stuart d

I know - I'm such a scumbag. Sorry for the temptation, Jay. :-)

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Last Friday I had the chance to try out the new 50 'lux ASPH at a

Leica Day / Clean & Check event in Denver. It's surprisingly compact.

I'm not sure if I really cared for the focus tab, but I'd probably

get used to it if I had to. (Will I? No - I'm happy with my last

generation 50 lux.)

 

I squeezed off a few shots of Jim Butler cleaning an SL2 at around

80cm, exposure was 1/30 @ f/1.7 on FP4+. Here are a couple of

unaltered scans to give an impression of the lens' performance in low

light at a close distance. Let me know if you'd like any sections

enlarged, and I'll post those later.<div></div>

In the first, the outstretched hand seems to be responding to the speaker's interaction, almost in adulation. In the second, it looks as though the outstretched hand is reaching out to snatch the bible right out of the speaker's grasp.

 

Two excellent and very different photos, which would work well side by side as well as on their own. Can't say I prefer one over the other, though.

A potential Barnack Award winner.

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I recently sold my 90 cron in spite of its excellent performance. Having owned it for 2 1/2 years, I could count the number of times I used the lens on one hand. It's not that the lens was heavy in its own right - it's more that the cumulative weight when added to the rest of my kit acted as a disincentive to carry it around. If you don't have the lens with you, then there's no way it'll be used.

 

Consider too that the Elmarit is only 90 grams lighter than the cron, and I decided against replacing the latter with the former. Rather than consider the 90 Macro Elmar, I'm now restricting my M lenses to the 21, 35 and 50mm focal lengths.

Sounds like a case of gear-itis to me. If you like the results of your current lens, then keep it.

 

If, on the other hand, you didn't own a 35mm focal length lens, and were choosing between the two lenses, I'd offer the following advice:

 

Do you predominantly shoot colour or B&W? I compared the v4 pre-ASPH cron with the ASPH cron, and the former vignetted all the way to f/5.6, while the latter was much more even out to the corners. At the time I was shooting colour slides, so I went with the ASPH cron. These days I tend to shoot more B&W than colour, so the vignetting of the pre-ASPH wouldn't matter so much.

34, Leica M user for 3 years, another former Canon user (both manual & auto focus). Joined the LHSA for the quarterly magazine, not for the annual meeting.

Samantha<div></div>

Paul - By 'inferior', I meant that the VF patch is smaller and less contrasty than that of - say - an M2, so it's not as easy to focus precisely. I think it's circular instead of rectangular. Having never touched a CL or XA, I couldn't give you a comparison. But it reminded me a little of the Xpan and FujiGW/GSW670/690 rangefinder patches.

 

Hope that helps.

I thought I'd love the Contax T based on its reputation, but when I got my hands on one at Samy's Camera in LA about 2 months ago, I was underwhelmed. Sure, it's a great pocketable camera, but unless you're willing to leave the lens extended, it's not 'always on'. The aperture and focus rings are tiny, but if you're zone focusing then quick changes are less important. I think the dealbreakers for me were the poor viewfinder, and the lack of manual controls. The rangefinder patch was ok, but definitely inferior to a Leica's. The LEDs were washed out, so it was virtually impossible to work out what exposure the camera determined for me. Unless I'm very much mistaken, there is no way to set the shutter speed manually, and I don't think the camera had exposure compensation other than changing the film EI.

 

The guy was willing to sell the T - with the accessory flash - for $250, but it was showing its age (both in terms of its condition, and its user friendliness) and so I passed.

 

For P&S work, I'm coming around to the idea that the answer is a small 4-6MP digicam.

Patrick - you took the words right out of my mouth. I've read through all sorts of explanations of MTF charts, but I just can't get it into my thick skull what they represent, or more specifically, what's great vs. mediocre.

I just sold mine minutes ago on the classifieds forum. Fun, and great performance from a P&S, but mine rarely got used. Thanks to the onslaught of digicams, I think film Point 'n' Squirts have a very limited lifespan ahead of them.

Patrick - from a European perspective you had a 1 in 3 chance of getting it right, so I had to chuckle when you picked the right company. These days I'm also closer to B2B, having worked as an SAP Supply Chain consultant for longer than I care to admit.

 

You're right about the lack of world class supply chain management principles used by Leica - things might be a little different if they used Walmart as a distribution channel :-) But in many ways, thank god they don't. Leica should get a whole lot more consumer oriented with their bespoke orders, but the last I saw they were going to charge 300 Euros for each order, and I just don't see how they'll make money doing this with their current business model. Add the costs of accurate forecasts, custom manufacturing lines, and direct communication to consumers, and they'll be about as profitable as United Airlines in 3 weeks flat.

 

I wonder whether the 'old' M7s in the supply chain will wind up going back to Leica for a VF retrofit. But from Marc's disparaging comments about his own experience, I don't think any of us should hold our breath - even if our hobbies happen to include free diving.

Patrick - guilty as charged. Were you a Proctoid too? I left the UK firm back in '95 to come to the US.

 

One thing I learned at P&G was that although you couldn't afford to burn your consumers, you REALLY couldn't afford to burn your retail customers. I hope that Leica worked the 'New & improved' sticker promo strategy through their distributors & key customers before the launch. Any change of packaging had to go to the very top for approval, because that was the one thing that consumers recognized above all else, and that the company controlled (unlike positioning on retail shelves). Even though selling M7s isn't anything like selling Ariel or Tide, I hope that the folks in Solms gave this proper thought, so they didn't screw up their distribution channels.

 

BTW - it's good to see you back, Jay.

'New & improved' - takes me right back to my soap powder marketing days. Great for the consumer, but sucks for the retailer who is stuck with the old stock.

Stuart - No offense taken. I thought your comments were directed at me because I raised the matters of scientific content vs jpegs, but now I see I wasn't alone. I agree that the more variables you introduce to a test, the greater the chance for results that cannot be compared directly. Comparative testing really boils down to the methodology used, the accuracy of testing, and the honesty of reporting.

 

Harry - Each to their own, exactly. Wouldn't this world be a boring place without differing opinions? I certainly don't take anything written here personally, but I do like to clarify my points if I feel that I haven't explained myself well enough, or if they have been misinterpreted.

 

My closing comment on this thread is that Erwin's article is the first review of the new lens. As such, it stands out, and it can only be compared with... other reviews Erwin has written. Comparisons are natural, both in reviews and in how we interpret them. Erwin himself makes reference to eight other lenses in this article. Until we have more data points about this lens from other credible sources, we cannot prove or disprove the accuracy of Erwin's commentary. It's up to the individual reader to decide whether to blindly accept the article at face value, or to look at the author's earlier works to see if a pattern exists.

Stuart R - At what point in either of my prior posts on this thread did I indicate that his article <i>angered</i> me? You used the word twice, and you referred to my comments, so I went back to re-read both of my posts to judge whether I gave that impression. For the life of me, I could not interpret them that way.

 

<p>As for the argument that one cannot judge a lens' performance based on a downsized jpg from a scan, maybe that's true in <i>absolute</i> terms. But I have seen threads by Andy Piper and Lutz Konermann - to name just a couple of contributors - that do a wonderful job of illustrating the <i>comparative</i> performance of different generations of lenses with the same focal length. Those have been far more valuable to me, and I look forward to reading that type of review once the lens is generally available.

Steve H, I acknowledge that he's writing in a non-native language, but I don't think that invalidates my comment. Many of his other articles are written in far better English, which makes me think this was rushed out the door without appropriate quality control. I own his book, which I think is well written and contains good reference materials, and I dip into it from time to time.

 

No, my main points are that: (1) The article is difficult to read because it touches on too many scientific concepts without explaining them to the non engineering reader. (2) No photographic examples are shown, so we are expected to take his word for it. (3) The article also falls into Erwin's norm, which is to say that the latest lenses are far superior to anything made before. Maybe that's true if you're shooting Pan-F with a tripod. But for real life users, how much of an improvement is it? And is it worth the $1500+ to 'upgrade' from the earlier version?

I'd forgotten how much his writing style gives me a headache. OK, so the ASPH is technically better than the older generation, but there's a tradeoff with respect to bokeh. Hmm, haven't we seen this somewhere before? I guess I'll be more interested to hear how practitioners find the lens in the field, once it hits our shores.

 

Me? I'm very happy with my soon to be defunct Summilux. I won't be trading up any time soon.

"the camera is so good that the ISO scale *starts* at 200"

 

Roger - I see this as a distinct disadvantage for the D70 vs the competition. Surely the image quality would only get better if the D70 had one or two lower ISO ratings, down to 100 or 50...? Would you be so kind as to elaborate on your statement?

I was really surprised by the suggestion that they'd allow an MP with an M4-7 style rewind. That says the whole top plate would need to be replaced. So wouldn't that mean the customized MP would gain the extra height of the M6TTL & M7? As an M6 TTL owner, the height difference trivial to me, but so many people used to the M6 classic and older models made a big deal about it.

 

I wonder whether they looked at the success of Morgan Sparks at cameraleather.com when they decided to offer customizable leatherette as part of this offer. Or maybe it's the continuing Hermesization of the company.

 

Hey, if Leica can afford to enter the customized make to order business, and do it profitably, then more power to them. I wonder what percentage of orders they expect to be customized, and whether they will batch orders, or dedicate production facilities to this full time.

 

Black paint M7 anyone?

"M7 body covered with carbon fiber."

 

Any chance of go-faster stripes and a turbo boost guage to go with that?

 

Sorry - it just sounds tacky, like a Honda Civic souped up with aftermarket do-dads.

The 28mm framelines in the .72 VF are pretty much useless. It's a different matter with the .58 VF - they are fully visible when I wear contacts, and I can see just about everything when I wear glasses. The coverage is not dissimilar to looking at the 35mm framelines in the .72 VF.

 

However, the internal VF will not give you the 28mm perspective that you'll get with an external finder.

 

And depending on the lens you choose, you'll have to deal with the lens hood obstructing the lower right part of the internal VF. I'm told the VC 28/3.5 hardly blocks anything, but the hood of the 28 Summicron virtually lines up with the 90mm framelines, blocking about 20% of what you would see if you used the external finder.

 

Personally, I like the 28 Summicron on a .58 body without the external finder, but you may find it relatively difficult to adapt to coming from an SLR.