Greggf wrote:
Lenticular...nice images of Florence! It's been Almost 5yrs since we were there. My oldest was 3! My wife and I(and her with Mason on her back) climbed the Duomo stairs!! All 700+ of them. I had my 1D4 plus Nikon 14-24(adapted), 24-70/2.8, and 70-200/2.8 ll with me. What a hike up!
Werner...stunning macro!
Bob...nice shots.
Chris...I know it's not a Mandler lens, but the Summarit M 90 is pretty nice too! Portrait below...
Gregg
A7rM and Summarit 90 2.5
Thanks, Gregg. I had the Summarit 75, but I ended up selling up to fund something else (stupid me). The Summarit's are all great lenses, but I prefer the sliding hood design of the Elmarit 90. The one Leica lens I'd like to add to my collection is the 75 Cron, but it's just too much money for me and the FL is too close to that of the Batis 85.
Charlie: Just because I'm curious, was that shot with the Lux wide open or a few stops down? It's a beauty of a lens, but from the few times I used a borrowed copy, I found it near impossible to nail focus wide open handheld.
Photo of Mountain Laurel (Kalmia Latifolia) flowers, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia taken with my tripod mounted Leica R 100m f2.8 Apo-Macro-Elmarit lens and my Sony A7r camera, ISO 200, lens set to f8 for 1/80 second. Image processed in LR6.
Chris_88 wrote:
Charlie: Just because I'm curious, was that shot with the Lux wide open or a few stops down? It's a beauty of a lens, but from the few times I used a borrowed copy, I found it near impossible to nail focus wide open handheld.
Hi Chris: most are one click back from WO, but faster than f/2
WO on the 75 Lux gives you the smallest DOF of any Leica lens, including the .95, and totally changes the character of the lens. As you know, portraits often suffer if shot WO in this circumstance, especially very close. At .7 the lux gives you one of the closest frames in RF glass. I did not use the Hawks to go beyond.
The good news is that at 1.8, the Lux really smokes for portraits, at f/2 it moves to near clinical, though I'm sure the cron is more so.
You know you are doing something right when your teenagers beg Dad to shoot them There's alot of talk on the boards from one contingent, maybe as anti-gas strategy, that it's not the gear, it's the shooter. But I'm living breathing proof, the gear is most of it. But you have to take the time to pick it and use the S out of it. A great lens does nothing on the shelf.
Aside from super low production glass, the Lux is the most expensive Leica lens before the modern era, besides the two older Noctiluxes. While most Leica glass is falling in value, like the 50 Lux asph, and 28 cron, the 75 Lux is at it's highest value ever, right now. I think I paid 3150 and found the lens here. It turned out to be a steal, because this copy is, aside from a small brassing mark on the focus ring, perfect in optics and more importantly calibration. I was able to trace it's ownership from new in the 80s. I doubt it had ever made 300 shots in all those years. There are guys in Europe who have bought 5 copies trying to find one like this. Had I known condition was such an issue, I would have been too scared to pull the trigger. The lens is also a nightmare to service. It must be cooked for days to disassemble. So you never want one thinking, hey I will just get a CLA. G knows what will be the outcome of that. Anyway, I love it
There's alot of talk on the boards from one contingent, maybe as anti-gas strategy, that it's not the gear, it's the shooter. But I'm living breathing proof, the gear is most of it. 
But you have to take the time to pick it and use the S out of it. A great lens does nothing on the shelf.
