Erwins Review of the new Emarit 28mm ASPH

[james_cooke]

Here is a link to Erwins lastest review of the new Elmarit 28mm f2.8 ASPH.

 

http://www.imx.nl/photosite/leica/elmarit28asph/elmarit.html

 

Pretty much what I was hoping/expecting. I certainly wasn't expecting it to

match the 28mm Summicron at f2.8. Most lenses get better one stop down so thats

seems fair. Good price, might get myself one.

 

*note* feel free to agree or disagree with the review by all means but try not

let the thread devolve into a Erwin bashing thead, play nice, thanks!

[leon chang]

Would there ever be a really BAD Leica M- lens?!

[35mmdelux]

Was thinking about one myself but had a mint Version 4 cross my desk at good price and I snapped it up.

 

Thanks.

[john_shriver]

Interesting. In a certain way, Leica really has designed a "digital" lens here for the M8's 1.33 crop CCD sensor. Look at the MTF graphs. The new Elmarit-ASPH has MTF mostly comprable to the Summicron-ASPH out to the 16.25mm diagonal radius of the CCD. Then it drops very fast. Now, even at 21.5mm, it's still as good as the old Elmarit. But what they have done is focus on making the CCD area as good as the Summicron, while letting the remaining "film" margin fall back down to the performance of the old Elmarit. So it's a film compatible lens, but it's even better as a croped CCD lens.

 

Very savvy. They are shifting the constraints some, choosing different optimization rules.

 

Puts leaves you to read between the lines to figure this out.

 

He also notes that they improved distortion, at some cost in resolution. But perhaps that is all the resolution the M8's sensor can use. Think of it as an external moire filter, which is not a bad thing... Sampling without a low-pass filter is really a bad idea.

[vinay_patel]

I noted with some alarm his remark something to the effect that different materials and methods were used to make the lens less expensive.

[elmarfudd]

Don't worry, it was made from only the finest Coke bottle bottoms.

[james_elwing]

I also would read it as an M8 lens; ditto the wide angle Tri Elmar 16-18-21, which is probably also at its best within the M8 sensor boundary. LFI 8/06 will apparently review the Tri Elmar for film & digital. I was surprised it would cover the 24x36 format.

 

With ISO starting at 160, wider aperture lenses will not be as necessary for light gathering. I dont like to think of myself as excitable, but am becoming fairly enthusiastic about the M8.

[keirst]

I'd just like to point out the old 35mm/1.4 ASPH and 35mm/2 ASPH MTFs also show a

drop in performance at about 17-18mm from center. Those designs don't have as

contrasty/ high resolution central fields as the new 28mm/2.8 ASPH. The aspheric 35mms

make great negatives, and I imagine the new 28mm will be absolutely fine for film, better

than 99% of 28mm lenses ever made. I'm glad to read the OOF and tonality of the new lens

is smooth, as the Summicron 28mm can be a bit sketchy in OOF areas.

 

I'm also glad that Leica is making this lens compatible with old and new cameras, and at a

lower cost than the v.4 pre-ASPH Elmarit 28mm. I imagine some Leica retailers must be

pissed that they still have stocks of the older lenses with higher retail and wholesale costs.

[keirst]

Here's a GIF of the MTFs from Leica of the two 28mm ASPH lenses at f/2.8 and f/5.6. The Red

lines are the f/2.0, Green lines are the f/2.8, and Yellow shows overlap. The MTFs indicate

both designs are very similar in image quality, with only a slight fall off in performance in the

very corners for the new f/2.8 design for tangential lines.