used on my M9M can produce never mind being as sharp as my Summaron!

I'm out of this conversation.

Philip.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

14 hours ago, pippy said:

ALL of my lenses are sharp!  It's just that they are not AS sharp AT THE EDGES AND CORNERS as my Summaron! How many times do I have to say this? Where is there any confusion here? I have looked at your images. PLEASE believe me that your M4-P photographs are nowhere near as sharp as the images my LTM used on my M9M can produce never mind being as sharp as my Summaron!

I'm out of this conversation.

Philip.

 

Strange. It means my Summarit-M 35 2.5 isn't sharp either. Still, it is hard to tell without your pictures been seen here. We are comparing words to pictures.

I think, you might never had good J-12 and I never got good Summaron 35 3.5. I recall passed away in 2019 Boris Kireev (Rodina) Summaron 35 3.5. It was always impressing me by its sharpness, but my two copies never been.

[pippy]

I'll have to look out some images taken with with the best of my J-12's, Ko.Fe.

As I keep saying; the lens is really good over 85% of the image area but is a bit soft at the edges and corners but I think that this is simply a result of the essential characteristic of the Biogon. Leitz (in those days) tended to prefer maximum sharpness across the frame and used more glass-to air surfaces because they used more elements which, in turn, meant more correction but with lower contrast as opposed to the Zeiss philosophy which preferred better contrast whilst sacrificing ultimate edge-sharpness - the thought being that the stuff at the edges of the frame isn't usually that important in comparison to the great percentage of the frame where their lenses were excellent performers.

I'm working now but when I get the chance I'll have to go through one of my backup drives to find some representative images.

Philip.

Edited March 27, 2020 by pippy