35 APO Summicron-L vs 35 Summicron-M ASPH

[panoreserve]

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vor einer Stunde schrieb Slender:

Good to hear all this feedback... I wonder if the other SL cron behave the same...

My top was specially for construction quality. Sadly any new silver lens from Leica is now made of aluminium (this started with the 28 cron silver...) ---except the vintage revivals I believe ---.

Leica has a great love history with 28 (and 21) and it shows very well I adore the cron-M... never tried the 1.4 but yeah looks terrific.

To tell the truth ALL SL Apo Summicrons have those AF-noise issues. I actually own the 35 & 90 (and have tried the 50 & 75). Despite the fact that they are really phenomenal in terms of optical performance this is really quite boring. Several months ago I've had personally contacted LEICA (I'm located in Germany, not so far from Wetzlar) - without reply...

Edited January 13, 2021 by panoreserve

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[frame-it]

1 hour ago, Slender said:

Sadly any new silver lens from Leica is now made of aluminium

i thought silver M lenses were made of brass, with aluminum on top ?

[Photoworks]

29 minutes ago, frame-it said:

i thought silver M lenses were made of brass, with aluminum on top ?

yes, Brass is smoother focusing, but they are heavy. I have the Noctilux and 35 FLE in silver.

[Photoworks]

My 75 and 50 SL make some noise in manual focus.

But the 24-90 Clicking noise went away with fw update

[Slender]

26 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

yes, Brass is smoother focusing, but they are heavy. I have the Noctilux and 35 FLE in silver.

 

57 minutes ago, frame-it said:

i thought silver M lenses were made of brass, with aluminum on top ?

All M lenses have a mix of aluminium and brass internals. All black one are Aluminium on the outer side.
"Old" silver lenses are all made of brass, in and out (save for those silly plastic focussing tabs on newer lenses...)

The Nocti 0.95 and FLE silver are silver anodized aluminium. The shade of grey is slightly different from silver chromed brass. They are the same weight as their black counterpart as a result. Good for older customer base (no offense), sad for me IMHO.
As I said earlier, the very first "silver" lens to use the silver anodisation on Aluminium barrel was the 28cron from the 2000's. It is a collector item now.

AFAIK, notable "all brass" lenses from the last couple of decades (not accounting for limited series of APO or LUX 50ies and other oddities) were

• Silver 35 f2 and f1.4 from the 1990ies
• Silver 50 f2-f1.4 from the 1990ies and f1.4 Asph. from the 2000's.
• Silver 90 f2Apo and f2.8 from the 1990ies.

I think the 28 summaron is All-Brass (?) and surely the rumoured remake or the 35 summaron would be. A wonderfull lens (with a proper focusing tab...), harder and more expensive to find b/c of collector mania and I suspect a new version will make things even worse.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Slender

[Slender]

And I forgot another: the 50-M f2.8 from the 90ies also existed in a very cute all brass silver variant.

[Michael Markey]

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20 hours ago, Photoworks said:

funny how partisan you are LOL

I have Leica SL2 Sony a7R4  and various canon cameras. they each have there strength and weakness , but if I show you 2 images of the same location and processed in capture one, I bet you can see much difference between sony and Leica. I suppose it is a 50/50 chance .

It`s all down to taste .

I use Leica , Canon and Sony but have to admit that the Sony colour science is my least favorite .

It stands out to me , mind you I don`t do a lot of PP and I have seen examples where the colour from the Sony files has been managed down to a more acceptable level .

I also use Sigma Merrills too .

[Daniel C.1975]

Regarding the focus-noise I really suggest that you try the lenses. If you ask me, it is nearly inaudible. I can more feel than hear the focus mechanism. For filming with the internal mike it is for sure a topic - but maybe more because of structure-born-noise. For photos, I cannot imagine in which situation this could be an issue. But that's just me - therefore in this case I would say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating

 

Cheers

 

[AZN]

6 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

if you want a manual focus 35mm 1.4 lens with beautiful rendering for the SL, another good option would be the 35mm Summilux R,

I have one.  Beautiful lens, but large and heavy.  Also it has serious field curvature issues, so a stretch for landscape work. It does shine though up close and @ f2 - f4 😃

 

[oka]

23 hours ago, Photoworks said:

I have Leica SL2 Sony a7R4  and various canon cameras. they each have there strength and weakness , but if I show you 2 images of the same location and processed in capture one, I bet you can see much difference between sony and Leica. I suppose it is a 50/50 chance .

While I was updating my portfolio with the more gentle editing with C1, I noticed that editing style effects a lot how visible are the differences between Leica and the rest.

I was surprised that even amateurs noticed the difference between Leica and Canon sets.

Set1

Set2

I’m not too fond with the SL lenses, but there is something magic on M lenses that I feel there has to be fairy inside the lens casting magic spells 🧚‍♀️ 

[jackbaty]

8 hours ago, panoreserve said:

To tell the truth ALL SL Apo Summicrons have those AF-noise issues. I actually own the 35 & 90 (and have tried the 50 & 75). Despite the fact that they are really phenomenal in terms of optical performance this is really quite boring. Several months ago I've had personally contacted LEICA (I'm located in Germany, not so far from Wetzlar) - without reply...

I wrote Leica also after assuming the focus noise in the 35 SL was due to my having a bad copy. I didn't hear back from them, so I returned the lens for a replacement, which arrived today. The noise is the same on the new one. Then later today I got the following response from Leica (I sent them this sample video...

 

Quote

The noise behavior of your SL lens is normal and varies depending on the model, focal length, camera used and exposure conditions. This can not be improved.

So there it is I guess. I didn't get the SL2-S for shooting video but would like to shoot some. I just won't be using the 35 SL when I do. At least not while using auto-focus and the internal mic.

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by jackbaty

[panoreserve]

vor 16 Stunden schrieb panoreserve:

To tell the truth ALL SL Apo Summicrons have those AF-noise issues. I actually own the 35 & 90 (and have tried the 50 & 75). Despite the fact that they are really phenomenal in terms of optical performance this is really quite boring. Several months ago I've had personally contacted LEICA (I'm located in Germany, not so far from Wetzlar) - without reply...

"Interestingly" all 3 SL-Varios and SL 50/1.4 are rather quiet. I'm pretty sure it must have something to do with the special focussing mechanism ("Dual Synchro Drive") LEICA had developed for the SL-Apo-Summicron-series (the current 35, 50, 75, 90 as well as the upcoming 21, 24 & 24) ...thus sadly it could be a design flaw😧.

[BernardC]

Not a solution to your specific issue, but you should know that it's almost impossible to get decent sound with any still camera's built-in microphone. Even if you didn't have a lens noise, you would still get handling noise, wind noise, echo/booming, etc. A small/cheap external microphone will greatly improve your sound, and great sound will do more for your videos than any other gear or technique.

Of course, that can be a very expensive rabbit hole. People have made fulfilling careers out of knowing the answer to "where should I put the mic?"

[beewee]

22 hours ago, panoreserve said:

"Interestingly" all 3 SL-Varios and SL 50/1.4 are rather quiet. I'm pretty sure it must have something to do with the special focussing mechanism ("Dual Synchro Drive") LEICA had developed for the SL-Apo-Summicron-series (the current 35, 50, 75, 90 as well as the upcoming 21, 24 & 24) ...thus sadly it could be a design flaw😧.

For those hearing the noise on the SL APOs, have you tried upgrading to the latest v2.1 FW on the lenses? There’s a thread that was specific to the 24-90 VE where people using it with the SL601 didn’t have noise problems but when then put the same lens onto the SL2, they experienced noise issues until upgrading to the latest v2.1 FW that was released with the linear manual focus.

[panoreserve]

vor einer Stunde schrieb beewee:

For those hearing the noise on the SL APOs, have you tried upgrading to the latest v2.1 FW on the lenses? There’s a thread that was specific to the 24-90 VE where people using it with the SL601 didn’t have noise problems but when then put the same lens onto the SL2, they experienced noise issues until upgrading to the latest v2.1 FW that was released with the linear manual focus.

Of course I did!

[frame-it]

On 1/14/2021 at 7:51 AM, jackbaty said:

The noise behavior of your SL lens is normal and varies depending on the model, focal length, camera used and exposure conditions. This can not be improved.

ridiculous reply from leica.

Edited January 15, 2021 by frame-it

[jackbaty]

14 hours ago, BernardC said:

Not a solution to your specific issue, but you should know that it's almost impossible to get decent sound with any still camera's built-in microphone.

Yes, I suppose if I was serious about video I'd have to go down that rabbit hole. For me, I'll have the APO 35mm attached to the SL2-S most of the time shooting stills, and would like to occasionally capture some video while I'm at it. Given that I'm a complete video novice and that I'm shooting everything as a hobby, a little noise isn't going to kill me. I was mostly just surprised that noise was such an issue with a lens of this caliber.

And for the topic at hand. I've been using both the 35 APO-Summicron-L and the 35 Summicron-M ASPH and was surprised at how quickly I could tell how good the APO lens is, in comparison. It could just be recency bias, but while the 35 M has been my go-to lens for years, I think I've found a new favorite in the L version 

 

[gbpost]

Have you tried to make videos with different shutter speeds? I tested video with an S1r and the Summicron SL 50 mm. With video set to 25 frames per second and a shutter speed of 1/50 s the lens made very loud AF noise. It sounds like the noise in your video. Changing the shutter speed to shorter shutter speeds (1/60 s ... 1/125 s) reduced the AF sound from the lens significantly. I wonder if this might help a little in your case, too. You loose the cinematic 180 degree shutter, then.

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[hoppyman]

Interesting range of comments on AF noise. I have no experience with video. Perhaps that’s why there are very different experiences reported. I have very seldom tried AFC. I have never used Sony either for that matter.

Using AFS for stills, I find both Summicron SL lenses (35 and 50)  focus operation inaudible, near instant, very accurate and with superb image quality for portraiture, beauty, fashion etc; no idea on for sport or panning or face recognition etc. Via the adapter the S lenses are noticeably slower and with more motor noise on the SL cameras, which isn’t unexpected.

Edited January 15, 2021 by hoppyman

[Slender]

On 1/15/2021 at 5:46 AM, beewee said:

For those hearing the noise on the SL APOs, have you tried upgrading to the latest v2.1 FW on the lenses? There’s a thread that was specific to the 24-90 VE where people using it with the SL601 didn’t have noise problems but when then put the same lens onto the SL2, they experienced noise issues until upgrading to the latest v2.1 FW that was released with the linear manual focus.

It was a noise caused when zooming the lens in-out... with likely the aperture motor making adjustments. The focus was always stealthy... sorry to disapoint.