Am I crazy for wanting to sell my 28mm Elmarit ASPH II to help fund a 35mm Summicron V3?

[28framelines]

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55 minutes ago, pippy said:

Ah! Fair enough.

I, too, dislike Barrel-Distortion and this was the very reason I did not, myself, buy the 35mm f1.4 v1 Nokton. I did think that Voigtlander had addressed this aspect with the v2 re-design but it seems that I was mistaken. My solution (at the time) was to buy the 40mm f1.4 Nokton as with this lens there is effectively no B-D. I also judged the 40mm to be close-enough to 35mm that - for my shooting-style at that time - it made no noticeable difference.

I agree, Tessar, that the LLL would be a great choice. It fulfils 28framelines three requirements in that it has tons of character, no (noticeable) barrel-distortion and a 0.7m MFD.

Oddly enough as this thread piqued my curiosity I've just been playing around in the studio testing for barrel-distortion characteristics of four lenses; the f3.5 Summaron (M) / LLL '8-Element' / v2 Summilux 35mm lenses and the 40mm f1.4 Voigtlander Nokton. The bottom-line was that not one of these lenses would have needed more than +/- 1.0 correction in Photoshop and the LLL 8-E just shaded the Summilux for rectilinearity by a hair's breadth although it was neccessary to pixel-peep at 100% to see any difference.

In 'Real World' shooting these lenses are as close to ideal (in this regard) as could be required.

Philip.

I did not know this about the 40mm f1.4 Nokton!! That’s cool! That’s great to hear it does not suffer from major barrel distortion! So maybe, it’s between the LLL and this. Thank you, Philip!

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[Tessar.]

3 hours ago, 28framelines said:

You know, I did not consider the LLL 35mm 8e replica. Maybe I’ll take a look at that. As for the rest of your message, you make really great points. Thank you for sort of “walking me back” from the edge of a cliff, as it were haha. And if I still decide “this is what I want” maybe I can save for the bigger purchase.

I've been at that cliff edge many times.  So many lenses, so little time

[Smudgerer]

8 hours ago, pippy said:

I'm going to be the fifth person in this thread to say that you really should try the 35mm f1.4 Nokton v2 and the fourth person to say don't sell the 28 Elmarit.

Philip.

+1.....Sixth person

[RexGig0]

On 9/14/2023 at 2:23 PM, 28framelines said:

Don’t get me wrong, I _love_ my 28mm, but I just feel like it’s less flexible when I’m trying to do a bit of everything: Street, portraiture, documenting life’s moments. I can’t seem to get the look for portraits that the likes of Stephen gets with his 28’s, or Joe Greer or Andre Wagner for that matter.

Some thoughts:

You “love” your 28mm Elmarit.

Have you tried using the distance and DOF scales to set a desired distance to be within focus, and then practiced judging that distance, to capture images? A 28mm lens has more  depth of field, which facilitates this focusing method.

Have you tried using your mind’s eye, rather than the viewfinder, to frame shots? This need not be “hip shooting.” It can be done from any height that is lower than one’s eye. I am not saying that 28mm is better than 35mm for this, but, for many photographers, 28mm does work better, for this technique. 

No, it is not “crazy” to sell one lens, to fund another lens. Selling a lens that one loves, however, complicates the matter. (I finally bought myself a Leica M lens new, rather than pre-owned, recently. I will now have to sell some things, which may include lenses that I have loved, but the leading candidates are heavy telephoto SLR lenses, which have become difficult to use hand-held, and less fun to carry, when traveling.

I think that I may be the seventh member to advise trying the Voigtlander Nokton 35/1.4 II VM. 😉 OK, I realize that you do not like barrel distortion. I do not see a bothersome amount of barrel distortion, in Nokton f/1.4 II images, but, if you see it, that is what matters.

 

[lct]

The Summicron v3 is not free from barrel distortion either AFAIK. Would be interesting to know if it is any better than the Nokton v2 in this respect.

[rramesh]

Whenever you have an urge to sell a lens, just mount it on your camera and use it. 😉