Zeiss zm 18mm f4

[antigallican]

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I have an example of this lens which gives a dramatic and contrasty picture.  I’d love it except Lightroom doesn’t deal with it very well. I use it on my M9 and it produces the expected distortions, vignetting and mauve areas down the sides of the picture. I can correct those out okay but have to do it with individual pictures - the Adobe  Lightroom preset correction is miles out. I even accept having to do a bit of work on pictures from a lens like this. But I don’t know why the Adobe correction overcompensates the vignetting so much nor why it fails to correct the mauve edges. Anyone else had this problem with an M9/Zeiss correction? Any solution found? I don’t think it’s a problem with the lens, rather with the exaggerated Adobe correction

 

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[AndreasG]

It is definitely an interesting and challenging lens. I got one used around three years ago and use it mainly in narrow spaces. It does not show visible distortion and only little vignetting and post processing I do with the plain Luminar 3 without any preset since I simply dislike presets.

[BastianK]

Ultra wide lenses behave very differently on the different Leica sensors.
There are lenses that show disastrous color cast on the M9 that do okay on the M10,
if you look for it you will be able to track down several comparisons showcasing this.

Now what even Adobe cannot do:
Keep every Leica M/ZM/VM/xyz lens in stock and create a new correction profile for every new Leica M camera.

When correcting the light falloff there is a slider to tune down the correction - use it.
For color cast I am using gradients with hue as needed.
If you do both properly, make it a preset, you can use it for all new consecutive pictures.

I did this for the VM 15mm 4.5 II which shows asymmetrical color cast on the M10, it works very well.
You can find a very boring with/without correction picture attached
(this comparison is only for distortion and color cast, light falloff I like to deal with on a picture to picture basis).

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Edited December 15, 2021 by BastianK

[antigallican]

You did a good job here Bastian. Thanks for your thoughts and those of Andreas above.

 

 

[antigallican]

ps your point about the lens on different sensors is of course correct. It is much less extreme-looking on my Leica SL, though I don't use it much on that camera - I have the 24-90 which doesn't require any correcting at all. I more or less never take it off!

[derleicaman]

I had the ZM 18/4 back in my M9 days. I did a review of the 18 SEM for the LHSA Viewfinder, and shot the ZM lens side by side with it. I found absolutely no real difference between the two lenses.

I only sold the ZM 18/4 when I acquired a very nice WATE. I also sold my very nice 21/2.8 Elmarit ASPH to help finance the WATE. I considered the 18 and 21 redundant with the WATE.

[crony]

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Hi, I use the Distagon on the M9 and I am highly satisfied. I code it manually as an 2,8/21 #11134. Merry Christmas !

 

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[JIEFACHE]

Hi everybody!

I found out that the perfect lens profile when using the Zeiss 18 f4 is the "11134" (2,8/21 NON !!! asph).

With my M240, absolutely no magenta fringing! None at all!

[RexGig0]

Well, the information and images, in this discussion, just pushed me over the edge. I am especially grateful to crony and JIEFACHE, for posting the Leica product code 11134. I found a Zeiss 18mm ZM on the “evil bay,” and just bought it. I had been considering this lens, for a while, and had recently noticed that Zeiss dealers, in the USA, Japan, and elsewhere, were no longer listing this lens, so, I reckoned it was time to do more research, and then act, quickly.

The most detailed review, that I had been able to find, was at Lloyd Chambers’ paid-subscription site. He had not, apparently, successfully used any of the Leica lens profiles, in the menus of the cameras he had used with this lens, to cure the color shift. He had successfully used the profile for a 35mm Summicron, to cure vignetting.

I will try the 18mm ZM on my M10 and M Type 246 cameras.

Edited March 9, 2022 by RexGig0

[crony]

Congrats! You won't regret your purchase! 👍