Which 90 to compliment the V4 or V5 50mm Summicron

[Stein K S]

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New try from post above shot with the 90 Elmarit-M

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Edited August 1, 2020 by Stein K S

[lct]

Got this with a couple Leica and not Leica lenses too. Reflections when the sun or other bright light sources are outside the frame. Our colleague adan will explain this much better than i can do. Try a hat or an umbrella if your hands are not large enough of if you shoot blindly i mean with a rangefinder . Works fine generally. 

[JTLeica]

Yes I have had this too with several lenses. Seems like a perfect angle that flares up. Could also be haze in certain places that the lights hits. I had a Contax 50 1.4 Planar that flare heavily due to haze around the edges.

Update - Bought two 90mm tele elmarits. Both were a mess. One has haze and scratches to inner elements. The other had scuffs to the front element. Only a torch from behind made this visible.

I do think it is the lens for me. I have a fair few mandler lenses and I love the way they draw so I think I will stick to those now.

I considered a 90 Summicron too but the early versions are large. I had a Version III that was great. 

[Rob L]

That veiling flare is common with many Leica lenses. And it is hard to deal with through a rangefinder as you can't see it. My Summicron 50 v5 and 75 APO are terrible. One nice thing about the Summarit line is that the hoods actually work, unlike the Leica builtin hoods on their 50mm and above lenses. CV and Zeiss lenses seem to be much much better in this regard.

Edited August 2, 2020 by Rob L
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[adan]

On 8/1/2020 at 1:03 PM, lct said:

Our colleague adan will explain this much better than i can do.

Maybe.

For the most part, this kind of veiling flare from a light source just outside the image area comes from non-glass reflections off the inside of the lens barrel behind the glass - or from inside the camera itself.

We have to remember that:

1) there is a long continuous tube leading all the way from the lens's glass to the sensor (or film). Including the camera/chamber/box/"room" between the lens and shutter.

2) almost all lenses project round images, which the shutter opening crops to a rectangle or square. All the uncropped light is hitting other things inside the camera and bouncing around.

3) So unless one uses a rectagular lens shade tuned to vignette light exactly to the edge of the film/sensor (see 7 below), there will be quite a bit of light (maybe even more than that hitting the sensor or film directly as the image!) just bouncing around loose inside the camera. Round lens hoods can't reduce that much, without themselves cutting into the image circle, and causing corner vignetting.

See diagram - any part of the inside of the lens or camera that gets hit by the light projected by the lens (gray-blue cones) may bounce that light onto the sensor.

4) Some lens structures make their own reflections (e.g. 90 TE) - but any lens can also project light that reflects off the inside of the camera. The longer the tunnel between the glass and the image plane (which will increase with focal length, but also specific lens layout), the greater the likelihood of reflections.

5) the inside of the camera or the lens inside may be blackened, and may have ridges to diffuse the reflections in all directions, not just towards the image plane. But those are not perfect.

Especially if the light is hitting a surface at a shallow, glancing angle, in which case even the roughest, blackest surface can turn into a virtual mirror.

6) and if something really bright (for example, the 91-trillion-megaton thermonuclear device we call "the Sun") falls in the image circle, but outside the picture area (see yellow dots in diagram), its reflections can be quite overpowering.

6A) As some have mentioned, "inside the image circle but outside the picture area" defines a rather narrow angle where this occurs. Those D-shaped left-over segments of the image circle around the actual picture area.

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7) Which is why Hollywood uses adjustable matte box lens hoods on their lenses, to crop the view of the world exactly and only to the film/sensor edges and remove the rest of the image circle. You can get something like this to fit a Leica 75, 90 or 135 - but it will be large and unwieldy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matte_box#/media/File:MatteBox.jpg

http://www.cavision.com/matteboxes/4x4bellows/4x4bellows.htm

8 )Tulip-shaped lens hoods can approximate a rectangular-shaped lens hood. And a few lenses, including both cine and still lenses, come with a built-in rectangular baffle (front or back) to "pre-crop" the scene and image circle:

https://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/eos/EF-lenses/EF2035mmf3545USM/index.htm

Even the ancient 1970s Micro-Nikkor did this. See third image (and compare to M7 baffle below): http://allphotolenses.com/lenses/item/c_3520.html

9) It is my impression that in the digital Leicas, the walls and floor of the camera chamber have been squeezed in (a tighter box), to make more space for the surrounding electronics. Which increases the chance of strong "flare" reflections onto the image area. Which in turn means that lenses designed for film long ago (i.e. before 2006) may show flare (or more flare) that was not an expected issue back when they were designed.

One can compare a film M7 and the M10 and see how much tighter the surrounding floor and walls are, and that the M7 (and most other film Leicas since 1985) also have a baffle or "internal lens shade" inside the lens mount, which is lacking in the digital cameras:

 

Edited August 2, 2020 by adan