APO Summicron SL 24/2, 21/2 anytime “soon”

[Simone_DF]

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7 hours ago, MrFriendly said:

Do what I did, get the 24mm Summilux-M or the 24mm Elmar-M and be happy, those two are awesome lenses.  They will keep you happy until the APO shows up.

Actually I got the Sigma, which is even better.

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[jrp]

Which one? F3.5 or f2?

[beewee]

I can attest that the Sigma 24/3.5 stopped down to f/5.6 is sharper than my Leica Elmar-M 24/3.8 at the same apertures when shot near infinity on the SL2-S.

[Stuart Richardson]

On 2/26/2022 at 6:37 PM, beewee said:

My 28 APO SL is pretty much flawless wide open and out to the extreme corners. My only complaint is that it’s doesn’t have a 24mm or 21mm focal length. 🤣

Not sure why people think the 28 APO is somehow inferior compared to other APO SL primes.

I am sure it is a great lens. I think the reason that people think that it is inferior is that it has worse MTF performance than the 35mm APO Summicron (and the others...). Perhaps it is field curvature? But the MTF's show it to be worse objectively, so unless there is some magic going on, it should not be quite as sharp in the corners and edges as the others. Maybe it is not very visible on 24 mp?

Edited February 28, 2022 by Stuart Richardson

[beewee]

1 hour ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I am sure it is a great lens. I think the reason that people think that it is inferior is that it has worse MTF performance than the 35mm APO Summicron (and the others...). Perhaps it is field curvature? But the MTF's show it to be worse objectively, so unless there is some magic going on, it should not be quite as sharp in the corners and edges as the others. Maybe it is not very visible on 24 mp?

Leica’s MTF curve is based on the theoretical achievable performance of the optics and does not account for any software corrections that can improve the total system performance. According to Peter Karbe, the tangential component of the 28 APO SL theoretical MTF is poorer relative to the 35 APO SL but it is well corrected in software by the camera. So the end result after software correction is very close to the sagital component and would be very comparable to the 35 APO SL.

[Simone_DF]

14 hours ago, jrp said:

Which one? F3.5 or f2?

F3.5

[jrp]

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I also got the f3.5 Sigma 24mm as a stop gap and find that, when the light is good, shot at f5.6 it's excellent.

When compared to the SL Summicron 28mm, it's obviously a bit more limited as the Summicron can do f2, which allows for a modicum of background separation.  The Sigma has its compactness going for it, which as users of M lenses will attest, is not to be sniffed at.

(I am surprised that there is not more traffic on the 28mm SL Summicron as it is a superlative lens, but that's by the by.)

[beewee]

23 hours ago, jrp said:

I also got the f3.5 Sigma 24mm as a stop gap and find that, when the light is good, shot at f5.6 it's excellent.

When compared to the SL Summicron 28mm, it's obviously a bit more limited as the Summicron can do f2, which allows for a modicum of background separation.  The Sigma has its compactness going for it, which as users of M lenses will attest, is not to be sniffed at.

(I am surprised that there is not more traffic on the 28mm SL Summicron as it is a superlative lens, but that's by the by.)

Glad the 24/3.5 is working out for you as well. It’s excellent stopped down.

I have a feeling the 28 APO SL is underrated because many people bought the 35 APO SL because it came out first and there was a lot of hype about the 35 being Leica’s sharpest prime.

[caissa]

The 24 and the 21 will not exactly be best-sellers. So Leica will probably wait some time before they bring them, maybe even several years. Or if the business turns out really bad, then maybe never.

I would actually rather see a 135 or a 180. (Maybe both Summicron). Or a 135 and a 1.7x extender (like Hasselblad).

Edited April 3, 2022 by caissa

[caissa]

I think the 28 is not underrated, it is just not a spectacular focal length. What is a bit a nuisance is that there are myths about the 35 that are simply not true. It is not the sharpest lens, Karbe never said that. What he said in the interview was that it is probably the best corrected lens. And when he was asked which lens he would select if he had to, he said he would choose the 35. (But he gave no reasoning why).

In some tests (DxO) the sharpness was explicitly tested, and it was beaten (by a Canon lens, maybe also others).

Edited April 3, 2022 by caissa

[Photoworks]

2 hours ago, caissa said:

In some tests (DxO) the sharpness was explicitly tested, and it was beaten (by a Canon lens, maybe also others).

well DxO is one of does companies that want to get paid from manufactures, Leica refuses to do that.

The reason why it score less the 100 is because DxO tested it on a Panasonic S1H, and we all know they perfume much better on SL2 cameras.

There are many good lenses out there from different companies, the politics behind the testing and review are not so great.

In any case all my Summicron-SL are very good.

[beewee]

2 hours ago, Photoworks said:

There are many good lenses out there from different companies, the politics behind the testing and review are not so great.

Yup. Same applies to many other industries like sporting equipment. Without going into details, teams don’t use gear in the Tour de France because the equipment is the best. They use the equipment because their sponsors paid them to use it, even if it’s drastically inferior to other gear to the point where it may compromise their performance/results.

[Malabito]

Don't forget the Panasonic 24mm, yes is not an apo, (I have the Pana 24mm and the SL APO 35mm), but it has good enough image quality  (Of course  what's good enough depends on each user). 

It focuses fast, it's very very light and it's small enough. I am quite happy with it, actually i use it more than the 35mm given the weight, size, and how much better it focuses than the 35mm sl apo.

Below some examples with the sl2s and the pana lens.

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[Simone_DF]

16 hours ago, Photoworks said:

well DxO is one of does companies that want to get paid from manufactures, Leica refuses to do that.

Source?

[Malabito]

18 hours ago, Photoworks said:

well DxO is one of does companies that want to get paid from manufactures, Leica refuses to do that..

And you know this from?

[Simone_DF]

20 hours ago, Malabito said:

And you know this from?

None. It's just the usual FUD. If somebody talks bad about Leica, it's either paid by somebody else or it's doing it wrong. 

[beewee]

3 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

None. It's just the usual FUD. If somebody talks bad about Leica, it's either paid by somebody else or it's doing it wrong. 

I do recall there was reviewer on dpreview that once wrote something negative points about a Leica camera and that person’s editor basically told them that there are certain words that should never be used in a Leica review.

[beewee]

7 hours ago, beewee said:

I do recall there was reviewer on dpreview that once wrote something negative points about a Leica camera and that person’s editor basically told them that there are certain words that should never be used in a Leica review.

Found the article here: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leica-m10-first-impressions-sample-images

Quote

In fact, the very first camera that I ever reviewed right at the beginning of my career was a Leica. This was more than ten years ago, around the same time that the M8 was released, but I wasn’t (yet) trusted with such a prestigious product. The camera that I was handed to review was one of those rebadged Panasonics that the German company still officially maintains in its lineup, but doesn’t really talk about anymore. I forget the exact model, but it wasn’t particularly good. I seem to remember high noise levels, lens aberrations and clumsy, detail-destroying noise reduction being the main areas of complaint, all of which were enough to take the (figurative) shine off what was physically a beautiful camera, and all of which I dutifully reported in my review.

While the camera was forgettable, more than a decade on, that review still sticks in my mind. It was shortly after filing my draft that my editor at the time pulled me over, the printout in his hand, to explain that ‘there are certain words we do not use about Leica’. Apparently, 'disappointing' was one of those words, indicated (ironically) with large red rings of ink, wherever I had used it.

My draft was massaged accordingly, and I didn’t review another Leica camera for a long time.

 

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[Malabito]

2 hours ago, beewee said:

Found the article here: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leica-m10-first-impressions-sample-images

 

That has nothing to do with the comment above.. this just mentions what the guys editor told him, the editors pov. The previous comment is stating that dxo asks to be paid for reviews.

One doesn't support the other.

[Simone_DF]

11 hours ago, beewee said:

I do recall there was reviewer on dpreview that once wrote something negative points about a Leica camera and that person’s editor basically told them that there are certain words that should never be used in a Leica review.

So... doesn't that reinforce the concept that Leica reviews are good only when Leica pays the reviewer?