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 p.52 #7 · p.52 #7 · Light Lens Lab (LLL) replica lenses discussion & image thread | |
Fred Miranda wrote:
Jim, you've had the lens for a good bit of time. Based on your experience, would you recommend this lens? I love my Leica 50/1 Noct, but I'm curious about trying out this LLL.
Would I recommend this lens? In short, yes.
But...there needs to be a big qualifying statement to go along with the recommendation - this lens is absolutely not for everyone.
Here are some of the 'issues' (and to be clear, I believe most of these 'problems' are true to the original lens that LLL faithfully reproduced):
1. It is very heavy...I might suggest looking into the aluminum or titanium versions (but I don't know how well the black paint on aluminum version will wear. My black paint brass version is already showing some scuffs from where the hood attaches).
2. It vignettes like crazy (the mechanical vignette does clear up when stopped down to f/8, though).
3. It is soft at full aperture. It is soft away from the center until f/5.6-f/8.
4. It is very difficult to focus using the rangefinder with typical focus and recompose (and that's on a recently CLA'd camera with the LLL 1.4x magnifier). I'd say 6 out of 10 shots appear to lack critical sharpness at 1.2/1.4. Field curvature and astigmatism are mostly to blame. When used on a camera where you can actually see through the lens, this issue goes away.
5. There is a solid amount of barrel distortion.
6. The onion rings.
Now, with that out of the way, here is what I love about it:
1. The build quality. It is an absolute jewel. Each of the LLL lenses I have owned or used represent an incremental step forward in build and manufacturing. I love seeing the improvement. That being said, there are still issues with lenses leaving the factory not being perfectly centered/collimated/rangefinder calibrated. I want to believe they are working on fixing that. My particular '1966' is centered ok, but not perfectly. I'm hoping that Jadon can address this for me.
2. The size. It is small for an f/1.2 lens. Without the hood, the viewfinder intrusion is minimal.
3. The rendering. This is the reason you get this lens. Nothing else looks like it. The optical vignette coupled with (excluding the onion ring structure) soft, evenly illuminated blur discs and high contrast, but also glowy images make for really unique photos. Excluding the Noct f/1, other high-speed lenses from this time period have terrible wide-open draw. This lens has 'special sauce.'
I have had the lens mounted to my camera since I received it at the end of December. I am still learning how to use it. As mentioned, rangefinder focusing is hard and fraught. I have been very tempted to pick up an M240 off meta marketplace to further experiment, but I am certain that my partner might kill me if I spend any money before taxes are finalized. If you have an M with live view capability, I suspect this lens would be even more enjoyable.
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