Light Lens Lab 50mm f/2 "Speed Panchro II" for Leica M

[hdmesa]

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4 hours ago, catacore said:

Black paint versions available for pre-order now.

 

@Huss 

[Huss]

12 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

@Huss 

TY but unusually my excitement for this lens has faded somewhat.  I think I will sit this one out until I see a lot more pics taken in 'real world' use.  Hmm, perhaps the low contrast, soft Cooke looke is not for me?

[hdmesa]

1 hour ago, Huss said:

TY but unusually my excitement for this lens has faded somewhat.  I think I will sit this one out until I see a lot more pics taken in 'real world' use.  Hmm, perhaps the low contrast, soft Cooke looke is not for me?

I passed on my pre-order as well. The rendering is not at all like the prototype I tested. Not to say that the rendering is not nice, but if I'm going soft wide open off center, I'd rather have their 50 Elcan for the tiny size factor. I also preferred the smaller ring hood on the prototype that's exactly like the Voigtlander hood for the 75 1.9. That giant hood they have now is a nice retro thing, but not practical for an M lens, IMO.

[tsleica]

LLL Elcan has been discontinued.

 

Quote

my excitement for this lens has faded somewhat.

Same here Huss..I just bought some soft focus filters in 39mm instead..works great!

Edited May 16, 2023 by tsleica

[hdmesa]

26 minutes ago, tsleica said:

LLL Elcan has been discontinued.

But is still readily available.

[catacore]

9 hours ago, hdmesa said:

I passed on my pre-order as well. The rendering is not at all like the prototype I tested. Not to say that the rendering is not nice, but if I'm going soft wide open off center, I'd rather have their 50 Elcan for the tiny size factor. I also preferred the smaller ring hood on the prototype that's exactly like the Voigtlander hood for the 75 1.9. That giant hood they have now is a nice retro thing, but not practical for an M lens, IMO.

To my eyes, at f/2, the image looks quite uniform, whether we look for sharpness, or glow, or contrast. As said in post #126, to my eyes, there is no difference between centre of off-centre. It's just at f/2.8 (focused at infinity) that I observed the glow dissapeared from the centre, but still present off-centre and to the edges (as seen in post #155).

As for the lens hood, mine sits on the lens' box since it arrived.

[Almizilero]

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I guess I've arrived at the crossroads ... I'll be on holiday for two weeks, visiting the baltic capitals. Minimal luggage, so it'll be the M with 28mm and one of the 50mm lenses. Right now, I can't decide if I'll take the Summicron for the no fuss guaranteed image quality (which also very much matches the look of my Voigtländer 28) or Sancho Panchro with more options to play around. Which probably means I'll shoot everything twice, once at F/2 and once at higher aperture ... And the fuss in post, trying to match the colours of the Panchro and the Voigtländer.
It's not a dedicated photo trip, so the Summicron would be the save option. But those cities are probably perfect for some Panchro style. Damn, I bought the M so that I wouldn't have to think about which lenses to take anymore

[Ray Vonn]

1 hour ago, Almizilero said:

Which probably means I'll shoot everything twice, once at F/2 and once at higher aperture ... And the fuss in post, trying to match the colours

Sorry to take this off thread but I had to laugh - the amount of times I've done that.  One day I'll stop doing it but I don't know when that will be.  Anyway, back to the topic.....

[sometimesmaybe]

2 hours ago, Almizilero said:

I guess I've arrived at the crossroads ... I'll be on holiday for two weeks, visiting the baltic capitals. Minimal luggage, so it'll be the M with 28mm and one of the 50mm lenses. Right now, I can't decide if I'll take the Summicron for the no fuss guaranteed image quality (which also very much matches the look of my Voigtländer 28) or Sancho Panchro with more options to play around. Which probably means I'll shoot everything twice, once at F/2 and once at higher aperture ... And the fuss in post, trying to match the colours of the Panchro and the Voigtländer.
It's not a dedicated photo trip, so the Summicron would be the save option. But those cities are probably perfect for some Panchro style. Damn, I bought the M so that I wouldn't have to think about which lenses to take anymore

no colour matching needed, just leave your Voigtländer at home... problem solved 😉

Edited May 18, 2023 by sometimesmaybe

[Anthony Miller]

Still waiting on my pre-order from Popflash but already wondering if it will be too similar to my 50mm f1.5 Summarit. The Summarit is kind of low contrast and does sharpening up when stopped down. 

[catacore]

I'm ditching the M-system, so mine is for sale 😉

[Anthony Miller]

Has anyone compared the Speed Panchro against the Voigtlander 50mm f1.5 Heliar Classic?

[Almizilero]

Am 18.5.2023 um 11:17 schrieb Almizilero:

I guess I've arrived at the crossroads ... I'll be on holiday for two weeks, visiting the baltic capitals. Minimal luggage, so it'll be the M with 28mm and one of the 50mm lenses. Right now, I can't decide if I'll take the Summicron for the no fuss guaranteed image quality (which also very much matches the look of my Voigtländer 28) or Sancho Panchro with more options to play around. Which probably means I'll shoot everything twice, once at F/2 and once at higher aperture ... And the fuss in post, trying to match the colours of the Panchro and the Voigtländer.
It's not a dedicated photo trip, so the Summicron would be the save option. But those cities are probably perfect for some Panchro style. Damn, I bought the M so that I wouldn't have to think about which lenses to take anymore

Well, I'm back and I took the Panchro along. Which did a really good job when I chose the aperture right. Often, the vintage look was just right for the situation, sometimes I forgot to close the aperture a bit and got nothing but mush. Infinity focus city- or landscapes don't go well with the Panchro, while close ups look really interesting, even wide open. It's still a learning curve with this lens.
As expected, the pictures don't mix well at all with those from the Voigtländer 28, but it's just holiday snaps, so who cares.

So all in all, I was quite happy that I decided to take the Panchro for this trip and not the Summicron with it's overall perfect, if a bit boring, rendition. But then I had to go into this little shop with a ton of used Leica gear. There I found a 50 Summilux (pre Asph., Version 2). Long story short, I now have three 50mm lenses and it got even harder to decide which one(s) to keep. I guess the Panchro will stay, as it is such a specialist lens and the resell value is probably nill. Even though I enjoyed using it during the trip, it's not really an everyday lens, so the Cron or Lux should stay as well. 
The Cron is just as perfect as it gets, perfect colours, sharp across the frame from wide open, a real workhorse. But therefore a bit boring. And the Lux is just something else. It's old and only sharp in the centre for quite a while (there it's amazing even wide open), but if I nail the focus and the light is just right, the images are just magical. Wide open it has a bit of a glow as well, but completely different from the Panchro.

So yeah, why did nobody warn me that the M system is a bottomless pit of lenses that one just wants to keep?
 

[Huss]

Re-sale value on the Panchro should be good unless you paid over sticker.  Prices are supposedly going up on those lenses.

[intangiblethings]

Can anybody advise on how to remove the filter that comes attached? 

Thanks in advance! 

[Huss]

2 hours ago, Al Brown said:

I have yet to see a LLL lens with good resale value and its prices going up.
Now MS Optical, that's a wildly different story.

I mentioned that because LLL said after the first batch they were going to raise the price of the SPII.

[RMF]

Looking at the LLL site, it shows about a $100 usd increase (over Popflash’s original prices) since it was launched.

[catacore]

Not to mention they removed the "tax included" sticker from the product page, meaning another 20% price increase for the EU customers.

Edited June 30, 2023 by catacore

[satijntje]

Placed the order for the black paint one.
Price is 840€ plus 15€ pp.
Might be very interesting to pair this lens with a M9!
 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[catacore]

1 hour ago, satijntje said:

Placed the order for the black paint one.
Price is 840€ plus 15€ pp.
Might be very interesting to pair this lens with a M9!
 

You might need to pay VAT + taxes upon arrival of your lens despite the fact that LLL would declare its value at 10 USD. Unless you get extremelly lucky. Keep us posted if you would care.