Question regarding Summilux-M 50mm ASPH wide open performance

[rtai]

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Something is serious off with your lens. Attached is a test shot with the M10M (or M8?) at f1.4.

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Edited October 1, 2021 by rtai

[adan]

3 hours ago, Bangrossi said:

All clean 👍

no haze, no fungus, coating all pristine condition. Physicaly, the lens itself doesn't looks like has been heavily used.

Or maybe CLA gonna fix the issue?

A CLA by Leica might help.

I suspect the floating element unit has "gone off the rails." Not literally - but it is not positioned and/or moving relative to the rest of the glass correctly. It may have "jumped" one thread on its separate focusing helix.

That means the optical formula is - plain and simple - no longer what Peter Karbe designed, nor the factory produced.

And, yes, that can lead to abnormal aberrations (blurs, glows and color fringes) and even a subtle change in true focal length (RF focus issues as well). Even 0.05mm position error is enough to visibly screw up exactly how the lens bends light.

I saw that happen with multiple examples of the 75mm APO-Summicron - from which FLE design the 50 Summilux ASPH was developed the next year (2006). Very similar types of blobs and smears as your examples show, plus back-focusing at infinity while simultaneously front-focusing in the close range. A mess.

Leica should be able to adjust that to match the original specs. Third-party repair people may be able to adjust it, if they have the detailed knowledge and appropriate measuring/testing tools.

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[LeicaR10]

Bangrossi,   IMO based on decades of experience with the M system to include the 50 Lux, the lens needs a CLA.  Usually there is a reason why someone sells their gear, often they know something is not right and hope to pawn the item off on eBay or dealer hoping it won't be discovered.  The selling of flawed used gear, not always, but unfortunately does happen.  If you bought the used lens via a reputable dealer, you should be able to return it and either get your money refunded or let them send at their expense for a CLA and with a return guarantee if not satisfied.  You have photographs to prove your case.  If you decide to keep your lens and pay for a CLA at Leica it could well be around $300+ USD and weeks of waiting.  If you live in the USA, I would recommend you send it to Don Goldberg at DAG Camera for a CLA.  He does excellent work, fast and less expensive than Leica NJ.  You can find him at www.dagcamera.com  I send my M gear to him when it goes out of warranty.  I always recommend you call Don and speak with him about the lens and when you need it back by date.  Based on your photos of the lens serial number, it is a fairly dated 50 Lux and a good CLA would bring it back into spec.  Other forum members have shown you what a good 50 Lux can do when shot wide open and in spec.  Unfortunately, your lens IMO should either be returned for refund or repaired at the sellers expense with a guarantee.  Hope this helps.  r/ Mark   

[Bangrossi]

Thanks for all the reply, it really helped me a lot. I got an option from the seller to trade the lens with another lens.

[LeicaR10]

Bangrossi,   That is good news for you.  I would still ask the seller for a guarantee if this other lens has similar issues, i.e. sticky helicoid, haze, dust, de-centered...fungus.  Hopefully you will get a very good, clean and well maintained copy.  The f/stops should be positive click detents, smooth drag on the focus ring and of course, none of the aforementioned issues.  Proof will be in the next set of photos with the follow-on lens.  Trust, but verify and good luck on buying previously owned.  r/ Mark

[Adam Bonn]

Hmmmm

This makes me a little fearful for the quality of my copy... 

Like the OP I always thought that the wide open performance was perhaps a little lacklustre for the hyperbole... but I just put it down to my over-expectations and the fact that most of my Lux's wide open performance is behind a 3stop ND filter (meaning all bets are off)

My example seems to perform better than Bangrossi's... it doesn't really glow...

But my annoyance with mine has always been wide open performance at some degree of distance (say 10+ meters) - which to be fair isn't a shooting parameter I find I need often!

But at this range, I do seem to find that fine detail is smeary whether using the RF or the EVF on both the M10 and M240 (so let's leave RF calibration out of this for now please)

If I'm going to show shots of this, I'll need to shoot something with some repeatability and being able to shoot filterless at 1.4 and 10+ meters isn't always so easy where I live

So let's start off at other end of the scale and look at close focus performance.

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Min focusing distance (give or take 3cm) and shot with the self timer on tripod. (screen grab)

This is the full frame. I've brightened it 0.8 of a stop for ease of viewing. Other than that it's everything standard in LR6

Now let's see it at 100% (DNG exported to jpeg at 2048 200ppi)

 

 

I'd like to show something shot wide open and much further away, as this is where I find the lens's performance meh, but I want to take my time with this to create a picture with as few variables as possible

Sorry for the slight thread jack (I'm on topic at least) - but I figured that Bangrossi basically has a solution and we don't need two threads asking the same thing in the same week, well IMHO anyway

I'm hoping this is a self explanatory image... but if not. I focused on the clothes peg (iirc, I shot this a while ago) and the tape measure is naturally curved (in to a U shape), so the inches side is nearer the camera than the cm side, or put another way - in front of the plane of focus

Personally this looked OK to me.... although I do wonder? Anyone any thoughts please?

Thanks in advance

 

[lct]

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Contrast is low but it comes from your brightening i guess. Otherwise the peg looks normally sharp to me.

[jrp]

The reason I am in the Leica game is because of the 50mm Summilux, which was much sharper than equivalent lenses from Nikon (Canon, ...).  Evan allowing for the excessive compression that this site imposes, this lens is out of kilter.

[Adam Bonn]

1 hour ago, jrp said:

The reason I am in the Leica game is because of the 50mm Summilux, which was much sharper than equivalent lenses from Nikon (Canon, ...).  Evan allowing for the excessive compression that this site imposes, this lens is out of kilter.

Which one, the original post one or mine (see post 26)?

(I’m assuming the former, but worth asking)

[Bangrossi]

Update: because this is the only 50 lux that he had at the moment, so I should choose another 50mm that he had (apo, cron v5, cron v4). I'm thinking to get the apo (honestly I hate the price), hopefuly it will perform much better than this one.

Before I send the lens back, I had little time left to play with the lens. Yesterday, I was comparing it with Canon RF50mm f/1.2 on EOS R as a reference, while 50 lux on M240.

The test was performed on tripod with same iso, same exposure value, same white balance, manual live view focusing, on RAW/DNG, exported with lightroom both with "adobe color" profile, without any tweak and no lens correction. Because canon setup is higher resolution, I end up resize the canon files to match m240 resolution. This is not 100% scientific, but this is as close as I can get.

This is the result at around 7m (23 feet) distance at wide open aperture, croped to 1:1 pixel ratio (100%). Left is Canon, right is Leica.

As I expected, the 50 lux not perform as good as canon at wide open aperture. But I let you guys be the judge.

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[Bangrossi]

8 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

Personally this looked OK to me.... although I do wonder? Anyone any thoughts please?

Thanks in advance

 

I think the contrast is low, but you can bump it on LR. The resolution is there and it lack of "glow" like my lens, I would not worry much if this is my lens. How about the medium and infinity distance performance?

[Adam Bonn]

5 hours ago, Bangrossi said:

I think the contrast is low, but you can bump it on LR. The resolution is there and it lack of "glow" like my lens, I would not worry much if this is my lens. How about the medium and infinity distance performance?

thank you, I tried not to edit it so that LR was not doing anything to effect the test

I need to make those longer range tests, my problem is that I need to do that outside which means a weather day where the ISO can be base, but also that I can shoot wide open without a filter

Re your other post, IMHO if you want a 50 lux then you should wait to get one, not a cron or an APO ‘just because’

[jrp]

9 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

Which one, the original post one or mine (see post 26)?

(I’m assuming the former, but worth asking)

Sorry. Original. 

[Adam Bonn]

10 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

I need to make those longer range tests, my problem is that I need to do that outside which means a weather day where the ISO can be base, but also that I can shoot wide open without a filter

Ok so I had a little time for this today, but to be honest I suspect I've wasted my time (and now yours) as it was a bit of a rushed test and I suspect I should've let the sky blow out and get a clearer shot of the telegraph pole (that doubles as a lamp post)

So (again) I've made a slight edit, +5 on shadows and contrast, +0.6 on exposure, but with LR6 default sharpening and zero clarity

Shot using a tripod.

Here's the whole frame screen grab

 

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Focus was on the post, so no where near infinity, but certainly some meters away 

Now let's see it at 100% (DNG exported to jpeg at 2048 200ppi)

 

 

This shows what I mean, we can see the details but there's a kinda haze or smear to it... perhaps I'm just being picky... truth be told I wouldn't normally focus on something 10-15 meters away wide open then zoom in to inspect the fine details.

But this what I see using my example of the Lux...

Also... I've been giving this some thought today...

Running around taking shots, then not hardly editing them at all to try a show potential problems to solicit online advice is all very well and good...

....but it's hardly how I work in real life...

So science be damned !!!!

Here's a selection of screen grabs that show my lux in real life... that's edited shots, focus and recompose (I only recently sprung for the EVF), largely shot through a 2 or 3 stop ND, some might be at F2 or F1.7.

In short, real world usage

When I see these shots I don't really see any big problems, but I'm interested in your feedback on the apparent performance of my copy of this hallowed glass...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want my personal opinion...

I came to the lux from v5 cron. The cron is an easy charmer, contrasty from the get-go (IMO anyway) and forgiving to use with it's flat field of focus.

The lux demands more... you put more in then you get more out.

I was possibly naïve about this.... screwed my expectations and first impressions last

If we were to plot the 10+ meter wide open performance of a bunch of Luxes, then I suspect that mine might away from the top end of the bell curve... but within spec

However with the shots that I make in real life I don't see any reason to be too worried...

In fact looking at these shots (randomly pulled from LR based on lens and aperture) I'm not sure I've got a a particularly defective copy.

 

But please - have you say and I welcome your input

 

 

[lct]

I find those pics rather soft personally but i'd prefer if you can drop a raw file in a drop box to be sure.

[evikne]

23 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

But please - have you say and I welcome your input

I've had several copies of this lens, and the smear on the first example doesn't look like a 50mm Summilux ASPH at all (unless the front element was lubricated with Vaseline). Something is definitely wrong.

The other examples also look more like my old pre-ASPH wide open than the ASPH.

Edited October 3, 2021 by evikne

[anickpick]

Unfortunately you are right: You copy is not up to specs.

 

[Adam Bonn]

Thanks for the input everyone

funny how we’ve gone 180 deg from my example at min focus! 😅

(Worth noting that the other samples are low res screen grabs and are all IIRC taken with a filter)

sounds like i need to take it into the leica store and see what they think, maybe even compare it to a new copy.. then I guess it needs a CLA, which the store should be able to arrange for me…

 

 

[250swb]

23 minutes ago, Adam Bonn said:

Thanks for the input everyone

funny how we’ve gone 180 deg from my example at min focus! 😅

(Worth noting that the other samples are low res screen grabs and are all IIRC taken with a filter)

sounds like i need to take it into the leica store and see what they think, maybe even compare it to a new copy.. then I guess it needs a CLA, which the store should be able to arrange for me…

 

 

It's such a small photo to make a decision about but the telegraph poll photo kind of looks more like it's in focus around the edge of the roof in the foreground. The OP didn't eye scan around the photos to see if anything else is in focus before deciding his lens is faulty, only showing close ups of the thing he thought he'd focused on, but in many images there is clearly something else that is in focus and sharp. So I'm sceptical, I think the testing has been based on confirmation bias that the lens is faulty and not the camera (if using the rangefinder). Even using the perfectly accurate EVF or Live View wide open at f/1.4 focus peeking will show more in focus indications that the actual DOF of the lens especially close up, so it becomes a case of take your pick, and the actual detail of your average Leica EVF or Live View isn't that great to judge critical focus anyway, especially close up or when things are moving in the frame.

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[Adam Bonn]

Well I certainly have a bit of confirmation bias because I was never that happy with my copy wide open at distance since getting it

I sort of lived with it based on the fact that it’s sharp enough when used real world (like I’d actually want to shoot something 15+ meters away wide open for any other reason than light gathering, but then the ISO is high anyway…)

I also tend to use it with ND filters (I live in a mainly sunny country)

So it’s only really bothered me when I’ve been looking for problems with it.

FWIW the telegraph pole shot is with the EVF, and I have focus peaking set to off, as personally (OMMV) I find focus peaking erm well, peaky - frankly with a predilection to tell me that any high contrast area is in focus, even when clearly it isn’t 

I might test a little more, with and without peaking, and maybe deliberately try focusing in front of the telegraph pole (it’s the view from the balcony!) to see what happens… but I guess if deliberately front focusing the EVF produces an in focus image then I’ve still got a problem! (Such a ball-ache where I live to do an infinity  test 🙄)

I think for me… like I say I was never that happy with it… well to be fair more like wondering what the fuss was all about…

If it needs a CLA, then ce la vie, these things happen…. Although I suspect my take it on the chin attitude will dissipate when the bill comes in 🤣

 Not sure if it’s connected to the problem, but I’ve never owned a lens where I have to mange the T stop as much as this lux (not that I’ve owned all the lenses of all brands ever of course), it’s hard to explain… but I’ve always had the best results with it when I really manage to ensure that nothing is too bright in the frame (using filters, negative EV etc)

Way I see it…. There’s some €pain ahead, but afterwards I’m going to have something wonderful that I’ve owned for over 2 years but have never truly experienced.

(in the meantime my 50 planar will see me right)