p.1 #2 · Rendering of old "character" Leica lenses on non-Leica Bodies ??
Opposite is the case: here an example of the Leitz 50/1.5 Summarit-M lens adapted to the Sony A7R with extension tube.
The only time you might get trouble with Leica LTM/M rangefinder lenses - or from other brands - is with smaller lens pupil distance and at wider focal lengths due to the thicker sensor stack of MLCs compared to digital Leica M cameras.
p.1 #3 · Rendering of old "character" Leica lenses on non-Leica Bodies ??
Hmmm…
You’re still going to get SA, flare and the rich warm color palate of the lens, might need to tweak the color among bodies/brands, but older Leica’s absolutely have a look on the multiple bodies I’ve used them on…same with CY or Minolta.
All 35 Lux pre-fle or 80 Lux on A7 line of cameras
p.1 #5 · Rendering of old "character" Leica lenses on non-Leica Bodies ??
rw11 wrote:
My main interest is in the Summilux 35mm 1.4 pre-Asph - if I can find one...
Get the Voigtländer 35/1.4 E instead. It's compensated for the sensor stack of Sony cameras and therefore does not give the dreaded backwards curvature of field that most shortish M lenses do on Sony. It also draws pretty similarly to the Summilux, albeit not exactly the same. And it has much shorter MFD, and gives full exif and auto magnification when focusing (if you want to; personally I've disabled it).
Edit: The "Leica glow" is simply spherical aberration and is present in various amounts in most old and fast lenses when shot wide open. Personally I'd say that "3D" is the opposite, but it can be had with the same old lenses if you stop down a bit.
p.1 #7 · Rendering of old "character" Leica lenses on non-Leica Bodies ??
The lens is 99% of the character, the lens projects the image and the sensor captures it, most sensors are designed to be as neutral as possible, in some situations the sensor stack can alter the field curvature into the corners, I've never seen enough of a difference to warrant modding my camera to improve the corners 1-2% when I rarely ever place important subjects in the corners, the closest I get is rule of 3rds, leading lines, and stopping down for whole frame sharpness (which I don't do that often).
p.1 #8 · Rendering of old "character" Leica lenses on non-Leica Bodies ??
There were two main reasons why I added a digital M-E 240 camera to my existing Leica M film cameras:
1. I like rangefinder-based photography and wanted to do this digitally, too
2. I tend to shoot more often wide than long. And especially my 12, 21, 28 mm lenses gave me more or less purple fringing in the corners of my A7R. There are workarounds to reduce them, but I got tired of this. Clearly the Leica M sensors are a big benefit here - I have zero issues now with wide and ultrawide lenses. This said, I never so far experienced any issue of a rangefinder-based LTM- or M-lens 50 mm or longer focal length adapted to the A7R (I tested 50, 75, 90, and 135 mm). Ignoring the different color gamuts of both the M 240 and the A7R, I couldn't tell which camera was used with the longer rangefinder lenses.
35 mm is the tricky one - some lenses work well on other sensors, others don't. I have seen both. I returned in 2014 the Leica 35/2.0 ASPH version I because it was the worst performer I have seen adapted on my A7R - blurred corners at any aperture and additional focus shifts in the center image. There was nothing wrong with the lens but the ASPH element caused severe issues here on this sensor (which was well described later online, too). Great lens on a digital Leica M which I didn't have at the time - I bought its predecessor lens, the Leica 35/2.0 version IV (bokeh-king) instead which is working great on the A7R. Still use this lens to this day on all my rangefinder M cameras (less often now on the A7R obviously). Sometimes I wish I kept the 35/2.0 ASPH since it was a nice mint chrome version with hood which goes for a lot more now compared to when I bought it. But it would have been less used for 6 years (only on my film Ms) until I got my first digital Leica M.
When I purchased my M-E 240, it came with the Leica 35/2.4 ASPH Summarit-M which I find a fantastic lens. Different rendering than the Leica 35/2.0 pre-ASPH lens I mentioned above but fun to shoot with both. I haven't tested the f/2.4 Summarit on my A7R yet since I always use it exclusively on my Ms.
I have two other 35 mm rangefinder lenses which are also different: the CV 35/1.2 version II which works very well on the A7R sensor, too. I use it rarely due to its bulky size but when fast lens speed is needed, this lens is unbeatable. Also very different rendering than the Leica M 35 mm lenses above.
The fourth one was a cheaper purchase to allow me to use it on my Leica IIIc screw-mount camera: the Canon 35/2.8 Serenar LTM lens. Very good lens for its price and good contrast and sharpness wide open both for B&W and color. Not very fast but very compact and vintage looking. The Canon lens does not perform too well on the Sony sensor - focus shift from center to corners. Stellar on all my Ms though.
p.1 #9 · Rendering of old "character" Leica lenses on non-Leica Bodies ??
LightShow wrote:
The lens is 99% of the character, the lens projects the image and the sensor captures it, most sensors are designed to be as neutral as possible, in some situations the sensor stack can alter the field curvature into the corners, I've never seen enough of a difference to warrant modding my camera to improve the corners 1-2% when I rarely ever place important subjects in the corners, the closest I get is rule of 3rds, leading lines, and stopping down for whole frame sharpness (which I don't do that often).
It's not only about sharpness and optical performance. If you shoot at medium distance wide open with a short M lens on a Sony, the middle of the background will be out of focus while the borders and corners will be in focus. Personally I think it looks absolutely horrible and it's much worse than bad sharpness even in the middle of the frame.
However, if you focus close enough, the whole background will be OOF enough to hide the problem. This is the main reason I find 99% of all sample images useless because they are almost always focused much closer than I ever do.
p.1 #10 · Rendering of old "character" Leica lenses on non-Leica Bodies ??
You often don't lose much (if any) of the essence of a lens in regular full size imaging, and other cameras may offer more in compensation, like higher DR or Mps. We can all cause missteps in our lenses with unusual setups or particular shooting configurations, such as perhaps medium distance wide angles shot wide open.
Many reviewers have refined this tendency to a fine art, as they work to shape values in modern photography (round bokeh balls, etc). The question that needs constant asking when viewing/reading a review: do I shoot this way, do I care about this supposed fault that needs high magnification to even see?
For example, I never shoot into the sun, so that is not even a peripheral concern to me, not ever, whereas lens hoods are very important. It's a balancing act of very individual pros and cons. But for many, they take such reports as gospel, in absence of presentations to the contrary.
For quite some time, I had the impression Leica users enjoyed the designed-in curvature of many of their lenses, resulting in serious sharpness differences between mid and outer fields. As an example, the Summilux 50/1.4:
"..people are unsatisfied with the border and edge performance of the Summilux on the A7/A7R and tried to explain it with edge smearing caused by the sensor. In fact, here it is no edge smearing. Instead it is the result of field curvature as demonstrated with the test charts and the edge focused crops.. Many M lenses have this baked in to their image appearances."
p.1 #12 · Rendering of old "character" Leica lenses on non-Leica Bodies ??
freaklikeme wrote:
Great lens. Accept no substitutes!
As far as the wildly subjective, often debated and eternally baneful to the technically-minded photographer, I might argue it's the best lens I've ever shot
It's compensated for the sensor stack of Sony cameras and therefore does not give the dreaded backwards curvature of field that most shortish M lenses do on Sony. It also draws pretty similarly to the Summilux, albeit not exactly the same. And it has much shorter MFD, and gives full exif and auto magnification when focusing (if you want to; personally I've disabled it). 