Summicron 90mm SL vs. Sigma 85 DG DN

[Herr Barnack]

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[Simone_DF]

9 hours ago, Herr Barnack said:

This leaves me wondering if the SL lenses are actually better than the equivalent M lenses? 

It depends on what you consider "better". I have both the SL50 APO and the M50 Lux, and they have different renderings. I love and use them both for different reasons.

[BernardC]

3 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

It depends on what you consider "better". I have both the SL50 APO and the M50 Lux, and they have different renderings. I love and use them both for different reasons.

Finally, a voice of reason in this "mine's better than yours" discussion.

Different lenses render differently, just like different types of bread taste different, or different types of paint look different.

One thing about Leica's APO-Summicron-L series is that they are incredibly consistent, from lens to lens, aperture to aperture, far to near, edge to center. That's a very unusual trait, and it is a conscious decision on Leica's part. The only other still lens set that achieves this is Leica's own S medium format set. Some hyper-expensive cinema lens sets also do this, but be prepared to pay hundreds of thousands of Euros/Pounds/Dollars for a full set (or actually, don't be prepared to do that, because only rental houses buy them).

Whether or not any of this matters to you is a personal question. In other words, no one will ever "win" this argument.

 

[threeseed]

Quote

In other words, no one will ever "win" this argument.

Pretty sure the guy on the first page who actually posted the same photo taken from the 85 and 90 did.

I couldn't tell the difference and neither could anyone else.

[Simone_DF]

On 9/27/2022 at 12:40 PM, BernardC said:

One thing about Leica's APO-Summicron-L series is that they are incredibly consistent, from lens to lens, aperture to aperture, far to near, edge to center.

Exactly. This is the reason why I got the Summicron 90 instead of the Sigma.

I, like the OP and others, was really not sure if I wanted the Cron 90 or the Sigma 85. Both are terrific lenses, it's very hard to tell them apart unless you're pixel peeping, and even in that case, I bet often it's just a matter of people trying to justify spending 4k on a lens. I spent quite a lot of time reading reviews and comparing images of both lenses. In the end I opted for the Cron because of the consistent look with my 50mm. And because the Sigma, while 100g lighter, is bulkier and with a 77mm filter thread, which would force me to add a set of filters and negate the 100g weight benefit (yes, these things are important to me!). 

This doesn't make the Sigma "worse" by any means. It's a superb lens and at that price it's a steal compared to the Leica. Moreover, if you want / need F1.4, the Summicron won't help you. I'd happily buy the Sigma if not for the above. In fact, since I also have the Sigma 24mm and 45mm, I'm considering the 90mm 2.8 version to have a perfect lightweight trio.

[BernardC]

7 hours ago, threeseed said:

Pretty sure the guy on the first page who actually posted the same photo taken from the 85 and 90 did.

I couldn't tell the difference and neither could anyone else.

Certainly, if you take pictures in "open shade", with only a tiny portion of the image having any hint of fine detail, and display these at low resolution on the web, you won't find much difference between the two lenses. Or between any two modern lenses of similar focal length.

[trickness]

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12 hours ago, threeseed said:

Pretty sure the guy on the first page who actually posted the same photo taken from the 85 and 90 did.

I couldn't tell the difference and neither could anyone else.

You realize of course that this forum takes a 90 MB image and compresses it to like 2 megs? You could probably post an iPhone photograph here and nobody would be able to “tell the difference”. An Internet forum or social media is not really a valid place to make any comparisons about ultimate quality - by the same logic you could say an S series 7 is no better than a CL. Put the images next to each other as DNG files on a high-quality monitor and then pass judgment.

It’s kind of hilarious that people who haven’t used these lenses in any depth (or at all) are so willing to dismiss them. 

[Photoworks]

1 hour ago, trickness said:

You realize of course that this forum takes a 90 MB image and compresses it to like 2 megs? You could probably post an iPhone photograph here and nobody would be able to “tell the difference”. An Internet forum or social media is not really a valid place to make any comparisons about ultimate quality - by the same logic you could say an S series 7 is no better than a CL. Put the images next to each other as DNG files on a high-quality monitor and then pass judgment.

It’s kind of hilarious that people who haven’t used these lenses in any depth (or at all) are so willing to dismiss them. 

well the images are for instagram anyway , 5k monitor is only for personal use LOL

[trickness]

14 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

well the images are for instagram anyway , 5k monitor is only for personal use LOL

Yeah I guess if you don’t show your work in a physical reality. But then I guess you can extend the discussion into asking the question why do we need $10,000 cameras and five to $10,000 lenses? Why do we bother with anything other than iPhones?

Has this entire conversation circled back to the irrelevance of ultimate quality of the gear? Pretty funny to be having this conversation on a Leica forum….Truth be told I do think these differences in quality are irrelevant. I often purposely take shots with soft focus because I am trying to achieve a certain affect in the composition. Why do I need a $5000 lens on a $6500 body to do that? I don’t really.

But it is certainly nice to know that when I do want to reach beyond the boundaries and get some thing that leaps off the screen, that the system is capable of doing that. And I don’t begrudge anyone wanting to use less expensive gear if that’s what makes them happy. But the intent of people who dismiss pieces of equipment that are exceptional is curious. ESPECIALLY given the context of this brand, who have strived to achieve at an exceptional level throughout their history. It’s almost like some people want to disprove that or dispel that notion & it gives them a perverse little thrill.

anyway, another day, another post on an Internet forum….

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by trickness

[Olaf_ZG]

Heated discussions. As I am the OP of a similar thread, I follow this discussion as well. Both brands deliver great value, no doubt.

Question though is, if the 5% better quality is worth the price? For some it isn’t, for some it is.

each its own, though I appreciate feedback on my thread as I was in doubt as well.

[pgh]

One more take to add based on my experience.

The SL series isn't a good value in general unless you're looking to adapt M lenses to a mirrorless body, or you deeply connect with the tactile experience of it (it's beautiful, but somewhat awkward in hand imo).

For my money, if you tend to care about sharpness/resolution and all that - you're better off with a Sony or Nikon kit and any of the fantastic native or zeiss options - you get the added benefit of a better high res sensor here too (compared to the SL2, which is fantastic at base suffers in the ISO/dynamic range categories if that is relevant to your needs). You can get a body and amazing glass for a lot less and you essentially give up nothing. If you want to shoot M lenses on a mirrorless, and your primary mode of shooting is M, but you need a good back up/something more versatile then it makes sense as a good solution. At least that's how I've found it in practice. It still ends up being pricier than a whole separate kit from Sony or whatever though, if feeling a bit more streamlined. Also worth mentioning M lenses on Nikon Z's is nothing to sneeze at. 

All of this said, for practical purposes/money left in the bank/daily use needing a good value AF lens that basically no one can tell the difference with, get the sigma lenses.

[trickness]

1 hour ago, Olaf_ZG said:

Heated discussions. As I am the OP of a similar thread, I follow this discussion as well. Both brands deliver great value, no doubt.

Question though is, if the 5% better quality is worth the price? For some it isn’t, for some it is.

each its own, though I appreciate feedback on my thread as I was in doubt as well.

I don’t think you can measure this in percentages, that’s one of the controversies here in this discussion.

The photograph shot with the native SL lenses have a different look. That doesn’t mean it’s 5 or 10 or 100% better, it’s just different. A Subaru WRX STI can go as fast as some Ferraris and Porsches, maybe even faster. Do we only measure the intrinsic value of those cars by the stopwatch? Or is there something else in these particular cars that provides a different experience?

The same could be said of expensive wine. Or of the difference between hamburgers. I actually have a lot of discomfort making some of these references to luxury products, because the value add in some cases is very questionable. You look at the history of Leica, all their innovations and reputation of excellence most significantly in their lenses, and compare that to Sigma. Again I’m not saying that you can’t take a great photograph with the sigma or that it’s a bad lens - just when a company Leica) has this history, when their head of lens design says that a product (35 APO, although he described all the Summicrons as “next level”) is the best they’ve ever made, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to Leica.

The lens of course  isn’t going to make a picture “better” - but it will give it a different look. It will render differently, or perhaps be more sharp, or perhaps present color differently. To the people who are making an argument that the sigma or Zeiss or whatever lens is “just as good” or that the SL glass is not worth the extra money, that’s a personal decision that’s up to them and perhaps their budget has something do with it. The SL glass is crazy expensive! Of course it is, it’s Leica! But they are giving you something for your money. SL glass is something special. If you read reviews online, they all say the same thing: fantastic image quality, unbelievable color and 3-D pop, ridiculously expensive. Sigma reviews: great image quality, fantastic value for the money. 

Where the discussion goes off the rails is when assertions are made that there’s substantively no difference, or very little difference between these lenses. Spend even 10 minutes on this forum reading posts about glass and it’s very clear that even within the Leica family, even the Summicron versus Summilux, the lenses render differently. And SL glass renders differently again than M glass. 

If somebody wants to say that difference is not worth the money to them, fair enough. But it is straight up disinformation for people who haven’t really used the lenses to come on here and say the sigma and the SL glass are indistinguishable, that you can’t see the difference, and use low resolution images posted on an Internet forum to prop up their case. I’ve got about 10 pieces of M & SL glass and I love them all, but the SL glass, particularly the 35 APO, delivers very special results that do not look like anything else I have owned or used. If you ever come to New York, bring your SL and we’ll go out and shoot and you can see for yourself. 🤓
 

Lastly, before you listen to anybody’s opinion, look at their photographs.

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by trickness

[trickness]

1 hour ago, pgh said:

One more take to add based on my experience.

The SL series isn't a good value in general unless you're looking to adapt M lenses to a mirrorless body, or you deeply connect with the tactile experience of it (it's beautiful, but somewhat awkward in hand imo).

For my money, if you tend to care about sharpness/resolution and all that - you're better off with a Sony or Nikon kit and any of the fantastic native or zeiss options - you get the added benefit of a better high res sensor here too (compared to the SL2, which is fantastic at base suffers in the ISO/dynamic range categories if that is relevant to your needs). You can get a body and amazing glass for a lot less and you essentially give up nothing. If you want to shoot M lenses on a mirrorless, and your primary mode of shooting is M, but you need a good back up/something more versatile then it makes sense as a good solution. At least that's how I've found it in practice. It still ends up being pricier than a whole separate kit from Sony or whatever though, if feeling a bit more streamlined. Also worth mentioning M lenses on Nikon Z's is nothing to sneeze at. 

All of this said, for practical purposes/money left in the bank/daily use needing a good value AF lens that basically no one can tell the difference with, get the sigma lenses.

So the solution here is to buy Sony, Nikon and Sigma 😂 

Maybe they should change the name of the forum to “anythingbutLeica.com”

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by trickness

[Olaf_ZG]

4 minutes ago, trickness said:

If you ever come to New York, bring your SL and we’ll go out and shoot and you can see for yourself. 🤓
 

 

 

 

This I gladly accept. Another lens though, as i just reserved the SL35 😎

Meanwhile, whenever nearby Croatia, feel free to drop by. Instead of lenses, we could discuss wine 🍷…

[trickness]

2 minutes ago, Olaf_ZG said:

This I gladly accept. Another lens though, as i just reserved the SL35 😎

Meanwhile, whenever nearby Croatia, feel free to drop by. Instead of lenses, we could discuss wine 🍷…

Awesome! And if you don’t like the lens, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee over the Internet by way of apology. Unless you prefer wine!

[Olaf_ZG]

1 hour ago, pgh said:

The SL series isn't a good value in general unless you're looking to adapt M lenses to a mirrorless body, or you deeply connect with the tactile experience of it (it's beautiful, but somewhat awkward in hand imo).

Not sure if I agree with you. Having had many systems throughout my life, I recently bought the SL due to the fact I have m-lenses as well.

 I am very happy with the camera and its    output. To me, the value is much higher than the Nikons and Fuji’s I hade/have.

This is a subjective opinion ofcourse, as well as yours. Due to the possibility to use sigma or panasonic lenses, the value became even more worthwhile.

[insomnia]

Am 27.9.2022 um 02:10 schrieb trickness:

Just saw that you posted this message below in another thread about sigma vs SL lenses lol

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Yeah of course - this thread is about the 90 SL vs. the 85 DG DN. Having used both lenses, I made the decision for the 85 for reasons I've stated above. The somewhat mediocre 35/2 of Sigma didn't make the cut. I don't know why we're talking about lens makers in general, it comes down to specific lenses. 

[pgh]

4 hours ago, trickness said:

So the solution here is to buy Sony, Nikon and Sigma 😂 

Maybe they should change the name of the forum to “anythingbutLeica.com”

 

Try reading my comment again. I sold my Sonys for a reason (and own Leicas), but my reason might not be other's reasons. It's just about what you want. The endless discussion about image quality misses the point, because that's really not where the differences are for essentially anyone who is going to view the work made with a camera. I do have a more practical outlook than some though, I grant - all of the analogies about fine cars and watches to me are mostly bullshit. My whole reason for the M system a long time ago was wanting the absolute smallest full frame digital 50mm solution possible, and I was willing to pay for it. The aesthetics were a bonus. The practical arguments for the SL system are more limited to my mind (and yet I still own an SL2), but ymmv. 

[pgh]

4 hours ago, Olaf_ZG said:

Not sure if I agree with you. Having had many systems throughout my life, I recently bought the SL due to the fact I have m-lenses as well.

 I am very happy with the camera and its    output. To me, the value is much higher than the Nikons and Fuji’s I hade/have.

This is a subjective opinion ofcourse, as well as yours. Due to the possibility to use sigma or panasonic lenses, the value became even more worthwhile.

It's the same reason I have an SL (M lenses, and backup that plays nice). But the SL2 sensor just doesn't have the file malleability than current nikon ff offerings - it's files are great in general, but still a bit less robust than the A7RII (a much older camera) I parted with. Better color though by far, though this doesn't matter much to me because C1/LR gets you wherever you want to go. Fuji is another matter, it's definitely better than their aps-c stuff. SL series is no slouch, but for what it costs, I think the image quality argument misses the point - you're not getting files that best (or sometimes even match) the stuff that's half the price. I would have not gotten the SL2 were it not L mount that played well with sigma/panasonic options though, so that is definitely a selling point I agree. 

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[trickness]

1 hour ago, pgh said:

It's the same reason I have an SL (M lenses, and backup that plays nice). But the SL2 sensor just doesn't have the file malleability than current nikon ff offerings - it's files are great in general, but still a bit less robust than the A7RII (a much older camera) I parted with. Better color though by far, though this doesn't matter much to me because C1/LR gets you wherever you want to go. Fuji is another matter, it's definitely better than their aps-c stuff. SL series is no slouch, but for what it costs, I think the image quality argument misses the point - you're not getting files that best (or sometimes even match) the stuff that's half the price. I would have not gotten the SL2 were it not L mount that played well with sigma/panasonic options though, so that is definitely a selling point I agree. 

I use my SL2 a lot, love how it handles, love the image quality, the OS, the versatility- sure it could be a little lighter. I’ve picked up the other brands and right off the bat, from a tactile standpoint I don’t enjoy using them. I have no complaints or unfulfilled needs using the SL, except perhaps that again, it could be lighter when using native glass. I know a lot of other street shooters in NYC, I see their images - Sony and Fuji primarily- and there’s nothing I see that makes me want to switch from the SL2.

But I can see where others might do the math differently, and there’s nothing wrong with choosing another path.