It seems fair to say that Milan understands Mandler better than most.
Getting interested in Mandler's role in the Leica developmental history, it appears his 'cultural' importance to the company over a 35 year period - his sense of what is important to image making - has been downplayed, with most commentary lauding his practicality, logistics and CAD interest instead.
So he is damned with faint praise, and even search engines give up very little. Here is a snippet from Erwin Puts to give you the flavour of this dismissive reporting:
'The (Mandler) designs are first rate, even today, but the Japanese competition came quite close to producing the same level of imagery. The Leitz designs had their own typical set of compromises that distinguished their lenses from the rest, but the best of Zeiss, Canon and Nikon and Topcon were measurably on the same level [...] The Mandler era delivered first rate lenses, but they were mainstream lenses..'
That is from Mandler's Wikipedia page. Only a chronic measurebator would describe the Summilux lens family as mainstream, but Puts did. How about the listing of Mandler lenses on the Leica Wiki page, that does not even credit the key 50/1.4 Summiluxes to Mandler:
But his profound artistic design paradigm bears an uncanny resemblance to much of the motivation behind character-driven cine lens development these days. Eric Hathaway has it right, as do the Chinese lens development communities, of which we speak here:
philip_pj wrote: In a tech-heavy field, Milan Swolfs is certainly one of the best-informed and most balanced writers on photography we have.
When reviewing a lens that claims f/2.0 but only reaches f/2.4, Milan Swolfs wrote: "I haven't gone back through every photograph to determine whether each frame was made at f/2, f/4, f/5.6, or f/8, and I don't really want to turn this review into that kind of exercise."
And when facing a lens with a noticeable amber cast, he noted: "One unexpected advantage is that I never felt the need to reach for a yellow or orange filter when photographing portraits."
A textbook example of spinning. Or maybe just too romantic to dwell on technical defects.
stgrove wrote:
This is not good QC. How do you get it fixed? Send it all the way back? Yikes-what a mess.
They told me to send it back for a replacement lens. I hope the next one will be perfect.
They sure are responsive and the customer care seems to be good.
DIXI 50 wrote:
Thypoch is made by DZ-optics, a state-backed company that supplies optics for Chinese space missions.
The Simera series represents the cutting edge of Chinese lens, yet it costs nearly twice as much as the Mandler.
As a newcomer to the optical lens market, Mandler Pre-Asph struggles with color consistency.
But if you leave it on auto white balance, you'll end up with a dirt-cheap, sharp lens.
Do you mean “color accuracy”, or are you saying the Mandler 50 color bias doesn’t match the Mandler 35?
emanuelex wrote:
They told me to send it back for a replacement lens. I hope the next one will be perfect.
They sure are responsive and the customer care seems to be good.
So how did they help with "sending it back"? Did they send you a return label or what?
stgrove wrote:
So how did they help with "sending it back"? Did they send you a return label or what?
Yes, they told me about a return label. I’ve yet to receive it.
AI chimes in (with more evidence it trains on FM forums, lol.)
'The primary indications of these specific issues regarding the Mandler 50mm f/1.4 Pre-A lens originate from community discussions and field testing by prominent reviewers:
• The Effective Aperture (T-Stop) Issue: On community testing forums like Fred Miranda, users noted that while the physical aperture ring reads f/1.4, its actual light transmission (t-stop) performs closer to f/2.4. This phenomenon was carrying over from user complaints regarding the brand’s previous release—the Mandler 35mm f/2—which users discovered was effectively an f/2.5 to f/2.8 lens in practical transmission.
• The Amber/Yellow Color Cast: Prominent photography reviewers like Milan Swolfs and field testers on Facebook vintage lens groups noted a distinct, "unexpected" amber/yellow-green tint built into the color rendering. Swolfs jokingly "spun" this technical quirk as a romantic positive, stating it removed the need to carry a physical yellow or orange filter when shooting black-and-white portraits.
The manufacturer engineered the lens with amethyst/gold-style multi-coatings to deliberately mimic the warm, rich 1990s-era color palette, which inadvertently registers as a noticeable yellow-green cast on neutral modern digital sensors.'
Ah, early release controversy, where would we be without it? All that is missing from older days is a full page of corner 'problems. The veracity of all of it cannot be readily determined - this being the internet.
People post images from lenses and make them out to be other than what lens was used, I just read a guy we had here called Vivek admit to it - nice. The YT crowd? well, maybe form your own assessments based on their work (as I do).
Anyway, to dig deeper for the worriers out there, see Keith Wee's take on this Mandler 50/1.4, sorry 50/2.4. Nearly made a bad mistake there. He shot a sunset, it looks a little yellowish.
'The Mandler 35mm f/2 "7 elements" lens is a true f/2.0 lens, not an f/2.4 lens. It opens up to a maximum aperture of f/2.0 and features click-stops ranging from f/2.0 all the way to f/16.
Why You Might Hear About f/2.4
• Vignetting at Wide Open (f/2.0): The lens displays pronounced optical vignetting and light fall-off in the corners when shot wide open at f/2.0. This can make the effective center brightness feel much brighter than the heavily darkened corners, resembling the light loss of a slower lens.'
This AI has to sharpen up, it is spreading contrary views!
philip_pj wrote:
It seems fair to say that Milan understands Mandler better than most.
My "issue" with MS’s reviews is that the sample photographs for all the lenses covered end up looking remarkably similar to one another—perhaps with the exception of the Zenitar 35mm f/1, which proves too unruly to be tamed by such a treatment. This impression is likely due not only to heavy retouching but, even more so, to a highly stylized—and largely uniform—visual backdrop that completely dominates the images. Furthermore, after reading one of these essays, it seems to me that the phrasing begins to repeat itself, conjuring the same atmosphere every time; it becomes somewhat stereotypical and cloying in its unfailingly benevolent, poetic idealization of a highly aestheticized persona and its noble mind —a persona that, indirectly (and quite legitimately), is actually telling a story about itself.
Be that as it may, as someone who enjoys photography, I find it far more interesting and inspiring to follow the images shared on this forum by certain members—users like nehemiahphoto, 1bwana1, _jim, philip_pj, oleandre, and many others—who not only possess an exceptionally refined eye and taste, but also present a much greater variety of subject matter.
