First Impressions. Just received mine two days ago, and I'm still getting used to it.
Here are my initial impressions:
The Good:
- Aperture ring: Very crisp and satisfying clicks.
- Build quality: Quite good for the price, although I personally feel that Light Lens Lab (LLL) lenses have a slightly more premium feel.
- Image quality: Sharpness is quite good, even wide open at f/1.4.
- Bokeh: Decent overall, with a pleasing character.
- Lens hood: Helps reduce flare to some extent.
The Not-So-Good:
- Focus ring: Feels a little stiff for my taste.
- Focus throw: Seems a bit short, making it somewhat challenging to nail focus at f/1.4. Could just be my technique, though.
- Bokeh rendering: I find the original Leica Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH E46 a bit smoother and creamier.
- Flare resistance: Even with the lens hood, you still need to be mindful of strong light sources.
retrofocus wrote:
Following the discussion with interest. Regarding flare, I own the Leica 50/1.4 vII, and it definitely seems to be better flare resistant than what is shown here with the Mandler. I will post a photo later which was taken recently against the sun, and the Leica lens exhibits some flaring but much more controlled. It actually comes with a nice glimpse of orange cast from the orange front lens coat of this lens.
Here is the photo I referred to earlier as shown above. Taken with Leica M-E 240 and Leica 50/1.4 vII at f/5.6. Some flare but still with enough contrast.
First Impressions. Just received mine two days ago, and I'm still getting used to it.
Here are my initial impressions:
The Good:
- Aperture ring: Very crisp and satisfying clicks.
- Build quality: Quite good for the price, although I personally feel that Light Lens Lab (LLL) lenses have a slightly more premium feel.
- Image quality: Sharpness is quite good, even wide open at f/1.4.
- Bokeh: Decent overall, with a pleasing character.
- Lens hood: Helps reduce flare to some extent.
The Not-So-Good:
- Focus ring: Feels a little stiff for my taste.
- Focus throw: Seems a bit short, making it somewhat challenging to nail focus at f/1.4. Could just be my technique, though.
- Bokeh rendering: I find the original Leica Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH E46 a bit smoother and creamier.
- Flare resistance: Even with the lens hood, you still need to be mindful of strong light sources.
I'm trying to figure out what's going on with ALL THAT PINK. Is it chromatic aberration on the house trim, window panel, the entire back half of that BMW and the wheels? But it's not in the foliage... strange. Possibly the M11 Magenta WB issue?
First Impressions. Just received mine two days ago, and I'm still getting used to it.
Here are my initial impressions:
The Good:
- Aperture ring: Very crisp and satisfying clicks.
- Build quality: Quite good for the price, although I personally feel that Light Lens Lab (LLL) lenses have a slightly more premium feel.
- Image quality: Sharpness is quite good, even wide open at f/1.4.
- Bokeh: Decent overall, with a pleasing character.
- Lens hood: Helps reduce flare to some extent.
The Not-So-Good:
- Focus ring: Feels a little stiff for my taste.
- Focus throw: Seems a bit short, making it somewhat challenging to nail focus at f/1.4. Could just be my technique, though.
- Bokeh rendering: I find the original Leica Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH E46 a bit smoother and creamier.
- Flare resistance: Even with the lens hood, you still need to be mindful of strong light sources....Show more →
From the bit extreme low contrast in specific flare situations aside, it seems a strong contender for the asking price of the lens. For $500 range and less (depending on brass or aluminium) I wouldn't mind the disadvantages as mentioned. I can even see someone to buy this lens as walkaround lens in a bit more sketchy/unsafe areas where a Summilux lens might be risky to take. I would seriously consider if I didn't already have other very good vintage 50/1.4 LTM lenses as alternative to my Leica 50/1.4 vII.
dumplinknet wrote:
Are these JPG straight out of the camera?
I'm trying to figure out what's going on with ALL THAT PINK. Is it chromatic aberration on the house trim, window panel, the entire back half of that BMW and the wheels? But it's not in the foliage... strange. Possibly the M11 Magenta WB issue?
Similar is also visible in the photo of the scarecrow, though less obvious. The clipped highlights on the car are pretty nasty, like vintage 2000's low DR CCD uneven channel clipping. I'd expect more graceful rolloff to clipping, but I don't use the M11, so not sure how the in-camera profiles handle these situations, if these are SOOC jpeg. EXIF of the car photo says ISO 80 1/125 f/8. Based on this with the 'sunny f/16' exposure rule, it's only about a stop over and should be within the range of recovery. But specular highlights, such as on the car, will already be pretty hot at this point.
rscheffler wrote:
Similar is also visible in the photo of the scarecrow, though less obvious. The clipped highlights on the car are pretty nasty, like vintage 2000's low DR CCD uneven channel clipping. I'd expect more graceful rolloff to clipping, but I don't use the M11, so not sure how the in-camera profiles handle these situations, if these are SOOC jpeg. EXIF of the car photo says ISO 80 1/125 f/8. Based on this with the 'sunny f/16' exposure rule, it's only about a stop over and should be within the range of recovery. But specular highlights, such as on the car, will already be pretty hot at this point....Show more →
I just went back and checked the images, and it looks like I accidentally applied the wrong color profile during export. My mistake!
Just re-uploaded all the images without any edits or adjustments. You may need to refresh the page.
also included the original RAW files below for anyone who'd like to download them and take a closer look.
Sorry for the bad photos. I was just taking some quick shots to test out the lens.
retrofocus wrote:
For $500 range and less (depending on brass or aluminium) I wouldn't mind the disadvantages as mentioned. I can even see someone to buy this lens as walkaround lens in a bit more sketchy/unsafe areas where a Summilux lens might be risky to take. I would seriously consider if I didn't already have other very good vintage 50/1.4 LTM lenses as alternative to my Leica 50/1.4 vII.
Not good but acceptable performance at a disposable price.
