Comparison of new Q3 43 APO lens to 35mm APO Summicron SL and 35mm APO-M lenses

[FlashGordonPhotography]

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On 10/16/2024 at 11:21 PM, JTLeica said:

I love to hear this, the Q bringing in people to the M system. Or even considering it. I had the RX1R II some years ago, there is no comparison in image quality with that vs the Q3 APO. The lens is night and day.

 

I love, love, love the 35mm Sonnar in my RX1RII. I'm not a 35mm guy but this is the lens that was closest to making me one. The 43mm APO may be more corrected but it's not better. Just different IMHO. Sony was a bit daft not to continue developing it. Considering how popular the Q3 and X100 cameras have become now.

Gordon

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[Tseg]

34 minutes ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

I love, love, love the 35mm Sonnar in my RX1RII. I'm not a 35mm guy but this is the lens that was closest to making me one. 

 

I'm with you that the 35mm Sonar is a fantastic lens, and because mine is 12 years old now makes it no less fantastic.... I have many, many outstanding photos from that smaller-than-the-Q camera.   If Sony had come out with a tighter FL RX1 version recently, no doubt that would have been what I purchased vs. the Q3 43.  But my Q3 43 should be arriving early this coming week (currently 1 state away in transit) and I'll somehow have to manage. 😎

[FlashGordonPhotography]

8 hours ago, Tseg said:

I'm with you that the 35mm Sonar is a fantastic lens, and because mine is 12 years old now makes it no less fantastic.... I have many, many outstanding photos from that smaller-than-the-Q camera.   If Sony had come out with a tighter FL RX1 version recently, no doubt that would have been what I purchased vs. the Q3 43.  But my Q3 43 should be arriving early this coming week (currently 1 state away in transit) and I'll somehow have to manage. 😎

I'm Leica over Sony for the menus, UI, weather sealing and UI. So, likely I'd still get the Q3-43. Same reason my SL3 goes with me and my A7R5 stays home, most of the time.

And I added a grip to make the RX1RII usable, for me. But damn, what an engineering marvel. Must give it a run soon, just because.

Gordon

[ianforber]

On 10/15/2024 at 4:58 PM, jonoslack said:

Well done Josh! 

I thought of trying this, but I didn't have a Q28 knocking about and used that as an excuse. You've done a splendid job - and I think you've arrived at what I imagined to be the case, which is that the Q3 43 lens is better than anything except the 35 APO SL (it might be interesting to compare it with the 50 APO SL as well (sorry I don't have one 😂). 

On the other hand there is something very special about the 'look' of the Q3 43 lens which you can't really measure - it rather crept up on me - I'm currently writing a follow up article about 10 days in Crete with the Q3 43 - shot almost exclusively at f2.

All the best

Jono

I’d be really interested in what a talented and experienced photographer (ie you!) could produce with the Q3, Q3 43 and M11 on a trip using an M lens that makes it broadly comparable to the Qs, perhaps the 50mm Summicron or the APO version of that. I don’t mean taking pictures of the same thing at the same distance using different cameras, just maybe taking a different camera out on different days and then cropping the Q3 to a 50mm equivalent image using only the centre of the image. Remove all metadata, including aperture and shutter speed and, obviously, post on here at the maximum jpeg quality allowed.

I’m not arguing for or against any of the cameras, I’d just like to see if there’s any confirmation bias overriding what we see. I’m all for confirmation bias by the way, otherwise I’d have no reason to buy new stuff!

[jonoslack]

44 minutes ago, ianforber said:

I’d be really interested in what a talented and experienced photographer (ie you!) could produce with the Q3, Q3 43 and M11 on a trip using an M lens that makes it broadly comparable to the Qs, perhaps the 50mm Summicron or the APO version of that. I don’t mean taking pictures of the same thing at the same distance using different cameras, just maybe taking a different camera out on different days and then cropping the Q3 to a 50mm equivalent image using only the centre of the image. Remove all metadata, including aperture and shutter speed and, obviously, post on here at the maximum jpeg quality allowed.

I’m not arguing for or against any of the cameras, I’d just like to see if there’s any confirmation bias overriding what we see. I’m all for confirmation bias by the way, otherwise I’d have no reason to buy new stuff!

Hi There Ian

It's a interesting idea - currently I have two problems:

1. no Q3 (I have a Q3 43 and an M11)

2. no trip 🤦‍♂️Next planned trip is to Fuerteventura next March!

Posting images here might not make the differences compelling, but they would certainly be visible if everything was cropped to 50mm, both in quality and bokeh/dof. . I also feel that the Q3 43 lens has a quality about it which is present in other Leica APO badged lenses . . . .a kind of gentle concentration . . . 

All the best

[ianforber]

3 hours ago, jonoslack said:

Hi There Ian

It's a interesting idea - currently I have two problems:

1. no Q3 (I have a Q3 43 and an M11)

2. no trip 🤦‍♂️Next planned trip is to Fuerteventura next March!

Posting images here might not make the differences compelling, but they would certainly be visible if everything was cropped to 50mm, both in quality and bokeh/dof. . I also feel that the Q3 43 lens has a quality about it which is present in other Leica APO badged lenses . . . .a kind of gentle concentration . . . 

All the best

It’s a reason for another trip though! I agree the DoF is likely to be pretty obviously different but I wonder how different if you are taking pics with the Q3 that are close to the subject and, by keeping the subject in the centre will have less obvious distortion. Personally, I could never see a difference between my M11 + 50mm Summicron (or my CV 35mm f1.5 Nokton) and my Q2 cropped but I think I just can’t see the difference between lenses. 

[JayQ3]

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I am still wondering if my Q3 43 actually has an Apochromatic lens design as I see color fringing and other aberrations in high-contrast images,  these should not be there or minimal in an APO design. I have asked Leica to confirm whether the lens is an apochromat but they will not answer my emails LOL!

Edited October 21, 2024 by JayQ3

[JayQ3]

Looking at the patent that DPReview posted this lens does NOT look like an apochromatic lens design unless I am missing something...

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US435544660

[jonoslack]

22 hours ago, JayQ3 said:

I am still wondering if my Q3 43 actually has an Apochromatic lens design as I see color fringing and other aberrations in high-contrast images,  these should not be there or minimal in an APO design. I have asked Leica to confirm whether the lens is an apochromat but they will not answer my emails LOL!

You will need to define what you mean . . the term Apochromatic only refers to longitudinal chromatic aberration in the part of the image which is perfectly in focus. Leica's APO lenses do more than this.

 

this might help, if you would like to read the whole article it's here ( https://www.slack.co.uk/leica-apo-m-lenses.html )

 

So, what exactly is an APO lens? The truth is that it's rather a vague term and not to be confused with Apochromatic, which isn't vague at all!

Longitudinal Chromatic Aberrations occur when different colours focus at different distances from a lens and cause colour fringing around high contrast edges. An Achromatic lens is one which is corrected to ensure that two wavelengths of light focus in the same plane - an Apochromatic lens is where 3 wavelengths of light focus on the same plane. This is well and good, but it doesn't cover the bokeh, so although it's relevant where an image is completely in focus, it isn't when it's not.

With Leica's APO lenses chromatic aberrations are reduced by the use of low dispersion glass elements in the lens design. The intention is to reduce chromatic aberration in all areas, both in focus and out of focus. As more APO lenses have appeared they have refined the design, so that they have become more and more successful, culminating in the SL summicron lenses and the new 35 APO Summicron M.

So for practical purposes we might define an APO lens as one which contains one or more low dispersion glass elements - Indeed, Leica has made this statement:

APO
Apochromatic and more The prefix 'APO' in the name denotes Leica lenses with the best imaging performance. From telephotos to wide-angles, all Summicron-SL lenses in the SL-System portfolio bear these coveted three letters before their names. For a long time, this
distinction was reserved exclusively for telephoto lenses, as only they could achieve the exceptional quality required. It is now over 40 years since the first APO lens built by Leica made its appearance - the APO-TELYT-R 180 mm f/3.4, in 1975. In
2012, the APO-Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 ASPH. became the first standard lens to bear this prestigious prefix.

images/u47114-15.png?crc=408533648Thanks to technological progress, more complex construction and new manufacturing methods employed in the SL-System
the design engineers were able to perfectly maximise the optical performance. To us at Leica, APO means more than just the correction of longitudinal chromatic aberration, for which the purely scientific definition of the term 'apochromatic' stands.

This is emphasising that Leica intend to remove chromatic aberrations in all parts of the image, not just where it's in focus.

But this is not just about Chromatic aberration, as Peter Karbe explained to me, the lack of aberrations results in much more contrast at the point of focus than in an ordinary lens, and that this contrast falls off very quickly in front and behind the point of focus. This means that an f2 lens can appear to have the same depth of field as an f1.4 lens.

 

To summarise:

Leica's definition of an APO lens seems to be, quite simply, one which utilises low dispersion glass in construction with the intention of reducing chromatic aberrations, both in focus and out of focus.

Reducing the aberrations increases contrast noticeably when in focus, which has the visual effect of simulating a narrower depth of field, because the contrast drops sharply as focus is lost.

This has allowed them to produce a range of f2 lenses which have the apparent depth of field of faster lenses, this in turn allows the lenses to be smaller and lighter and makes it possible to make them very high quality, they are however extremely difficult to manufacture, which explains why they are so expensive.

 

[Tseg]

Interesting they define f2 with an f/1.4 DOF appearance, obviously with an f/2 impact to ISO.   So the f1.7 Summilux wide open has isolation like an f/1.7 28mm lens, but the f2.0 43mm APO Summicron lens has the isolation of f/1.4 43mm lens, really cementing the Q343 title as "portrait monster".   ... but maybe I misunderstood.

[Dr. G]

39 minutes ago, Tseg said:

Interesting they define f2 with an f/1.4 DOF appearance, obviously with an f/2 impact to ISO.   So the f1.7 Summilux wide open has isolation like an f/1.7 28mm lens, but the f2.0 43mm APO Summicron lens has the isolation of f/1.4 43mm lens, really cementing the Q343 title as "portrait monster".   ... but maybe I misunderstood.

Sort of, but that doesn't tell the whole story.  They have said it has subject isolation of a 1.4, but there is a difference in falloff.  If you look at images taken, for example, with the 50 Lux SL and the 50 APO SL you can see how the subject isolation is about the same, but the falloff zone is more abrupt on the APO.  Many portrait photographers still prefer the Lux rendering over the APO rendering.  

[Olaf_ZG]

1 hour ago, Dr. G said:

Sort of, but that doesn't tell the whole story.  They have said it has subject isolation of a 1.4, but there is a difference in falloff.  If you look at images taken, for example, with the 50 Lux SL and the 50 APO SL you can see how the subject isolation is about the same, but the falloff zone is more abrupt on the APO.  Many portrait photographers still prefer the Lux rendering over the APO rendering.  

The sl lux is a great camera for portraits. Its rendering is different from an Apo, and the latter might even be too sharp. I can’t wait to get the Q though and do (out of studio) portraits with it. It won’t be as a Lux, but for sure, for the size of the Q, quality will be very good.

I would never go out with the SL lux just for fun and take a spontaneous portrait. With the Q I will, and to me, this is the big difference between the two.

[Dr. G]

43 minutes ago, Olaf_ZG said:

The sl lux is a great camera for portraits. Its rendering is different from an Apo, and the latter might even be too sharp. I can’t wait to get the Q though and do (out of studio) portraits with it. It won’t be as a Lux, but for sure, for the size of the Q, quality will be very good.

I would never go out with the SL lux just for fun and take a spontaneous portrait. With the Q I will, and to me, this is the big difference between the two.

You can always decrease sharpness with the APO lens or use a mild diffusion filter, but you can't adequately add sharpness to a softer lens - so you'll be fine

[LocalHero1953]

39 minutes ago, Dr. G said:

You can always decrease sharpness with the APO lens or use a mild diffusion filter, but you can't adequately add sharpness to a softer lens - so you'll be fine

That applies to the sharp areas, but the OOF area has different character of bokeh between lenses, that can make a real world difference. I prefer not to use the Apo SL 75 for some portraits because of what one might call the 'business' or 'nervousness' when there are sharp edges, especially repeated sharp edges in the background, such as one might get from fences, grass blades or twigs. This can be distracting in an area that you really want to recede. This is an example (#4732) I noticed recently, although in this case it is an older Summilux. My favourites, the Summilux-SL 50, Summilux-M 75 and Sigma 85 f/1.4 DG DN show this effect much less. Bokeh balls are another phenomenon I try to avoid in portraits, unless I want a spangled halo effect.

I look forward to seeing how the Q3 43 lens behaves in this respect.

Edited October 22, 2024 by LocalHero1953

[Dr. G]

23 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

That applies to the sharp areas, but the OOF area has different character of bokeh between lenses, that can make a real world difference. I prefer not to use the Apo SL 75 for some portraits because of what one might call the 'business' or 'nervousness' when there are sharp edges, especially repeated sharp edges in the background, such as one might get from fences, grass blades or twigs. This can be distracting in an area that you really want to recede. This is an example (#4732) I noticed recently, although in this case it is an older Summilux. My favourites, the Summilux-SL 50, Summilux-M 75 and Sigma 85 f/1.4 DG DN show this effect much less. Bokeh balls are another phenomenon I try to avoid in portraits, unless I want a spangled halo effect.

I look forward to seeing how the Q3 43 lens behaves in this respect.

Precisely why I'm still keeping my 50 Lux SL.

[JTLeica]

47 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

That applies to the sharp areas, but the OOF area has different character of bokeh between lenses, that can make a real world difference. I prefer not to use the Apo SL 75 for some portraits because of what one might call the 'business' or 'nervousness' when there are sharp edges, especially repeated sharp edges in the background, such as one might get from fences, grass blades or twigs. This can be distracting in an area that you really want to recede. This is an example (#4732) I noticed recently, although in this case it is an older Summilux. My favourites, the Summilux-SL 50, Summilux-M 75 and Sigma 85 f/1.4 DG DN show this effect much less. Bokeh balls are another phenomenon I try to avoid in portraits, unless I want a spangled halo effect.

I look forward to seeing how the Q3 43 lens behaves in this respect.

Yes it happens most where the out of focus area as only just out of focus and there’s harsh edges, almost appearing like a double bokeh effect. 

[JayQ3]

6 hours ago, jonoslack said:

You will need to define what you mean . . the term Apochromatic only refers to longitudinal chromatic aberration in the part of the image which is perfectly in focus. Leica's APO lenses do more than this.

 

this might help, if you would like to read the whole article it's here ( https://www.slack.co.uk/leica-apo-m-lenses.html )

 

 

So, what exactly is an APO lens? The truth is that it's rather a vague term and not to be confused with Apochromatic, which isn't vague at all!

Longitudinal Chromatic Aberrations occur when different colours focus at different distances from a lens and cause colour fringing around high contrast edges. An Achromatic lens is one which is corrected to ensure that two wavelengths of light focus in the same plane - an Apochromatic lens is where 3 wavelengths of light focus on the same plane. This is well and good, but it doesn't cover the bokeh, so although it's relevant where an image is completely in focus, it isn't when it's not.

 

With Leica's APO lenses chromatic aberrations are reduced by the use of low dispersion glass elements in the lens design. The intention is to reduce chromatic aberration in all areas, both in focus and out of focus. As more APO lenses have appeared they have refined the design, so that they have become more and more successful, culminating in the SL summicron lenses and the new 35 APO Summicron M.

So for practical purposes we might define an APO lens as one which contains one or more low dispersion glass elements - Indeed, Leica has made this statement:

APO
Apochromatic and more The prefix 'APO' in the name denotes Leica lenses with the best imaging performance. From telephotos to wide-angles, all Summicron-SL lenses in the SL-System portfolio bear these coveted three letters before their names. For a long time, this
distinction was reserved exclusively for telephoto lenses, as only they could achieve the exceptional quality required. It is now over 40 years since the first APO lens built by Leica made its appearance - the APO-TELYT-R 180 mm f/3.4, in 1975. In
2012, the APO-Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 ASPH. became the first standard lens to bear this prestigious prefix.

 

images/u47114-15.png?crc=408533648Thanks to technological progress, more complex construction and new manufacturing methods employed in the SL-System
the design engineers were able to perfectly maximise the optical performance. To us at Leica, APO means more than just the correction of longitudinal chromatic aberration, for which the purely scientific definition of the term 'apochromatic' stands.

This is emphasising that Leica intend to remove chromatic aberrations in all parts of the image, not just where it's in focus.

 

But this is not just about Chromatic aberration, as Peter Karbe explained to me, the lack of aberrations results in much more contrast at the point of focus than in an ordinary lens, and that this contrast falls off very quickly in front and behind the point of focus. This means that an f2 lens can appear to have the same depth of field as an f1.4 lens.

 

To summarise:

 

Leica's definition of an APO lens seems to be, quite simply, one which utilises low dispersion glass in construction with the intention of reducing chromatic aberrations, both in focus and out of focus.

Reducing the aberrations increases contrast noticeably when in focus, which has the visual effect of simulating a narrower depth of field, because the contrast drops sharply as focus is lost.

This has allowed them to produce a range of f2 lenses which have the apparent depth of field of faster lenses, this in turn allows the lenses to be smaller and lighter and makes it possible to make them very high quality, they are however extremely difficult to manufacture, which explains why they are so expensive.

 

The issue is I see reference from Leica themselves stating the APO designation is used on lenses having an Apochromatic construction, the Q3 43 does not have an Apochromatic construction going off the patent and seeing the results in the field.  I have owned a few Voigtlander APO Lanthar's over the years and none of them had this red/orange/cyan fringing.

EDIT: Not just me it seems:-

https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1877204/

 

 

Edited October 22, 2024 by JayQ3

[SrMi]

6 hours ago, JayQ3 said:

The issue is I see reference from Leica themselves stating the APO designation is used on lenses having an Apochromatic construction, the Q3 43 does not have an Apochromatic construction going off the patent and seeing the results in the field.  I have owned a few Voigtlander APO Lanthar's over the years and none of them had this red/orange/cyan fringing.

EDIT: Not just me it seems:-

https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1877204/

What is an Apochromatic construction?

Jono wrote in his article "Leica APO M lenses":

"Leica's definition of an APO lens seems to be, quite simply, one which utilises low dispersion glass in construction with the intention of reducing chromatic aberrations, both in focus and out of focus."

Leica writes in the press release:

"The Leica Q3 43 creates extraordinarily sharp, high-contrast images in any lighting condition and still maintains its compact, lightweight form, even with the complex construction of the apochromatically corrected lens with four aspherical lenses."

Edited October 23, 2024 by SrMi

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica Q

[jonoslack]

11 hours ago, JayQ3 said:

The issue is I see reference from Leica themselves stating the APO designation is used on lenses having an Apochromatic construction, the Q3 43 does not have an Apochromatic construction going off the patent and seeing the results in the field.  I have owned a few Voigtlander APO Lanthar's over the years and none of them had this red/orange/cyan fringing.

EDIT: Not just me it seems:-

https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1877204/

 

 

Sure - there is some fringing in some circumstances, but only in out of focus areas. . . . . . . . . . . which is not covered by the term apochromatic, which only refers to the point of focus, which is fine.

and as SrMi says - "What is an Apochromatic construction?" it's about the glass, not the design. 

[Stuart Richardson]

14 hours ago, Dr. G said:

You can always decrease sharpness with the APO lens or use a mild diffusion filter, but you can't adequately add sharpness to a softer lens - so you'll be fine

I also think half the time people are complaining about it, they are using the default settings in Lightroom and Photoshop or Capture One which are already overblown for Leica cameras, let alone ones with SL APO Summicrons. I can understand wanting a softer presentation but I never understood the "too sharp" phraseology. A perfect lens is just transmitting a more accurate representation of reality. A lens cannot really be too sharp unless reality can be too sharp. This is of course not accounting for signal processing, which I think is usually what people object to. Or bokeh, as mentioned above.

But anyway, I am not trying to say softer photos are bad if that is what the aesthetic you want to go for, but I just always found the formulation a bit strange.