kin2son wrote:
How are you guys finding your copy for Loxia 21?
Tbh I am not thrilled with mine....and thx to a few members here who shares their flickr image in full glory it seems to be the norm.....
Have to say the mid corner -> extreme corner sharpness looks disappointing....
Maybe I am just expecting too much
Wow. What other ultrawides have you used? I do not know of any other which matches, yet alone exceeds the L21 mid to extreme corner. Of course it's noticeably less sharp in that area than it is in the centre. And noticeably less sharp than a top normal to mid tele in the mid to extreme corner. But that still makes it as far as I can the the best performing lens 21 ever in those areas. It does exhibit a little field curvature though (as do others) and focussing for the mid field rather than the centre for infinity shots can give better resolution in most areas.
DavidBM wrote:
Wow. What other ultrawides have you used? I do not know of any other which matches, yet alone exceeds the L21 mid to extreme corner. Of course it's noticeably less sharp in that area than it is in the centre. And noticeably less sharp than a top normal to mid tele in the mid to extreme corner. But that still makes it as far as I can the the best performing lens 21 ever in those areas. It does exhibit a little field curvature though (as do others) and focussing for the mid field rather than the centre for infinity shots can give better resolution in most areas....Show more →
Well I haven't used that many as UWA is by far my least used lens.
I guess I am just expecting too much then. Thanks for your reply.
kin2son wrote:
How are you guys finding your copy for Loxia 21?
Tbh I am not thrilled with mine....and thx to a few members here who shares their flickr image in full glory it seems to be the norm.....
Have to say the mid corner -> extreme corner sharpness looks disappointing....
Maybe I am just expecting too much
Maybe you just made something wrong.
I went through my flickr account to look after Loxia21-shots. Here are some, all on different distances, ISO, f-stop. None of these are crops. Only lenscorrection of C1. There is smearing in the very very last pixels of each corner, but it's hard to recognize in real world pics.
about 0.5m, f5, 1/30s, ISO400:
around 2m, f5.6, 1/60s, ISO100:
almoust as close as possible (around 0.25m?), f2.8, 0.6s, ISO100 (tripod, full res on flickr);
"infinity", f8, 1/250s, ISO100 (but not very good processing )
In my opinion, the shot with the extension tubes do show the smearing a little bit pronounced thanks to the extensions. But under normal conditions you can process the issue away with some sharpening in post (which I didn't in the presented shots).
I appreciate all your samples sebbe, looks like you have now changed your flickr stream to restrict others seeing your photos in full size which I think is the right thing to do anyway
I guess they all look "fine" at small size, once again I think I am just expecting too much when peeping the corners from a 42mp file, but then again the Loxia 21 isn't cheap, and if I want a lens that looks "good enough" at reduced size many cheaper lens at half the price could have achieve the same result imho.
Okay, I will play. I have only had the Loxia 50 and 21 for a week or so and thus have done very limited shooting. So far, I like them very much indeed. Here are a few samples (cross posted from FE images thread or one other)
kin2son wrote:
I appreciate all your samples sebbe, looks like you have now changed your flickr stream to restrict others seeing your photos in full size which I think is the right thing to do anyway
Hahaha, sorry to say that, but there are other reasons to shoot and post pictures in the web than pixelpeeping. At the moment, I only post in full size, if there is a reason for. Normaly a size around 2000-3000 pixel on the long edge is fine for my use of them in the web. And I prefer my sized version over a resized of flickr. But if you would have looked correctly, you would have seen, that two are full res pictures. The reason on these two are, that I wanted to talk about sharpness with others in the web.
Anyway, there are several reviews of this lens, that shows the corner performance. So, why should I repeat it? Or show you pictures of myself?
The issue with such tests are the distance to the subject and the field curvature of the lens itself. Most of them do change f-stops but just shoot on a single distance. That's why I posted some very different subjects and distances with different f-stops. Non of these shows smearing corners. Which is quite exceptional. All of them have a resolution of at least 25% of full res. And you can believe me, they look good also at 50%. As I said, at 100% you can see the smearing in the very very last part of the corner.
To sum it up: This lens is worth every cent twice, this includes it's corner sharpness. A good corner sharpness especially with the fastest f-stops of a lens, is hard to find, but this lens delivers it. And that's why I posted the fridge magnets in full res on flickr. It's f2.8. Here are 100% crops of the last 1000px of each corner, just for you.
I'm just curious. Is this not sharp enough for you? (note: this is a homemade test, nothing to make an mtf out of it. and there are no additional sharpening to the default C1-sharpening).
So no they aren't sharp enough for me, but for the 5th times yes I am probably expecting too much from what I read and heard a supposedly flawless lens.
Couple more from today. Went hiking on Whiteside Mountain in NC and hoped to get some fall leaves. The leaves are only just starting to change, but found an overlook or two where the sun was in the frame and tried out the Loxia 21's sun stars. I did find, as I think I had read previously, that the Loxia 21 does not handle the sun in the frame well if you have any filters on as they exacerbate the tendency to flare. Anyway, I got some shots with no filters. Here are two:
Good thread. As a fan of MF, loxia is an obvious choice. I do like the Leica m lenses on A7RII as well. Plan to compete the Leica 24mm f3.8 against the loxia 35 and 21 to see if the differences are visible. Field curvature has always been the demon on wide lenses, not so much on normal and tele.
At the moment, I only post in full size, if there is a reason for. Normaly a size around 2000-3000 pixel on the long edge is fine for my use of them in the web. And I prefer my sized version over a resized of flickr. But if you would have looked correctly, you would have seen, that two are full res pictures. The reason on these two are, that I wanted to talk about sharpness with others in the web. 
