Summicron DR 50mm on digital bodies - Lens profile?

[Hanno]

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Hi everyone 

I understand that the Summicron DR 50mm is not officially supported by Leica on digital bodies, though it works well now on M11 and SL2 given the extra space available (BSI sensor on M11 and the M-adaptor on SL2). I had it serviced 2 years ago with Leica Germany when I bought it second hand and that was their policy. They did the servicing but offered no guarantee.

When mounting the lens (11 918) , it has therefore no identified lens profile recognised. Those using it on digital bodies, do you stick with unknown lens profile or do you try to get a close to Summicron 50mm profile and, if so which one ?

Thanks 

 

 

[UliWer]

Please, don‘t believe that old M-lenses need any digital „support“. They already did what was expected from them long before there was any digital camera or post processing.  You may just try with lens detection completely switched off and a manually chosen detection e.g. for the 50 Summicron 11817 or 11819. You see any difference? If you just want an f/2 50mm lens in your EXIF, just use the detections mentioned above. 

Edited December 5, 2023 by UliWer

[pegelli]

The only thing the "digital profiles" do is vignetting/shading correction. They don't correct distortion. So for me the only reason to use these profiles (all my lenses are old and non-coded) is to get something reasonably close in the EXIF (focal length/max aperture). I always shoot raw, so the vignetting/shading correction is easily adjusted in post in case I don't like the result.

[Hanno]

Thank you both of you - I shoot raw so same here re relying on post adjustments. I didn't think of the EXIF point. much appreciated.  

[a.noctilux]

This nice lens needs nothing more than what it can give, optically.

When I put "50" to have in the EXIF, nothing more was added (vignetting is lovely same as natural curvature of field).

[UliWer]

vor 56 Minuten schrieb a.noctilux:

same as natural curvature of field

Well, if there is curvature of field (i.e. resolution diminishes on the lenses radius from the center to the edge, perhaps in an irregular pattern), you can't do anything about it, neither in camera with lens detection nor in post production.

You can influence distortion. In camera lens correction for M lenses doesn't do anything in this respect, but you can do a lot in post production. Though the rigid Summicron 50mm doesn't show any serious distortion, so there is no need to spend any effort on this.

That's the difference between M-lenses (old and modern) and the lens for the Q or the SL-lenses. M-lenses may show less resolution than their counterparts for the Q or SL. But their better performance in this respect could only be achieved by accepting (much) more distortion. (Did you ever see any graphs about distortion in the data sheets for these lenses?) They are used on digital cameras only, so distortion can be corrected digitally. M-lenses must show what they can on film as well, where there is no chance for in-camera or post correction of distortion.

How to deal with distortion is no new topic of the digital age though. If one compares the old 1:1.5 or 1:2/50mm Zeiss Sonnars to their Leitz contemporaries, you may easily find out that the Sonnars were much better than a Summar, Summitar, Summicron (1. version) or Summarit as far as resolution is concerned. But don't try to shoot something with very straight parallel lines with a Sonnar if you don't like a lot of distortion - you won't see anything like this with any of the Leitz lenses. 

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by UliWer