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Ideal Lens for Available Light Portraiture on a Leica S 006


Mustana

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Is the Summicron-S 100 F2 the best lens for available light portraiture using the Leica S 006? On the used market it is worth almost three times the price of the Leica APO-Macro-Summarit-S 120mm f/2.5 APO Lens. Is the difference in image quality significant enough to justify the additional cost?  I am looking for a lens strictly for portraiture and do not need a lens with macro or landscape capabilities. I intend to shoot mostly wide open.

If forumites have used the Contax 645 Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm F2 T* Lens on the Leica S for available light portraiture I would love to hear their thoughts on this as well; especially in comparison to the Sumicron-S 100 F2.

Thanks!

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Mustana,   When I owned the S 100 lens for my business, I can say it is superb for portraiture.  It is often compared to the 50 Noctilux in rendering and I would have to agree with that assessment based on my own experience.  If you can find one previously owned, and has the AF motor replaced, I suggest you buy it.  Just make sure you have the proof the motor was replaced.  I also owned a Contax 645 with a Phase One P45 back and 80mm Zeiss lens among other Zeiss lenses before owning the S system for over a decade.  The Zeiss lens is excellent, but it does not render like the S-100.  IMO, the S-100 is a better lens for rendering portraits and also excellent for landscapes closed down.  But wide open...nothing IMO compares to the S-100.  Try this link for more thoughts and photographs. I am certain others will chime in too.  r/ Mark

Try:  https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2020/04/the-definitive-guide-to-leica-s-lenses/

Edited by LeicaR10
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If there's really that much difference in used prices between the 100mm and the 120mm, I definitely don't think it's worth it. I actually think the 120mm is a better option (note that I do have the 120mm but not the 100mm). It's a bit longer, i.e., more flattering for portraits if you're shooting in tight (it will elongate noses less than a wider lens will). It's f/2.5 wide open, so you'll still get that same kind of lovely low DOF that you'd get from the 100mm at f/2.0. You can shoot very close in because it's a macro lens. And it's super sharp, even wide open. I don't think there's any difference in image quality between it and the 100mm; maybe the 100mm has some special indescribable magic, I can't say. I've also read that the 100mm can have more issues with hunting for focus than the 120mm.

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40 minutes ago, tom0511 said:

100 Summieren is hard to focus, I would say 35/2.5/45/2.8 or 70/2.5 are the better available light lenses for the S.

Good point. You probably won't be at high ISOs with an 006, so you might want to steer clear of longer lenses that need faster shutter speeds. Depends on what kinds of portraiture you want to do. I shoot a ton of portraits, and my most used lens is the 45mm, due to the kind of compositions I like to create (using the environment, negative space, etc.).

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On 10/2/2022 at 4:29 PM, LeicaR10 said:

Mustana,   When I owned the S 100 lens for my business, I can say it is superb for portraiture.  It is often compared to the 50 Noctilux in rendering and I would have to agree with that assessment based on my own experience.  If you can find one previously owned, and has the AF motor replaced, I suggest you buy it.  Just make sure you have the proof the motor was replaced.  I also owned a Contax 645 with a Phase One P45 back and 80mm Zeiss lens among other Zeiss lenses before owning the S system for over a decade.  The Zeiss lens is excellent, but it does not render like the S-100.  IMO, the S-100 is a better lens for rendering portraits and also excellent for landscapes closed down.  But wide open...nothing IMO compares to the S-100.  Try this link for more thoughts and photographs. I am certain others will chime in too.  r/ Mark

Try:  https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2020/04/the-definitive-guide-to-leica-s-lenses/

Thank you Mark for the detailed reply. Did you ever own the 120 F2.5? If you did how did you think it compared to the 100 F2 for portraits.

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Hi, I own both and use both for portraiture wide open. It depends on your style of portraiture. But I would opt for the 120, as it is a bit more versatile. 120 allows you to shoot headshots,  because it gets to 0.5m in close focus. 100 only focuses to 0.7m.   Another consideration is that 120 is slower in operation, but more accurate in focusing. 100 focuses faster, but easier to miss critical focus.  The 120 is also sharper wide open. 

The advantage of the 100, by contrast, are three things: 1. it has half stop larger aperture, which can be helpful in lower light.  2. it is considerably smaller than the 120, which makes it more portable and less intimidating.  3. Its bokeh is a bit more dramatic, wilder. The 120 is more typical of an APO telephoto lens, with smooth and melting background. 

I also used the 80mm Zeiss in the past. It is a much less refined lens compared with either the 100 or the 120. It is less sharp, and the focusing mechanism makes some strange sound. I would not recommend it unless you prefer its focal length. 

All the close-up portraits in this series are shot on the 120 on an S2-p. Feel free to check out. https://qiaophotography.com/highlight

 

George 

 

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For available light, the 70mm is going to be easier to handhold. It has a lovely rendering. The 120mm is the sharpest and, in my opinion, the best lens in the entire system. Personally I would pick the 70mm for what you are looking for. The lens is equivalent to a 56mm on 35mm, so it is a slightly long normal lens, and I think if you are going to be photographing near wide open, the shorter focal length will give you more depth of field, while still separating backgrounds very well. The 100mm f2 is another logical choice, but as you noted, it is one of the more expensive S lenses on the used market, and there have been a number of users who seem to struggle getting it to focus perfectly wide open. I have not owned it, so I cannot comment on that. I can say, however, that my experience with the 70mm and 120mm was that they were both accurate to focus and had very pleasing renderings.

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Mustana,  To answer your question in your Post #8, yes, I did own the S-120.  It worked along side the S-100.  I found the S-120 rendered more detail in rendering. For my work and IMO, too much so for portraits.  I found the rendering of the S-100 to be more like a Noctilux/Summilux when used wide or nearly wide open.  It has a way to adding softness and S-100 bokeh was more smooth.  My clients simply were over the moon with the resulting portraits.  They were happy and I was happy.  Some photographers say the S-100 is hard to focus.  IMO, they might find that an issue.  I did not, I always shoot my AF lenses in manual.  I want place the plane of focus where I want it, not let automation decide for me.  Of course, I look at photography as an art, nothing is fast for me.  I like to enjoy what I am creating for my clients or my personal use.  Kinda like an artist creating a painting.  It takes time to create a masterpiece and it needs for at least myself, to be my creation.  Albeit most of my professional photography was doing remote landscape photography, I always believed, if I hiked 50 miles or whatever to a location, I wanted to also enjoy the environment and landscape for what it was to me.  The S lenses helped me create the photographs that my clients wanted or needed.  In the case of the S-100, its main purpose was portraits that I would do for clients on a very rare occasion in natural settings.  I would also use it for landscapes when I wanted to create a certain look or feeling.  Both lenses are different and render as such.  If you want to use the S-100 AF and if focus looks a little off, you can get Leica Customer Care at Wetzlar to tweak your S006 and S-100 to be spot on.  I hope this helps.  r/ Mark

PS Last, the S-100 was designed for portrait photography.

Edited by LeicaR10
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I have both, but got frustrated with the S100 AF accuracy, while I love the look of it's rendering, like the 75mm Summilux or Noctilux for MF, I find the 120mm more reliable towards AF accuracy. For low light I would recommend the 70mm f2.5 it's light, can focus fast and it's reliable in low light.

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I use a Leica S007 professionally after having owned a Contax 645  with most of the Zeiss lenses for that system. I sold off the Zeiss 80mm at a good price as it is somewhat of a "cult" lens for the wedding market. I replaced it with the 70mm Leica with central shutter.  I have kept the other Zeiss lenses and use them with the adapter.

I went to the trouble of comparing the two in a controlled test using the Air Force Resolution Target. At apertures of about f/8 and smaller, I could not tell much difference, if any, between the two lenses. However, at full aperture the Zeiss Planar started to show color fringing at the edges, and a loss of some resolution, whereas the Leica lens had almost no loss of resolution right down to full open, and no color fringing. That said, we are talking about degrees of excellence here.

For portraiture, I have excellent results with the Zeiss 120mm MacroPlanar on the Leica S. You do have to be careful with manual focus but we are talking here about razor sharp eyelashes; the lens is really too sharp for a female face at close distance. I am sure you would get the same result, or better, with the Leica 120mm lens.

I do not own a 100mm lens so I can't offer much comment. I would think of it as more of a "waist up" focal length.

I am afraid there is a lot of silliness regarding these lens comparisons. For one thing, camera movement shooting handheld is going to overwhelm completely the slight differences in resolution between this lens or that, especially between such quality-conscious companies as Zeiss and Leica. Likewise, focussing errors are going to overwhelm the quality you could only see on an optical bench, in laboratory conditions. At this stratum of lens design, the best thing a photographer can do to get maximum sharpness is to put the camera on a tripod, release the mirror if the camera has one, and gently fire off the shutter.

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On 10/4/2022 at 7:04 PM, LeicaR10 said:

Mustana,  To answer your question in your Post #8, yes, I did own the S-120.  It worked along side the S-100.  I found the S-120 rendered more detail in rendering. For my work and IMO, too much so for portraits.  I found the rendering of the S-100 to be more like a Noctilux/Summilux when used wide or nearly wide open.  It has a way to adding softness and S-100 bokeh was more smooth.  My clients simply were over the moon with the resulting portraits.  They were happy and I was happy.  Some photographers say the S-100 is hard to focus.  IMO, they might find that an issue.  I did not, I always shoot my AF lenses in manual.  I want place the plane of focus where I want it, not let automation decide for me.  Of course, I look at photography as an art, nothing is fast for me.  I like to enjoy what I am creating for my clients or my personal use.  Kinda like an artist creating a painting.  It takes time to create a masterpiece and it needs for at least myself, to be my creation.  Albeit most of my professional photography was doing remote landscape photography, I always believed, if I hiked 50 miles or whatever to a location, I wanted to also enjoy the environment and landscape for what it was to me.  The S lenses helped me create the photographs that my clients wanted or needed.  In the case of the S-100, its main purpose was portraits that I would do for clients on a very rare occasion in natural settings.  I would also use it for landscapes when I wanted to create a certain look or feeling.  Both lenses are different and render as such.  If you want to use the S-100 AF and if focus looks a little off, you can get Leica Customer Care at Wetzlar to tweak your S006 and S-100 to be spot on.  I hope this helps.  r/ Mark

PS Last, the S-100 was designed for portrait photography.

Thank you Mark!

It is great to have the opinion of of someone who has actually used both the 100 and the 120 for portraiture. Most forumites here seem to pooh- pooh the S 100 F2 lens without actually having used it themselves for portraiture. The biggest complaint from those who actually have used it seems to be weak AF performance; but as you correctly point out if it is shot wide open with a razor thin depth of field it is perhaps better to use manual focus rather than using the Leica S's antiquated automatic focus mechanism.

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On 10/3/2022 at 4:11 PM, mgrayson3 said:

I have both the 100/2 and the 120/2.5. I much prefer the latter. For wider, the 70/2.5 renders beautifully. The 100/2 has a different look from the rest of the S system. It’s ok, but I don’t love it. 

Thank you for your response Matt. Have you ever used the S 100 F2 for portraiture?

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On 10/4/2022 at 11:52 AM, yudafu2 said:

Hi, I own both and use both for portraiture wide open. It depends on your style of portraiture. But I would opt for the 120, as it is a bit more versatile. 120 allows you to shoot headshots,  because it gets to 0.5m in close focus. 100 only focuses to 0.7m.   Another consideration is that 120 is slower in operation, but more accurate in focusing. 100 focuses faster, but easier to miss critical focus.  The 120 is also sharper wide open. 

The advantage of the 100, by contrast, are three things: 1. it has half stop larger aperture, which can be helpful in lower light.  2. it is considerably smaller than the 120, which makes it more portable and less intimidating.  3. Its bokeh is a bit more dramatic, wilder. The 120 is more typical of an APO telephoto lens, with smooth and melting background. 

I also used the 80mm Zeiss in the past. It is a much less refined lens compared with either the 100 or the 120. It is less sharp, and the focusing mechanism makes some strange sound. I would not recommend it unless you prefer its focal length. 

All the close-up portraits in this series are shot on the 120 on an S2-p. Feel free to check out. https://qiaophotography.com/highlight

 

George 

 

Thank you George!

Your opinion is valuable and appreciated.

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I am a big fan of the Zeiss 80mm F2 Planar, myself. The 120 APO was the first lens I bought for my 006, but I tend to grab the Zeiss 80 more often these days. AF is snappy and accurate, no AF motor issues, and skin tones are great, gentle even (with a tiny bit of desaturation and taking contrast down a notch). Better travel lens, too. The 80 is flexible out in an urban environment, but in a different way obviously over the 120, which doubles as a 1:2 Macro of course. On the other hand, if you can't tease out stellar portraits from either lens, then you're doing something wrong. There is also no reason at all to shoot any of these lenses constantly at their widest aperture. They produce stellar background blur closed down a click or two, and besides the eyes, the eyelashes AND the nose will be in focus, too. Re the 100, I see them for sale used between 5.5 and 7K (USD, that is). Note that all the Leica lenses under discussion are produced in really low numbers, with the 100 perhaps not even hitting the 1000 pieces mark, and the market reflects that fact. For the Zeiss 80 an adapter is required, which was also produced in limited quantities, so they tend to be expensive (if you can find one). Just my two cents...

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On 10/8/2022 at 1:09 PM, HuntingSand said:

I am a big fan of the Zeiss 80mm F2 Planar, myself. The 120 APO was the first lens I bought for my 006, but I tend to grab the Zeiss 80 more often these days. AF is snappy and accurate, no AF motor issues, and skin tones are great, gentle even (with a tiny bit of desaturation and taking contrast down a notch). Better travel lens, too. The 80 is flexible out in an urban environment, but in a different way obviously over the 120, which doubles as a 1:2 Macro of course. On the other hand, if you can't tease out stellar portraits from either lens, then you're doing something wrong. There is also no reason at all to shoot any of these lenses constantly at their widest aperture. They produce stellar background blur closed down a click or two, and besides the eyes, the eyelashes AND the nose will be in focus, too. Re the 100, I see them for sale used between 5.5 and 7K (USD, that is). Note that all the Leica lenses under discussion are produced in really low numbers, with the 100 perhaps not even hitting the 1000 pieces mark, and the market reflects that fact. For the Zeiss 80 an adapter is required, which was also produced in limited quantities, so they tend to be expensive (if you can find one). Just my two cents...

Just adding that the Zeiss 80/2 is a Contax 645 lens, so if you are looking for it and its adapter, the "Contax" label is useful.

While, as I said, I do not do portraiture, except by accident or mischief, I can speak for a serious portrait photographer who is equally happy using the 100/2 or 120/2.5, but since he owns the 120, he uses that by default. In other words, the difference between those lenses is way down his list of concerns in a portrait session.

We, myself included, often forget that just because X is better than Y, doesn't mean that the difference is significant. I'm always annoyed by the "increases risk of cancer 10 times" without saying whether or not that is 1% to 10% - very significant - or one in a billion to ten in a billion, which is not.

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