joe88 wrote:
Joakim, glad your M9 is back! Both the 28Cron and 35Lux shots are excellent. Looks like they are well calibrated now! Interesting mower! I have seen robotic vacumn cleaners but not a lawn mower! Does it work well?
Thanks Joe. Yes the mower works quite well, it took some time to set it up and functioning as we wanted but now that is does it is great to have this little machine that quietly does your work for you
Joakim - congrats on getting back your camera - hopefully it's all back in order again. Nice colors, especially from the 35! Cool mower. Didn't know those exist.
Very nice portraits Allen!
Phil, love the Nocti rendering in these. My hope would be that the Lux pre-ASPH would be close enough, but now I'm not so sure. I have a feeling we might soon see some comparisons, Joe?
Joe, looks very good at close range. I wonder if it might be better than the ASPH, which gets a bit soft and lower contrast at MFD?
Had a chance to give the Canon 50/1.4 LTM more of a workout yesterday - all wide open:
I'm liking it... not as distinctive background rendering as the Nikkor, but more so than the 50 Lux ASPH. It's decently sharp wide open at pretty much all distances, best centrally, falling off towards the edges a bit.
The focus throw is also really long for such a relatively small lens, which is good and bad, I guess, depending on how fast you need to rack the focus.
Allen, nice set.
Phil, the first one is interesting. Where is this place? Love the Nocti 1.0!
Joakim, thanks for the info. I briefly looked at Amazon.com and they cost as much as a Leica lens here in the USA
Wow, Ron, beautiful!! You sure know how to empty my wallet What a marvelous lens considering its age. I guess Canon really know their 50mm's? The fall off on #5 and the fence shot looks to have a Leica rendering. Great set, now I understand why it is known as the Japanese Summilux. By the way, did you use a hood when you tried the lens?
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Back to Dr. Mandler's German version, at f/1.4. #2 and 3 close or at 0.7 MFD.
I'm surprised at the sharpness up close, at least in the center of the frame. I also like the split personality a lot on the next two shots
Really like the background rendering, can be smooth like the 50 ASPH or 75Lux at times (though not often) and painterly most of the time which I like (at the moment). I read somewhere that the optics and performance is similar to the 50CronV3 past f/2, i.e. contrasty but sacrificing some resolution than the previous 50Cron Rigid. I prefer the ergonomics on this pre-ASPH over the ASPH version - I didn't like the focus tab on the 50 Lux ASPH and the pre-ASPH is also lighter.
Joe, what a fine set! Wow. To answer your question, I did not use a hood. I haven't yet used it in a strong backlight situation, but expect it will drop a bit in contrast. There's a shot I did yesterday, which creatively didn't work out, but it was of a dark indoor area beside an open door to outside that was just out of the frame, and there was a lot of veiling flare coming from the open doorway.
Regarding the pre-ASPH, would you say it's a relatively contrasty lens inline with most 'modern' Leicas? Your images certainly imply it, but could also have benefitted from some post to counter the MM's tendency towards broad mid tones. OH, and circular OOF highlights at f/2.8!
More from yesterday with the Canon 50/1.4. All except the last two were wide open.
Very very nice rendering Gary, love the colors and the mood awesome!
zhangyue your signature colors are very nice
Joakim Love the 35 rendering very clean, on that lawnmower, where is the grass collected? inside?
Joe nice, sell me that lens for mfd? The place is a sculpture lot that makes unique items for a annual parade, it was closed I shot through the fence
Allen nice set no. 3 for me
Ron thats some serious pop and clarity! The skin tones are nice and clean and smooth, excellent set overall. Love you 2 page samples also, love your dialed contrast!
Joe wow awesome work with the noct! You picked up fast using this lens, Im still trying to figure it out wide open.
When I use mine it is sharp at 2m and beyond, but any less and there is slight focus shift
Phil
Below some shots with the Mono and Noct, and .9 ND, Joe the place is Old Town Pomona by the rail tracks, this place is pretty scary with some of the derelics that hang out here! They were following me and yelling at me to come over in spanish! I need a bodyguard next time I come here seriously, Oh the things I do sometimes to get my shot
Phil, nice b&w sets but be careful. The mower uses 4 razor blades to cut with and lets the grass just fall to the ground because it gets so finely shredded there is no need to collect it.
Ron, a couple a weeks ago I saw an add for the Canon 50/1.4 but didn't go for it and when I had regrets a few days later it was to late and the ad was gone and now that I see your photos with the same type of lens I have a little more regret. Thank you
Two with the 28 Summicron at the end of a very rainy day.
Joakim, Congr for getting your Leica back. The first 28cron shot has very nice color. Looks for more from you.
Allen, nice set of portraits.
Ron, like both set. I am surprised to see Canon did such a fine job here. I have to say photographer still make the dominant contribution for the images.
Joe, The lens indeed render very different than 50ASPH. The thread thrive again for GAS. I'd be careful This 50pre-ASPH remind me a lot of my 50lux R E48 a old version but happen at the same time with the same designer. I like it a lot.
Phil, thanks for comments. Nice moody set. I'd avoid such a location no matter how many photo opportunity is there is not worth the risk of myself and my gear
I might have become mildly hooked on tricky lenses (such as the 35 Lux or the Nikkor 28mm F1.8G) because here, with the 28 Cron, I have a solid, reliable lens that doesn't mess me about. With the exception of the potential for some residual colour cast issues and the need to stop down to F8 for certain kinds of scene, it does pretty much what you want pretty much all of the time. But I don't expect it to remain current much longer than the current or next generation M: it needs a makeover at some point. Not urgently, but soon-ish. It should achieve edge sharpness by F5.6 and the colour shifts should be better controlled.
And it's boring.
I don't have the M, so can't comment on how the character of the lens has changed compared to the M9. My feeling was stopping down to f/4 on the M9 was sufficient for good across the frame sharpness. But I agree colour shifts were never fully resolved with this lens, particularly green bottom corners.
And it seems many of us here got the lens for its somewhat unique-for-Leica rendering qualities, so a bit odd to read it referred to as boring.
Thanks for the comments on my previous sets! Just to clarify for Phil, I did some PP on each of the images, including some skin tone adjustment/smoothing, primarily to compensate for the strongly downward light of the overcast sky, though not really much global clarity fiddling for those. For the non-people scenes I boosted clarity a fair amount in some, as well as tone curve contrast, some saturation, etc..
Michael - nice set from Qingdao. The Cron can look quite modern if you want it to.
Joakim - no worries - the lens seems to appear fairly frequently on various buy & sell boards. I'm just borrowing this one, so will also have to look for my own copy eventually! Lovely rendering in those images.
Allen - great set, love the variety!
Phil - cool looking place, but sounds a bit scary.
Ron - wow, really nice sets with the Canon! It looks to be decent sharp in the center with fairly smooth (but not overly) bokeh. Very good lens for the age. I have always wondered how it compares to the Canon 50mm f/1.2 ltm @ f/1.4. My guess is that they would be quite similar in characteristics.
I might have become mildly hooked on tricky lenses (such as the 35 Lux or the Nikkor 28mm F1.8G) because here, with the 28 Cron, I have a solid, reliable lens that doesn't mess me about. With the exception of the potential for some residual colour cast issues and the need to stop down to F8 for certain kinds of scene, it does pretty much what you want pretty much all of the time. But I don't expect it to remain current much longer than the current or next generation M: it needs a makeover at some point. Not urgently, but soon-ish. It should achieve edge sharpness by F5.6 and the colour shifts should be better controlled.
And it's boring.
I don't have the M, so can't comment on how the character of the lens has changed compared to the M9. My feeling was stopping down to f/4 on the M9 was sufficient for good across the frame sharpness. But I agree colour shifts were never fully resolved with this lens, particularly green bottom corners.
And it seems many of us here got the lens for its somewhat unique-for-Leica rendering qualities, so a bit odd to read it referred to as boring. ...Show more →
I definitely would not call the 28 cron boring. The opposite actually.
I wonder what he sees as a boring lens. A small aperture or a very clean rendering lens. Looks like the first.
Ron, another excellent set with the Canon 50 1.4 ltm. Not sure how much sharpening you added, but those pics looks superb and no trace of veiling flare from those amber flames! Which adapter are you using for your LTM lenses? Voigtlander?
Phil, thanks! and excellent set! #1 and 2 are my favorites. Tonality and sharpness on #2 is amazing! BTW, my earlier shots was with the 50Lux pre-ASPH. Nocti has not arrived
Allen, another productive street shooting day out! Excellent shots! Really like all of them.
Joakim, both 28Cron shots are excellent! Love the contrast and details of what this lens produces.
Michael, nice work with the 35CronV1. Were these from the same trip you took last year?
rscheffler wrote:
Regarding the pre-ASPH, would you say it's a relatively contrasty lens inline with most 'modern' Leicas? Your images certainly imply it, but could also have benefitted from some post to counter the MM's tendency towards broad mid tones. OH, and circular OOF highlights at f/2.8!
From my short time with it, its contrasty from f/2 very close to ASPH, matching my 50Cron V5, f/1.4 seems like a mixed bag for me depending on subject distance, at closer to MFD it seems really sharp and contrasty, at further distances there seems to be some glow or haze sometimes. But definitely not Zeiss level of macro contrast I'll be interested in shooting with it on the M240 for comparison. The pics Gary posted (with the soccer ball) looked excellent.
Interesting. 28Cron is probably one of my most interesting lens
on the M setup. Boring it is not. Instead, I find the 50Lux ASPH boring. I guess everyone has different perceptions and taste.
Ron - excellent shots with the Canon 50 1.4. Excellent colors on the prior page
Joe - really like what you got out of the 50 Lux Pre. I had a love/hate with that lens, and find that its best to pair with a Cron if possible. The wide open rendering is just beautiful, love the bokeh. Razor sharp at distance though it is not...until about f/5.6.
Ron, That is a quite negative review for a lens without much fault. Though I like it, it slow down my GAS, and hopefully make it more affordable I agree with you and all others about 28cron's looking, especially for portrait and subject within 2/3 of frame, the rendering is special, color looks great, and Vignette add very interesting effect.
Joe, All photos are still from last year trip. I just start look them myself since you guys ask about 35cron V1.
Here is another one (35cron) at Wuzhen night, that is very dark, and impossible for me to focus if it is not RF. My daughter was very tired for a whole day out that day. and she request to have a rest in front of a resident house there.
I did exposure slide +4. that is a lot. M9 did decent job here.
Thanks Joakim thanks for the info on the mower, love that B and W of the tree, and the rendering of the BG! Nice set again! Really digging no. 2
Allen wonderful set, but number 7 takes the cake for me all the way! Was her dress color pink? Just so I could imagine
Thanks zhangyue love your stuff, I enjoy it immensely, love no. 1, thanks for the safety tip, I plan on going to Downtown skid row Los Angeles in a few weeks for some night time action, that will be the true test of fear for me!
Thanks Ron, yes you won't see me going there anymore
Thanks Joe, I figured that after I took a second glance, never less still nice to my eyes
Michael, the 35CronV1 looks stunning in B&W. +4 exposure looks good on this shot and the tones are also really nice.
Joakim, nice set with the sunset scene, lots of pop on both the 28Cron and 18Distagon shots. The 18 Distagon shot is excellent and my favorite from this set.
Phil, congrats on yet another new aquisition Really nice tonality, excellent shot.
rsolti13 wrote:
Joe - really like what you got out of the 50 Lux Pre. I had a love/hate with that lens, and find that its best to pair with a Cron if possible. The wide open rendering is just beautiful, love the bokeh. Razor sharp at distance though it is not...until about f/5.6.
Thanks Ryan. I'm liking this lens wide open but am not so sure how to deal with the lack of sharpness at mid to far distance wide open.
right now
This 50pre-ASPH remind me a lot of my 50lux R E48 a old version but happen at the same time with the same designer. I like it a lot. 
I'm just borrowing this one, so will also have to look for my own copy eventually! Lovely rendering in those images.
Just so I could imagine 
