Review: The New Leica APO-Summicron-M 35mm F2 ASPH.

[jonoslack]

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38 minutes ago, UliWer said:

Seeing the lens designs of the 35 Summarit and the new Summicron next to each others makes me look at the new lens with mixed feelings. The Summarit still had the „classical“ Double Gauss design which has been the realm of M-lenses for so long. The new Apo Summicron obviously has the much more complicated design of the SL-lenses - forced into the small mount of an M-lens. The times when it was the aim of Leica lenses to achieve better performance with less lens elements seem to be just a faint remembrance of the past. Perhaps the times when lenses for the M set the standard for optical design are gone. Now designs for completely different systems set the standards and are customized for the M. 

Oh!

But the SL summicron is different again. It’s the principal of using APO glass and floating elements. 

Seems to me that this lens does exactly set standards for optical design of small lenses. Having fewer elements may make it easier/cheaper to design/manufacture but not necessarily better quality. 

of course this kind of lens would have been both impossible to design (without modern computing techniques) and impossible to manufacture (because of the terrifyingly small tolerances required).  Not to mention the impossibility of making the glass!

But surely it’s good to take advantage of mechanical and optical advances?

If the lens was huge you might have a point, but it isn’t 

PS Definitely not knocking the Summarit, which is a lovely lens

Edited March 6, 2021 by jonoslack

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[Herr Barnack]

@jonoslack and @UliWer

Quote

...But surely it’s good to take advantage of mechanical and optical advances?...

I can see no reason that doing so would be a bad thing.

Quote

...The times when it was the aim of Leica lenses to achieve better performance with less lens elements seem to be just a faint remembrance of the past...

I have never asked, "how many lens elements does it have?" before purchasing a lens.  Has anyone else ever asked that question?

Quote

...Perhaps the times when lenses for the M set the standard for optical design are gone...

Given the performance of Leica's most recent lens offerings, it would appear that the opposite is true.

JMHO/YMMV.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Herr Barnack

[earleygallery]

On 3/5/2021 at 5:16 AM, adan said:

Good catch.

The rainbow-order (and purity) of the color bands screams "diffraction" to me. And I note in the diagram that there are a massive number (well, 5, including a triplet) of large cemented surfaces, with curves that have to fit hand-in-glove to really high tolerances (wavelengths, not 1/mm).

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I'm thinking even slightly uneven cemented joins would produce color patterns akin to Newton rings, oil-slick-on-wet-pavement patterns, or even plain old diffraction gratings.

I would not think it has anything to do with APO (or even ASPH) construction directly - although obviously the glass was designed to fit together that way for some overlying optical purpose.

(Images linked from wikimedia)

It might even be a one-off, since Jono was using an early pre-announcement lens, made (possibly) while the production was still getting zeroed in.

Imperfect perfection.

Kind of Lomo style.

[farnz]

3 hours ago, UliWer said:

The times when it was the aim of Leica lenses to achieve better performance with less lens elements seem to be just a faint remembrance of the past.

The 35 APO-M's design shows that Leica is still committed to this particularly when you consider the size of the lens, its performance, and that so many other systems use software to correct for optical aberrations rather than 'in the lens'.

Pete.

[astrostl]

4 hours ago, farnz said:

so many other systems use software to correct for optical aberrations rather than 'in the lens'

To be fair, this is the entire point of Leica's lens profiles and 6-bit coding.

[adan]

1 hour ago, astrostl said:

To be fair, this is the entire point of Leica's lens profiles and 6-bit coding.

Not really - regarding corrections, IDing the lens with 6-bit coding is primarily about correcting a specific interaction between a lens and a digital sensor's structures.

An M lens is designed to work identically with no 6-bit detection and no pixels and no profiles - on film cameras. Try that with many "made for digital" lenses.......including the Q and SL/TL lenses.

That is a standard Leica will stick with forever - and modern techies tend to overlook. Leica will make no "M" lens that can't function normally on a 1981 M4-P. Or even earlier Ms, if one is willing to allow external finders for 28 and 75 lenses.

Edited March 7, 2021 by adan

[elmars]

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vor 2 Stunden schrieb astrostl:

To be fair, this is the entire point of Leica's lens profiles and 6-bit coding.

The lens profiles correct only the so called Italian flag syndrom and vignetting.

[jonoslack]

2 hours ago, astrostl said:

To be fair, this is the entire point of Leica's lens profiles and 6-bit coding.

Hang on. this is not the same as it’s designed to make up for ‘flaws’ in the sensor which cause vignetting and colour shift. NOT to correct for ‘flaws’ in the lens causing pincushion or barrel distortion. Which is what (for instance’) Sean Reid dislikes. 

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

1 hour ago, adan said:

Not really - regarding corrections, IDing the lens with 6-bit coding is primarily about correcting a specific interaction between a lens and a digital sensor's structures.

An M lens is designed to work identically with no 6-bit detection and no pixels and no profiles - on film cameras. Try that with many "made for digital" lenses.......including the Q and SL/TL lenses.

That is a standard Leica will stick with forever - and modern techies tend to overlook. Leica will make no "M" lens that can't function normally on a 1981 M4-P. Or even earlier Ms, if one is willing to allow external finders for 28 and 75 lenses.

Yup.  Even on my M2.  I can see months of debate about the differences between the "optical" M APO 35 and the "digital" SL APO 35 and 28 ahead of us.  And there are differences.

Incidentally, Leica seems to have seriously reduced the tendency of their SL2 and M10-R sensors to color shifts at the edges by taking advantage of aa redesigned pixel layout.  Sean Reid's tests show this.

Edited March 7, 2021 by scott kirkpatrick

[FrozenInTime]

4 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Yup.  Even on my M2.  I can see months of debate about the differences between the "optical" M APO 35 and the "digital" SL APO 35 and 28 ahead of us.  And there are differences.

And also between the Leica and Voigtlander APO Lanthar 35mm.

( The current "scare" on FM is that the VC is producing a magenta colour cast. )

[Torontoamateur]

What Tripod is Recommended to be able to truly utilize the increased sharpness and accutance ? My experience is that handholding is the great equalizer of lens sharpness.

 

[Stephen.s1]

11 minutes ago, Torontoamateur said:

My experience is that handholding is the great equalizer of lens sharpness.

'deed it is.

(signed) No Tripod Shakey

 

[UliWer]

vor 29 Minuten schrieb Torontoamateur:

My experience is that handholding is the great equalizer of lens sharpness.

Yes, men always bar the way to technical progress. 

[jrp]

8 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Incidentally, Leica seems to have seriously reduced the tendency of their SL2 and M10-R sensors to color shifts at the edges by taking advantage of aa redesigned pixel layout.  Sean Reid's tests show this.

I thought that as well as correcting for geometry, the profiles can apply a different adjustment to each colour channel which can help with CA, improve colour purity, etc.

[jonoslack]

25 minutes ago, jrp said:

I thought that as well as correcting for geometry, the profiles can apply a different adjustment to each colour channel which can help with CA, improve colour purity, etc.

The 6 bit coding and profiles on the M do not correct for geometry - just vignetting and colour cast.

[astrostl]

13 hours ago, jonoslack said:

Hang on. this is not the same as it’s designed to make up for ‘flaws’ in the sensor which cause vignetting and colour shift. NOT to correct for ‘flaws’ in the lens causing pincushion or barrel distortion. Which is what (for instance’) Sean Reid dislikes. 

I was responding to, "The 35 APO-M's design shows that Leica is still committed to this particularly when you consider the size of the lens, its performance, and that so many other systems use software to correct for optical aberrations rather than 'in the lens'" in general and not to distortion in particular (which I don't know to be code-corrected).

While the "Italian flag" issues are a property of digital ray angles, I'm not aware of Leica's coding correcting vignetting for exactly and only that which may have been sensor-introduced while leaving "natural" lens vignetting in place. It seems to just mitigate vignetting (both digital and lens) to me. I don't have something as strong as a, "here's a wide-open M6 shot with a 35 FLE, here's the same scene with an M10 both corrected and uncorrected, and here is the shading analysis of all three in stops" to put forward. But if it really does leave "natural" vignetting in place, I do appreciate and accept the clarification!

In any case I agree that Leica is not leaning on profile corrections to the extent that, say, Olympus does/did (e.g. monstrous distortion correction).

Edited March 7, 2021 by astrostl

[microview]

7 hours ago, Torontoamateur said:

What Tripod is Recommended to be able to truly utilize the increased sharpness and accutance ? My experience is that handholding is the great equalizer of lens sharpness.

In the related 'First impressions' thread Steven notes how you need faster than 1/250th with the M10R to guarantee a sharp image. I am sorry to have to agree this, having bought this camera tempted by shutter sound/touch screen/greater MP count as replacement for M262.

 

Edited March 7, 2021 by microview

[MrFriendly]

Thank you for the great review.

With so many anomalous partial dispersion elements in this lens, what is the true light gathering capabilities wide open, specially compared to the current Summicron?  Is f2 really f2?

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[scott kirkpatrick]

15 hours ago, jrp said:

I thought that as well as correcting for geometry, the profiles can apply a different adjustment to each colour channel which can help with CA, improve colour purity, etc.

On an M, the lens-specific corrections are only vignetting and edge color shifts (as Jono says).  On the SL's, additional corrections for distortion and Lateral Chromatic Aberration are possible,.  These are passed along as metadata in the DNG for postprocessing, or applied in camera to the JPEG.  LCA is just using a slightly different distortion correction for each color.  For the longer SL primes, the corrections are set to null values -- they don't do anything as nothing is needed.

Edited March 8, 2021 by scott kirkpatrick

[Rick]

On 3/6/2021 at 3:20 AM, jonoslack said:

Hi Scott - Meet our new Cockerel - Clint - he arrived on Thursday and is already making himself at home.

SL2 35 APO, F2

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Well, nice shot.  He looks the "Clint" the walk.  Is he running the place yet?  

I especially like the swirling dog photo you posted!

What happened to Casper?  I thought your pictures of that dog were so cool.

MUSINGS OF A DISTURBED LEICA MIND:  

This looks like a cracker of a lens.  I started out shooting 28mm/2 on the M8 as a standard 35mm focal.  Then the M9 came out and I got the 35mm/2 Summicron + 50/1.4 Lux.  That seemed like the standard kit, but eventually that 28mm Summicron kept ending up on the M9, 240, and the M10 more and more.  Something about the 28mm focal I like.  Paired with the 50APO it just seems perfect for me.  Yes, I bought the 50APO, the LHSA black paint version.

So, I sold the 35/2 Summicron as it was a fine lens and I did like the OOF rendering but, it just never got used, I did especially like the size, though.  And, to complicate and really mess up my mind I had bought along the way a current version 35mm/1.4 Summilux... both the first and second version(kept the ver.II).  And, I still didn't shoot much with the 35 Summilux.

Then Jono reviewed the new version II of the 28mm/2 Summicron several years ago, and it was such an improvement from my version 1.   I sold my version 1, bought the version 2 and am very happy with it.

Now, this APO 35 comes alone and it seems like I'm just going to have to wrestle with that obsessive side of my mind whispering to me.  When, really, I just wish the 28/1.4 Summilux wasn't so blessed large!  

Favorite chicken picture ever was from that lens!