I believe all the shots were taken wide open at f1.4 and
Light Lens Lab 35mm f1.4 on Sony A7 m3
Honestly, wide open performance is better than I expected, center sharpness is very solid. Definitely usable even at 1.4.
Hi Fred, and all,
I don't know if this is allowed here, but here goes.
Just bought a Titanium version from Popflash. Was looking for something else and saw this!They say on web that they have only 5 in stock - now 4 - but don't know how accurate that is.
Just a heads up if anyone still wants a Titanium version.
regards,
Joe D
Fred is this is verboten, just delete.
I believe all the shots were taken wide open at f1.4 and
Light Lens Lab 35mm f1.4 on Sony A7 m3
Honestly, wide open performance is better than I expected, center sharpness is very solid. Definitely usable even at 1.4.
Looking at the real life images, I would have a hard time telling if it's LLL or FLE which I owned for a long time. Can't wait for my copy to come in. Ordered on Nov 21, nothing yet.
Many photographers have been curious about how the Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical compares in performance and rendering to the classic Leica pre-aspherical 35mm f/1.4 Summilux. I do own a transitional pre-ASPH version with a brass infinity lock from 1967, but since that lens is quite rare, I chose instead to test the Light Lens Lab against the recently reissued Leica 35mm f/1.4 Steel Rim. The Steel Rim reissue tested here performs very closely to the transitional pre-ASPH version, with the main difference being its higher contrast when shot wide open. The 1967 transitional is slightly sharper at center.
From the samples, it is clear that the pre-ASPH design is far less corrected for spherical aberration, and especially coma, compared to the Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical "11813". Even so, the Light Lens Lab still shows a slight glow in the highlights, although it is much more restrained than what we see in the pre-ASPH rendering.
Overall, the Steel Rim "reissue" has stronger edge outlining and a more structured, edgy look when shot wide open. The Light Lens Lab, by contrast, produces a gentler and smoother rendering. The flare characteristics are also fascinating to compare, with the Steel Rim showing its signature rainbow flare while the Light Lens Lab produces a more layered flare pattern.
At this point, the images really tell the story better than words.
Scene 1:
We begin by looking at the flare behavior. The Steel Rim displays its characteristic rainbow flare, while the Light Lens Lab produces a more layered flare pattern. In the focused areas, the LLL preserves finer detail and shows subtler edge outlining. By comparison, the Steel Rim loses more contrast due to veiling flare.
It's also noticeable that the Steel Rim's specular highlight cores appear much cleaner, which is due to the absence of aspherical elements in its design.
LEICA M10-RSummilux-M 1:1.4/35 ASPH. 11873 lens35mm1/3200s100 ISO0.0 EV
LEICA M10-RSummilux-M 1:1.4/35 Steel Rim lens35mm1/3200s100 ISO0.0 EV
The high-contrast lighting makes the stronger glow in the Steel Rim's highlights easier to see, while the Light Lens Lab loses more contrast due to veiling flare. The Steel Rim also exhibits more visible ghosting.
We can also see that the Steel Rim has a more structured rendering with more pronounced edge outlining, while its bokeh highlights appear cleaner inside compared to the LLL 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical. The final crop shows how the rendering changes at f/2 on both lenses.
LEICA M10-RSummilux-M 1:1.4/35 ASPH. 11873 lens35mm1/1250s100 ISO0.0 EV
LEICA M10-RSummilux-M 1:1.4/35 Steel Rim lens35mm1/1250s100 ISO0.0 EV
In this scene, we can see how the specular highlights behave in both shape and inner structure. The Steel Rim consistently forms complete circles with pronounced outlining, giving a more structured appearance. By contrast, the Light Lens Lab's highlights are softer and more diffused, though they gain additional structure toward the edges due to outward field curvature. I found this comparison particularly interesting.
LEICA M10-RSummilux-M 1:1.4/35 ASPH. 11873 lens35mm1/4000s100 ISO-0.7 EV
LEICA M10-RSummilux-M 1:1.4/35 Steel Rim lens35mm1/4000s100 ISO-0.7 EV
Here, we can examine the level of purple fringing, resolution in the focused areas, and overall axial CA correction between the two lenses. I've also included f/2 samples to show how stopping down reduces color aberrations and influences the roundness of the highlights.
LEICA M10-RSummilux-M 1:1.4/35 Steel Rim lens35mm1/8000s100 ISO-0.7 EV
100% magnification (Focused area)
At f/2 in the focused area, it's remarkable how much the Steel Rim improves with just one stop down.
Final scene of this comparison: The Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical is impressively well-corrected in the focus area wide open under very high-contrast lighting, especially compared to the Steel Rim. (For reference, the Leica 35mm f/1.4 FLE is even more corrected, but the LLL still performs remarkably well wide open.)
As we saw earlier, the Steel Rim recovers significantly at f/2. It's also interesting to compare the differing levels of coma between the two lenses and how they handle axial CA (green fringing) behind the plane of focus.
Two Summilux lenses, two completely distinct looks.
LEICA M10-RSummilux-M 1:1.4/35 ASPH. 11873 lens35mm1/4000s100 ISO-0.7 EV
LEICA M10-RSummilux-M 1:1.4/35 Steel Rim lens35mm1/4000s100 ISO-0.7 EV
At this point, I hope this walkthrough has given you a solid feel for the Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical and its unique characteristics. I will be wrapping up the review soon with my final thoughts, and I may even compare it against a few other lenses down the road. If I can get my hands on a Leica 35mm f/1.4 AA, I'd love to include it in a future comparison, though no promises yet.
For those of you who already received the early Titanium batches from Light Lens Lab, please keep sharing your sample images. I will continue linking them to the review so they get plenty of visibility.
Someone smarter than me please help. At about 30 inches my copy front focuses right at 1 inch. How do I correct? Is it adding shims? If so, any recommendations on which to use?
Continuing from Scene 5, here are the focus-area crops for the Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical and the Leica 35mm f/1.4 Summilux Steel Rim, stopped down from f/1.4 to f/5.6.
For anyone curious, here's the same scene showing the focus area for the Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical and the Leica 35mm f/1.4 Summilux ASPH (FLE).
I hadn't posted this wide-open rendering comparison between the Light Lens Lab and the FLE for this scene yet, but here it is. To my eye, they look very similar overall, with the same differences we’ve already discussed.
rsolti13 wrote:
Someone smarter than me please help. At about 30 inches my copy front focuses right at 1 inch. How do I correct? Is it adding shims? If so, any recommendations on which to use?
If I understand correctly, when you focus at 30", the actual focus falls at 29"? If the lens is front-focusing, it needs to be moved closer to the sensor, which means removing shims or slightly shaving the mount. Adding shims would only make the front-focus worse.
Make sure to test the lens on different bodies first to confirm it's the lens itself and not a rangefinder calibration issue.
Fred Miranda wrote:
If I understand correctly, when you focus at 30", the actual focus falls at 29"? If the lens is front-focusing, it needs to be moved closer to the sensor, which means removing shims or slightly shaving the mount. Adding shims would only make the front-focus worse.
Make sure to test the lens on different bodies first to confirm it's the lens itself and not a rangefinder calibration issue.
Mine arrived front focusing, tested on 2 bodies. LLL will make it right, so, Im not all that stressed.
Fred Miranda wrote:
If I understand correctly, when you focus at 30", the actual focus falls at 29"? If the lens is front-focusing, it needs to be moved closer to the sensor, which means removing shims or slightly shaving the mount. Adding shims would only make the front-focus worse.
Make sure to test the lens on different bodies first to confirm it's the lens itself and not a rangefinder calibration issue.
Yes, focus hits at 29" instead of 30". Tested on both bodies, same exact result. Guess I will contact LLL
Drdgu23 wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, but what is the simplest accurate way to test this (focus accuracy)? How would i go about shooting test images
What I do to check calibration is this: I focus a subject using the rangefinder patch, then I switch to Live-View and do not touch the focus ring again. If the LV image is perfectly sharp where I focused with the rangefinder, that tells me the camera and lens pairing is well calibrated. If the focus is off, then I need to figure out where the issue lies...
Sometimes it's the camera's RF calibration, sometimes the lens itself isn't perfectly calibrated, and occasionally both have small errors. Testing this way a few times quickly makes it pretty obvious what’s going on, and once you get the hang of it this becomes a two-minute check. The fastest way to narrow it down is to test the lens on a Leica M body you know is perfectly calibrated.
Also do a simple infinity check by focusing on a very distant object (like a building on the horizon or the moon) and confirm it sits in focus at infinity without refocusing on Live View. That gives you another clear reference point to see if the rangefinder and lens are tracking correctly.
