Veiling glare test

[dem331]

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I noticed a lot of veiling glare (if this is the correct technical term) on one of my lenses, I actually thought it must have haze, so I did a little experiment. 
 

I chose what I considered to be very adverse conditions. A dark subject flanked by two large bright windows . All shot on my SL2, all lenses at f5.6, ISO 3200, no filters, lens hood mounted. Focus on front arm of armchair. 
 

First, I started with the SL 24-90mm at 90mm as my test shot. 
 

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Excellent, I thought. 

 

Then I tried the 135mm Sonnar c/y

 

 

Very disappointed. Since the built-in lens hood is pretty small I improvised a a larger one with one hand. 
 

Continues…

[dem331]

Page 2

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I was surprised by the huge improvement. 

Next I tried the Tele-Elmar, penultimate version. 
 

 

Again, pretty bad

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[dem331]

Page 3

Again using my hand as additional shade:

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Big improvement 

Next a 90mm Elmar from the CL

Terrible

[dem331]

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Much better, but some vignetting from my hand

next, I tried a 90 mm collapsible elmar. 
 

 

terrible. This is one of the lenses I thought had haze

 

[dem331]

Page 5

With hand shade:

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Again, surprised by the improvement

 

 

[dem331]

Page 6
 

Now the Summilux 50 mm Asph

 

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And 50mm Summicron v4 

 

both excellent, specially the Summilux. No need for the hand shade 

[dem331]

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Page 7

Then I tried the M 90 mm Summicron Asph, the second one with a hand shade. 

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Really surprised as to how badly this did 

[dem331]

Page 8

well, I thought, it must be largely a function of the shade. Let’s try the 24-90 mm SL without the lens hood..

 

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This really surprised me. It is almost as good as with the hood!

Edited January 26, 2023 by dem331

[dem331]

Well, sorry for the length. My conclusion is that most of the lenses I have have inadequate lens hoods. That the Leica 90mm Ms I have -and the Tele-Elmar -are very flare prone. 

That the SL 24-90mm is incredibly flare resistant, almost not needing the hood. 
 

 

[Photoworks]

yes nothing new. If the light is in the image a lens shade is not going to help.

Many M lenses have this issue, but the 90's are especially good.

The optics on the SL lenses are better corrected, and almost no flare. I did notice one flare in the 50mm SL cron right in the middle  on dark subjects.

Make sure you take off filters.

[dem331]

4 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

yes nothing new. If the light is in the image a lens shade is not going to help.

Many M lenses have this issue, but the 90's are especially good.

The optics on the SL lenses are better corrected, and almost no flare. I did notice one flare in the 50mm SL cron right in the middle  on dark subjects.

Make sure you take off filters.

Yes, I guess my test was too extreme. 
 

I am convinced from normal use that the older 90s - the elmar and the collapsible flare much more than my other lenses, even when there is no direct light in the frame. I need to do a different comparison. 

[Stuart Richardson]

Lens hoods are often a compromise between what is effective and what is actually practical, especially with longer lenses. In the M lens line this is particularly noticeable, as the lenses are geared towards being compact, and the hoods also cannot obscure the framelines too much, or even worse, the rangefinder patch. In most cases the hoods are a bit limited by what is practical.

I would agree with you about the old 90mm lenses, however. I have a 90mm Tele-Elmarit M and it flares a lot, especially without its rather large hood... I have not really noticed much flare from my 90mm APO Summicron M, however. But I don't often shoot with this kind of side light.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Stuart Richardson

[dpitt]

2 hours ago, dem331 said:

Well, sorry for the length. My conclusion is that most of the lenses I have have inadequate lens hoods. That the Leica 90mm Ms I have -and the Tele-Elmar -are very flare prone. 

That the SL 24-90mm is incredibly flare resistant, almost not needing the hood. 
 

 

Thanks for performing these tests.
My conclusion is that modern lens design clearly has the edge here. Older design can be as good when the hood is perfect. Did you use the IUFOO hood on your older 90 and 135 lenses? And it seems logical to me that if Leica uses the same hood on a 135 and 90, it will have room for improvement on  the 135. I think some cardboard extension of this hood on the 135 range can be beneficial.

Edited January 26, 2023 by dpitt

[dem331]

33 minutes ago, dpitt said:

Thanks for performing these tests.
My conclusion is that modern lens design clearly has the edge here. Older design can be as good when the hood is perfect. Did you use the IUFOO hood on your older 90 and 135 lenses? And it seems logical to me that if Leica uses the same hood on a 135 and 90, it will have room for improvement on  the 135. I think some cardboard extension of this hood on the 135 range can be beneficial.

Yes, I used the 12575, which I think is the same one. I also tried it on the 50mm Summicron IV, but it did not improve the result much over the standard 12585. 

[hansvons]

4 hours ago, dem331 said:

Really surprised as to how badly this did 

You might be surprised that rental houses for cine gear and some cinematographers pay over 100K for five old lenses that do precisely this (Canon K35) and other bad stuff.

[dem331]

32 minutes ago, hansvons said:

You might be surprised that rental houses for cine gear and some cinematographers pay over 100K for five old lenses that do precisely this (Canon K35) and other bad stuff.

😂😂I’m not familiar with them, but I’m sure they flare “beautifully “. 

[darylgo]

I've often disregarded manufacturer claims of improved coatings making a significant difference but lately am seeing there can be real improvements.  It appears so here, with exceptions.

Unsolicited  a gentleman placed his hat to shade my tripod mounted camera/lens, the primary reason he wore it was it made a great lens shade. 

Leica Store Miami videos show what you demonstrated , they used live view and frequently were quite surprised.

Thanks for your efforts posting this.  

[helged]

As a follow-up and for those interested 😉: I did run some flaring tests years ago, see the link below and the following pages. Huge differences between the three 50mm lenses tested, with 50mm APO-M as the one with least flaring.

[huwm]

My worst lens for flare is a 90mm Elmar from the 50s

I've tended to use my hand but I rather like the idea of wearing a wide brimmed hat which I can flourish when necessary, hopefully with a degree of panache.

Edited January 28, 2023 by huwm

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