gammarART wrote:
I can easily imagine this becoming the first LLL lens to break the €3,000 mark. The amount of work going into its development seems immense, and you can really see how passionately he cares about this little lens.
I’m curious to see when it will be officially announced and when the first units will actually start shipping.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were titanium version as well. Personally, though, I’d find a silver version much more interesting, since no manufacturer currently offers a 35mm APO M lens in silver.
Here is the silver at 351 grams. (With hood attached)
The Leica is 320g without the hood, so they are about the same weight.
It should be a very different lens to Voigtlander's 35/2 APO, which shares two optical design traits: the double-sided asph elements and the 11 element aggregate. We'll see high end Chinese optics against the Japanese and German equivalents, which lean mostly on APD glass and can be described within the emergent APO critiques.
A 50/2 APO cannot be far away in their thinking, if anything that focal length is more fertile ground for the LLL signature lens style. Both their current 50/2 and 50/1.2 lenses feature lead oxide content. Leica and Cosina have long ago sworn off the miracle ingredient, to comply with ill-considered EU edicts.
LLL need to leave headroom for another potential flow-on project: a modern 35mm f1.2.
I'd like to see them price their output more appropriately - there is plenty of headroom in that space.
Because of ongoing productivity gains, innovation and rural-urban transformation, the Chinese industrial economy is undergoing continuous price deflation, but their optical products are maturing fast and deserve sensible returns in the old-world markets.
philip_pj wrote:
It should be a very different lens to Voigtlander's 35/2 APO, which shares two optical design traits: the double-sided asph elements and the 11 element aggregate. We'll see high end Chinese optics against the Japanese and German equivalents, which lean mostly on APD glass and can be described within the emergent APO critiques.
A 50/2 APO cannot be far away in their thinking, if anything that focal length is more fertile ground for the LLL signature lens style. Both their current 50/2 and 50/1.2 lenses feature lead oxide content. Leica and Cosina have long ago sworn off the miracle ingredient, to comply with ill-considered EU edicts.
LLL need to leave headroom for another potential flow-on project: a modern 35mm f1.2.
I'd like to see them price their output more appropriately - there is plenty of headroom in that space.
Because of ongoing productivity gains, innovation and rural-urban transformation, the Chinese industrial economy is undergoing continuous price deflation, but their optical products are maturing fast and deserve sensible returns in the old-world markets. ...Show more →
I thought the 50/2APO was the lens the owner of LLL had in the pipeline since the start of the company. I was hoping they had made a 50mm f/1.4 “E46” before the APO.
When Mr Zhou speaks of the new LLL lens having better outer frame performance, he is very likely talking about stops faster than f2.8, which is the Leica APO's best stop, before which it fades into the corners after being super high on-axis. The Leica lens has six APD elements and three high refractive index (HRI) lenses.
It's a surprise they even mention HRI to be frank (so few established lens makers even state they use any HRI - that is a mystery I haven't got to the bottom of, at this time.) The Chinese always state their HRI glass components, they are consistently heavy users of this glass type. It may mean nothing with ongoing developments in glass tech, or it may signal a different design methodology.
China being the world leader in rare earths - they mine 70% of it, and hold 85-90% of refining capacity globally - we can expect lanthanide and hopefully lead oxide in the new lens. Lanthanide was a big replacement material of choice for HRI when lead was outlawed.
But were lead to be 'approved' they would all be using it, for character lenses. Zeiss said as much re their new Aatma cine range, they cannot recreate the CY/Super Speed lenses because of this edict.
Some advantages of lead oxide are well known on the flint glass side - greater color clarity and higher refractive indices - but it also assists with correction of dispersion when judiciously paired with crown glass. It would provide benefits in areas where APO lenses can do with help:
'historical vintage camera lenses made with leaded photographic glass are widely noted by cinematographers and portrait photographers to render exceptionally warm, organic, and flattering skin tones.'
Both the Leica and the Voigtlander are heavy users of APD glasses in their 35mm APOs - there are five in the Cosina lens and six in the Leica lens. As is expected for high-end APO optics.
The other thing to note is that the Leica M APO has asph surfaces on both sides of the final element (#10), plus the front surface of element #1 (that would be expensive to replace) and the front surface of element #8. Cosina use both sides of element #2 and the final element (#11). cheers.
raizans wrote:
some pics showing differences in the barrel design of the prototype and final production.
Interesting decision to make the focusing ring grip-less, relying only on the tab. The Leica version has a gripped focusing ring, likely to facilitate rotation, especially since both lenses appear to share a similarly long throw, which makes LLL's smooth-ring choice stand out. Perhaps there's a good reason behind it.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Interesting decision to make the focusing ring grip-less, relying only on the tab. The Leica version has a gripped focusing ring, likely to facilitate rotation, especially since both lenses appear to share a similarly long throw, which makes LLL's smooth-ring choice stand out. Perhaps there's a good reason behind it.
I can’t think of a single benefit to not have a grip texture on the focusing ring. Leica has it on their 35 APO M but not the more recent close focus Summilux M lenses. I had the 35 Lux close focus for a time, and the lack of a gripped focusing ring made it exceedingly annoying to focus at the closest distances since that moved the focusing tab way around the top of the lens, requiring a change of grip on the lens (and change of grip on the camera if shooting vertically).
But I just can’t warm up to the magnetic hood design
Don't know if it's been mentioned, but from what I read on-line, only the titanium version will have the magnetic hood attachment, other versions a threaded screw on hood from what I could gather from the translation. Additionally, the titanium version will ship first at end of August, the black aluminum version end of December and the silver aluminum version after the Spring festival.
