New to M11. Sharpness and detail issues. Haze, CA at wide aperture

[lct]

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Edited July 22, 2023 by lct

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[Knightspirit]

I had similar issues and concerns with my new M11 and 28mm Elmarit ASPH - pics were just not coming out sharp enough for me. After going round and round with ideas of a bad copy of the lens etc. I finally got on the forums here and found some threads on this (including this one). This led me to finally do a lens test of the Elmarit against my Nikon Z.

 

I put both cameras side by side on tripods and shot raw files at exactly the same settings. My conclusion was that both lenses are super sharp even zooming in all the way to pixelation. This confirmed for me that my issues were camera shake and even more important - zone focusing. I was just never seeing infinity in sharp focus. So you really cannot use the distance scale on the lens to get infinity focus stopping down - if you want infinity focus either focus on infinity or cheat it a little on the scale. I am now much more confident that i can take a sharp picture with this camera/lens combination. Lesson learned - it's probably more of a human issue than a lens issue...

 

 

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[ColdShower]

Thanks for all the comments. It seems that I missed all these great comments. 
So it happens that nothing is wrong particularly with the lens. It's just the way it performs in certain circumstances. For example, these lenses suffer from some several purple and green fringing in some high contrast situations when shooting wide open. Even my Apo 50 can display slight CA. 
 

I am actually digging these lenses for night photography a lot, I also added recently the Noctilux f1.2 and has more of that unpolished, softer look which I like.
Shot some of my favorite photos with these lenses and learned to embrace that some times I may be slightly out of focus or introduce slight shakes. Love the M system been shooting with it non stop. I had to overcome some of my state coming from GMaster lenses and the best AF on the market. 😕
All I shoot mainly is the M11, M11M and the M6 

I am blown away with the performance of these Lux lenses with the M11M. 
You can see some of my recent work posted here.

Thank you for the super helpful comments.!
 

 

[ColdShower]

On 12/22/2023 at 2:10 PM, Knightspirit said:

I had similar issues and concerns with my new M11 and 28mm Elmarit ASPH - pics were just not coming out sharp enough for me. After going round and round with ideas of a bad copy of the lens etc. I finally got on the forums here and found some threads on this (including this one). This led me to finally do a lens test of the Elmarit against my Nikon Z.

 

I put both cameras side by side on tripods and shot raw files at exactly the same settings. My conclusion was that both lenses are super sharp even zooming in all the way to pixelation. This confirmed for me that my issues were camera shake and even more important - zone focusing. I was just never seeing infinity in sharp focus. So you really cannot use the distance scale on the lens to get infinity focus stopping down - if you want infinity focus either focus on infinity or cheat it a little on the scale. I am now much more confident that i can take a sharp picture with this camera/lens combination. Lesson learned - it's probably more of a human issue than a lens issue...

I've gone through similar rabbit hole  

[gotium]

On 12/23/2023 at 4:00 PM, ColdShower said:

Thanks for all the comments. It seems that I missed all these great comments. 
So it happens that nothing is wrong particularly with the lens. It's just the way it performs in certain circumstances. For example, these lenses suffer from some several purple and green fringing in some high contrast situations when shooting wide open. Even my Apo 50 can display slight CA. 
 

I am actually digging these lenses for night photography a lot, I also added recently the Noctilux f1.2 and has more of that unpolished, softer look which I like.
Shot some of my favorite photos with these lenses and learned to embrace that some times I may be slightly out of focus or introduce slight shakes. Love the M system been shooting with it non stop. I had to overcome some of my state coming from GMaster lenses and the best AF on the market. 😕
All I shoot mainly is the M11, M11M and the M6 

I am blown away with the performance of these Lux lenses with the M11M. 
You can see some of my recent work posted here.

Thank you for the super helpful comments.!
 

 

where's them monochrom images?

[Wandering Photographer]

On 7/20/2023 at 12:06 AM, ColdShower said:

My first post. So I've been shooting with Sony and Canon and Nikon Cameras since the early days of digital. Often I adapt vintage lenses to my mirrorless because I like the look I get while still getting sharp images even with my FD canon glass.
 

So after shooting for two years with the Q2 I pulled the trigger on an M11 with a Summilux 35 and 50mm F1.4 II. What attracts me the most about the system is the high MP for print, the manual approach and the compactness of the glass.
I mainly shoot portraits and street photography and I love to shoot focus manually and wide open.

After reviewing a few thousand images taken with these lenses I find that while the images are in focus, they are supper hazy, with loads of CA and lack of details.The moment I zoom in I can see the imperfections and for print these imperfections show up.
I discussed this with other Leica shooters and they claim that these aberrations are the "dreamy look". But while I get the dreamy look from my adapted Canon FD glass on my Sony A1, I still get details very sharp.

I'm usually uber skeptical when buying something new and usually I rent first, but being Leica I didn't even thought it twice.

Is it possible that in order to get a sharp image with  "fast" Summilux glass I have to stop down to f5.6-f8? The reason why I went with the f1.4 is to shoot at 1.4.
I also have a Summicron 50mm f2 and i do get slightly  better results in terms of sharpness and lack of haze in my images when shooting at f2.

 

This are SOOC - AWB shot at f1.4 with some shadow lifts so you can see the details.

 

 

 

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I have an M11 and I have been quite happy with the results. I have a mix of f/1.4 and f/2 apo lenses, but I rarely shoot wide open unless the light is really low, like at dusk or I want a really narrow depth of field. I would include a photograph of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone to make my point except the rules here keep one from uploading a full resolution image so the image wouldn’t really make the point.