Is an APO 35/50mm on an old digital M better money spent than getting a new M11?

[dgc]

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2 hours ago, MaticB said:

This may be the answer (cited by Jono Slack in his M11 report):

 

Appendix: Why Perceptual Megapixels are Stupid

… If you ask something like ‘is my camera going to out resolve this lens’ you sound silly.

 

Oh dear!

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[rsolomon]

On 1/17/2022 at 1:40 PM, dgc said:

I started to write this thread on the M11 forum, however, as I started to write it, it became obvious I was asking about the lens rather than the new M11.

I bought into the Leica M system for the lenses and leaving aside the obvious, that most modern cameras and lenses can take great pictures, is it better to spend money on an APO lens (and buy/ keep an older digital M) rather than getting the latest 60 MP digital M and using a ''lesser'' lens ? All very subjective, but I would be interested to hear the views of APO users.

 

I think you answer is simple, but expensive:  both , the M11 and the APO lenses ….. 😊. just for the record I have an M240 / 35 Cron and extremely pleased with results 

Edited January 19, 2022 by rsolomon

[Jeff S]

9 hours ago, MaticB said:

This may be the answer (cited by Jono Slack in his M11 report):

 

Appendix: Why Perceptual Megapixels are Stupid

I get asked several times a week if this lens or that is ‘capable of resolving’ this number of megapixels. Some people seem to think a lens should be ‘certified’ for a certain number of pixels or something. That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of it works. Lots of people think that will be ‘whichever is less of the camera and lens.’ For example, my camera can resolve 61 megapixels, but my lens can only resolve 30 megapixels, so all I can see is 30 megapixels. That’s not how it works. How it does work is very simple math: System MTF = Camera MTF x Lens MTF. MTF maxes at 1.0 because 1.0 is perfect. So let’s say my camera MTF is 0.7, and my lens MTF is 0.7, then my system MTF is 0.49 (Lens MTF x Camera MTF). This is actually a pretty reasonable system. Now, let’s say I get a much better camera with much higher resolution; the camera MTF is 0.9. The system MTF with the same lens also increases: 0.7 X 0.9 = 0.63. On the other hand, I could do the same thing if I bought a much better lens and kept it on the same camera. The camera basically never ‘out resolves the lens.’ If you have a reasonably good lens and/or a reasonably good camera, upgrading either one upgrades your images. If you ask something like ‘is my camera going to out resolve this lens’ you sound silly.

Roger’s rule: If you have either a crappy lens or crappy camera, improve the crappy part first; you get more bang for your $. I just saw a thread for someone wanting to upgrade to the newest 60-megapixel camera, and all of his lenses were average zooms. I got nauseous.

 

Post #15.

Jeff

[pippy]

4 hours ago, Jeff S said:

Post #15.

Exactly.

The OP asks us to give an answer - to put it one way - to a mathematical question; "Is (M11 + x Lens) greater than (y Body + APO)?". To start with unless we have 'values' for x and y the question is unanswerable but even if we were furnished with such information the question is still effectively meaningless because we have no idea what end-purpose the 'answer' has to serve.

'Deep Thought' and "42" spring to mind.

Lenses should be bought for their characteristics. All a 60Mp sensor will provide is to allow the characteristics of any particular lens to be printed either larger with the same resolution or the same size with greater resolution than a body with fewer Mp. The character of the lens will be unchanged.

Philip.

Edited January 19, 2022 by pippy

[dgc]

7 hours ago, pippy said:

Exactly.

The OP asks us to give an answer - to put it one way - to a mathematical question; "Is (M11 + x Lens) greater than (y Body + APO)?". To start with unless we have 'values' for x and y the question is unanswerable but even if we were furnished with such information the question is still effectively meaningless because we have no idea what end-purpose the 'answer' has to serve.

'Deep Thought' and "42" spring to mind.

Lenses should be bought for their characteristics. All a 60Mp sensor will provide is to allow the characteristics of any particular lens to be printed either larger with the same resolution or the same size with greater resolution than a body with fewer Mp. The character of the lens will be unchanged.

Philip.

Ok, here we go ...  I asked for thoughts rather than mathematical equations or philosophical discussion.

Thank you to those who provided some direction. 

[pippy]

38 minutes ago, dgc said:

Ok, here we go ...  I asked for thoughts rather than mathematical equations or philosophical discussion.

Thank you to those who provided some direction. 

Good luck!

 

[a.noctilux]

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40 minutes ago, dgc said:

Ok, here we go ...  I asked for thoughts rather than mathematical equations or philosophical discussion.

Thank you to those who provided some direction. 

Go in which direction 🤷‍♂️ you want, then.

post #2 again 👍

[Stuart Richardson]

I think the question is clearly a personal one, but also cannot really be answered that well without knowing what the cameras and lenses you have are.

I would say if you had the M8, then get an M11, and you will see huge improvements in the usability of the camera as well as the resolution, color fidelity, DR and so on. If you are using an M10R with recent lenses like the 35mm Summilux ASPH or FLE and 50mm Summilux ASPH, you may not see a huge difference.

I think it also depends on how you like your photos to render. If you like the detail to be crisp from edge to edge at 100% (or the largest native print size) and nothing to be soft in the images, you are probably better in putting as much money as you can in the sharpest lens. If you like smooth tonality and dynamic range and the latest generation of sensor performance more than sharpness, then perhaps the newer body with a slightly older lens will work great for you. As stated above, camera and lens work together as a system, and generally they work best when both are performing at a similar level, but at least for my style of photography, I prefer lenses that can provide edge to edge sharpness across the frame on the sensor I use.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Stuart Richardson

[dgc]

15 hours ago, pippy said:

Good luck!

 

Exactly the response I deserved! I didn't mean to be so abrupt, your points were more than valid and this is my frustration with forums/ emails etc sometimes it is difficult to get my message across.

 

15 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I think the question is clearly a personal one, but also cannot really be answered that well without knowing what the cameras and lenses you have are.

I would say if you had the M8, then get an M11, and you will see huge improvements in the usability of the camera as well as the resolution, color fidelity, DR and so on. If you are using an M10R with recent lenses like the 35mm Summilux ASPH or FLE and 50mm Summilux ASPH, you may not see a huge difference.

I think it also depends on how you like your photos to render. If you like the detail to be crisp from edge to edge at 100% (or the largest native print size) and nothing to be soft in the images, you are probably better in putting as much money as you can in the sharpest lens. If you like smooth tonality and dynamic range and the latest generation of sensor performance more than sharpness, then perhaps the newer body with a slightly older lens will work great for you. As stated above, camera and lens work together as a system, and generally they work best when both are performing at a similar level, but at least for my style of photography, I prefer lenses that can provide edge to edge sharpness across the frame on the sensor I use.

This answers my original question perfectly. I do wonder if I would see any difference between a number of prints taken with these lenses !

[a.noctilux]

David, please share your final choice.

I forgot to ask which is your present time M Leica to use those apo 35/50 lenses ?

 

[spydrxx]

8 hours ago, dgc said:

Exactly the response I deserved! I didn't mean to be so abrupt, your points were more than valid and this is my frustration with forums/ emails etc sometimes it is difficult to get my message across.

 

This answers my original question perfectly. I do wonder if I would see any difference between a number of prints taken with these lenses !

I think you MAY see differences depending on the size and quality of the prints as well as how the lenses were used (wide open, slightly closed down). I'm not sure the differences would be significant however. If you go for exhibition sized prints on fine papers done by a master printer, you are more likely to have noticeable differences..but in reality those differences might not matter to you. In my experience I've found that the skill of the printer can easily outweigh the skill of the photographer. Just my opinion.

[jakontil]

in summary, it's like you have a date with your camera body, but you marry a lens

[Masukami]

18 minutes ago, jakontil said:

in summary, it's like you have a date with your camera body, but you marry a lens

How do I ‘like’ this twice?!

[hdmesa]

On 1/19/2022 at 10:56 AM, Al Brown said:

Here's a hack: get the Voigtlander 35 or 50 APO lens and put the rest towards a M11 body. You get to about 85-90% of Leica lens equivalent IQ.

Higher than that based on some of the IQ comparisons on the M10-R. The smaller size of the Leicas are an advantage as is the Leica 35 APO's 30cm MFD versus the CV 35's 50cm MFD.

That said, we haven't yet seen a 35/50 APO shootout on the M11 yet where the higher res sensor may separate the results a bit more.

Edited January 20, 2022 by hdmesa

[Danner]

On 1/19/2022 at 3:28 AM, pippy said:

Exactly.

The OP asks us to give an answer - to put it one way - to a mathematical question; "Is (M11 + x Lens) greater than (y Body + APO)?". To start with unless we have 'values' for x and y the question is unanswerable but even if we were furnished with such information the question is still effectively meaningless because we have no idea what end-purpose the 'answer' has to serve.

'Deep Thought' and "42" spring to mind.

Lenses should be bought for their characteristics. All a 60Mp sensor will provide is to allow the characteristics of any particular lens to be printed either larger with the same resolution or the same size with greater resolution than a body with fewer Mp. The character of the lens will be unchanged.

Philip.

There is a more basic question for high resolution sensor customers.  What image output format do [I] use that benefits from, or requires, the high resolution sensor?  For me, personally, my 16 MP Nikon Df is enough, and my 36 MP D800 has never been fully utilized.

[FrozenInTime]

By far the biggest issue I find in photography is capturing the dynamic range within backlit scenes ; it seems the M11 sensor does this better than any prior M model - that alone is reason to choose it if starting fresh in the system. 

[pippy]

7 hours ago, Danner said:

There is a more basic question for high resolution sensor customers.  What image output format do [I] use that benefits from, or requires, the high resolution sensor?...

I agree 100% and that was precisely the point I made back in my very first post in this thread (#8).

As I've mentioned elsewhere; I've made some superb quality A3 prints on very high quality Bayta paper-stock from a horizontal crop taken from a 'portrait' file of a snap shot with the M Monochrom. This means I'm only printing from an 8Mp part of the sensor yet unless the print is studied under magnification there are no signs of pixellation whatsoever.

Once mounted, framed and looked-at from 'Correct Viewing Distance'?.....

Philip.

Edited January 21, 2022 by pippy

[pippy]

7 hours ago, FrozenInTime said:

By far the biggest issue I find in photography is capturing the dynamic range within backlit scenes ; it seems the M11 sensor does this better than any prior M model - that alone is reason to choose it if starting fresh in the system. 

There are quite a few areas in which the M11 offers advantages over all previous digi-M bodies; it's up to each individual buyer to decide whether any of these advantages are important enough to make the purchase attractive - or even neccessary. For my needs (for instance) the 60Mp sensor would be complete overkill - I never print larger than A2 and a 24Mp body is plenty - but I do like the ISO 64 base. For those forumites who regularly output prints 2 metres wide or more (for instance) the 60Mp might well be the deciding factor in any decision-making process. And so on...and so on...

We all have different requirements from our kit. Someone might need the astonishing performance of the 50 f2 APO whilst another might prefer the crazy wide-open rendering of the 50 f1.5 Summarit. Advice can be very helpful for a potential buyer but in order to offer well-informed advice a certain knowledge about the intended end-use is essential.

Philip.

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[dgc]

22 hours ago, a.noctilux said:

David, please share your final choice.

I forgot to ask which is your present time M Leica to use those apo 35/50 lenses ?

 

I have the M7 and M10M, along with the Summicron 35mm v4 and Summilux 50mm, amongst a few other lenses (including Leica, Zeiss and Voigtlander). As much as I would want an APO 50 and M11, I just cannot see how they could provide such a significant improvement on what I currently have/ want. There appears to be no order of magnitude difference between either the old and new, and the lenses (summicron & summilix vs. apo). Furthermore, I do not have the ability to fully utilise this equipment to its fullest or the capability to present any images to their best. As someone mentioned maybe I should start getting a good printer.

(By the way, I also have the Q2, which is probably the best camera I have ever owned and covers my colour requirements). 

[otto.f]

Of course: a lens is always better than a body, if it's a special lens and not redundant in what you've got