Pondria,
As I mentioned above, I did a comparison of the Leica with the two Zeiss Distagons and a 24-70mm. Granted the Leica came out as the best but the zoom, at least mine, performed very well and held up its own. The corners are the area where the Leica shines and that at full open aperture only. When stopped down the Leica is still a tad better but the other lenses, including the Canon zoom, mind you, caught up nicely. I am not questioning Jeff's method, maybe my 24-70L is better than his. Giving up the zoom because the exotic prime lenses perform better? Not in my book! There are other things that those prime lenses cannot do: the flexibility of a zoom. Each lens has its own strength, although I am about to sell my CZ 28mm f/2.8. Not because it is bad but I got something better albeit at a higher price....
mark1958 wrote:
Can someone compare the CZ 28/2 to the Leica 28/2.8?
Mark, I did that too. The Leica performs better at least that is my findings: the Leica wide open and the Hollywood closed down 1 stop. I am in Chicago visiting with my son right now; otherwise I would be able to post the sample images.... In terms of corner sharpness, vignetting or lack thereof, and overall contrast, the Leica Elmarit 28mm is it! Towards the center, the difference in optical quality of the other lenses compared to that of the Leica gets less obvious.
braindeadmac: In response to questions about your samples, you accuse G-W-N of calling you an idiot, and you call me 'big guy' which means ?? But the questions remain: you have posted crops that you say are point of focus, but which IMO are out of focus compared to any experience I have had with the 24-70...and you claim that your 24-70 is an excellent copy. Readers of this thread seem to be taking at face value that this should be considered typical performance for the zoom; I am simply saying that yes, the Leica prime offers a higher level of performance than the Canon zoom, but that your samples don't seem to be representative of the latter.
Well all your talk got my interest up. Tried to replicate your test the best I could with my 16-35 but couldn't get the same result. First of all I used a 10D set at 30" from the subject (a 28-135 set on end) on a tripod with mirror lockup and remote shutter release. The problem I had was that I couldn't get anywhere as bad a result as you did. I took six shots at f2.8 and f5.6 using AF and the same using manual focus. The AF shots were as good if not better than the manual and of course more consistant. My worst f2.8 16-35 shot was still better than your best 24-70 shot (all without sharpening). Was it as sharp as your Leica? No, but not far off. Conclusion: Either I have a excellent copy of a 16-35, or that the AF on my 10D is better than yours ( I doubt it) or both. In any case if the results you show with your 16-35 are correct I would be disappointed too.
Pondria wrote:
I do believe that Leica 28mm Elmarit-R is optically better than the two zooms at the same focal length. In addition to that, Being a MF lens, it is mechanically designed for easy manual focusing - firm but smooth ring, finer and even helicals etc.
That said, my surprise is not about the Leica. it is surprising that the zooms are this poor. I have neither of them, so I really can't speak for them. But I think they should be better than this.
Comparing to Zeiss 28/2.8, probably Leica is better considering their prices. However, the difference is not big enough to be shown by this type of test, especially at the center crop. ...Show more →
I have both zooms. While the 16-35 can give me fits in the corners, the 24-70 is consistently sharp for me across the field. That was why I was surprised at the results.
Wateva wrote:
Well all your talk got my interest up. Tried to replicate your test the best I could with my 16-35 but couldn't get the same result. First of all I used a 10D set at 30" from the subject (a 28-135 set on end) on a tripod with mirror lockup and remote shutter release. The problem I had was that I couldn't get anywhere as bad a result as you did. I took six shots at f2.8 and f5.6 using AF and the same using manual focus. The AF shots were as good if not better than the manual and of course more consistant. My worst f2.8 16-35 shot was still better than your best 24-70 shot (all without sharpening). Was it as sharp as your Leica? No, but not far off. Conclusion: Either I have a excellent copy of a 16-35, or that the AF on my 10D is better than yours ( I doubt it) or both. In any case if the results you show with your 16-35 are correct I would be disappointed too. ...Show more →
Your test is on 10 D, not a full frame camera. I probably can't tell much difference between all 3 of these lenses (except for perhaps some resolution issues) on a 1.6x sensor either.
PATower wrote:
I never would have guessed last week that I'd find myself caring about, much less starved for, comparisons between Leica, Contax, and Olympus lenses, but that's exactly where I find myself.
Pat,
Stop yourself now before it's too late. Once you get a taste for "the other L glass" you're on the road to perdition
Guy Mancuso wrote:
I would just like to see this test redone in much better light. It is so hard to focus anything in the dark. There just seems to be too many questions about this test. I agree the zooms will not have the same performance as the prime of the Leica or the Zeiss. But this just seems a little too large a gap.
I also would like to see a test at 5.6 between the leica and the zeiss f2 in daylight at 4ft and 15 ft. I mean how often do you shoot wide open truthfully with a wide angle. personally almost never...Show more →
I agree. I also rarely shoot at anything less 5-6 feet in the frame with the 24-70 when I have it mounted on a tripod. Occasionally with the 16-35 at the wider end I might. Overall I found this test about as useless as the brick wall test is for me--I just don't take photos of crap lined up on a table, and in practice have some work I'm very happy with
I do shoot some wide open with my wide angles (actually I haven't with the zooms for a while because of field curvature, and perhaps subconsciously the softness problem), but I do with my rangefinder. But most of the time I'm towards the other end (maybe we should be doing tests of diffraction at f/16 and f/22).
I believe the performance difference between the 3 lenses will begin to resolve with increasing subject to sensor distance....waiting for the haze to lift here this morning.
pthompson wrote:
braindeadmac: In response to questions about your samples, you accuse G-W-N of calling you an idiot, and you call me 'big guy' which means ?? But the questions remain: you have posted crops that you say are point of focus, but which IMO are out of focus compared to any experience I have had with the 24-70...and you claim that your 24-70 is an excellent copy. Readers of this thread seem to be taking at face value that this should be considered typical performance for the zoom; I am simply saying that yes, the Leica prime offers a higher level of performance than the Canon zoom, but that your samples don't seem to be representative of the latter.
"big guy" means nothing but banter, relax. G-W-N didn't call me an idiot, nor did I accuse him of that, so please be precise in your language. I'm the one that said "I'm an idiot". He did suggest that my tests were done outside of the focus range of the lens, which to me would imply that the tester is somewhat less than intelligent, perhaps stupid, perhaps an idiot.
your own post said that my shots were out of focus and had camera shake, yet how would you know if there was camera shake? And you can't make assessments of focus without seeing all of the data; that's a limitation of the data presentation, sorry. You made an assumption about the test conditions without knowing any of the technical details.
Focus is a whole other issue, and is very difficult to assure and verify even in the final images. At first I thought I had a backfocus problem which was cropping up, because parts of the image towards the center of the frame would appear sharper, but also were in a different plane than the subject. With my repeat set of shots, I looked at both autofocus and manual focus. Autofocus was more consistent, and some of the MF were just complete junk (as they were the first time through). Compounding this are problems, especially at the wider apertures, with field curvature, which is surprisingly pronounced on these zooms, and something I hadn't really appreciated until recently (like when I started lining crap up on a desk for photos).
braindeadmac wrote:
Your test is on 10 D, not a full frame camera. I probably can't tell much difference between all 3 of these lenses (except for perhaps some resolution issues) on a 1.6x sensor either.
You were comparing the small crops around the middle of the images. Why would the crop factor matter ? Even a D30 ( 1.6x 3MP ) would have shown the differences clearly.
Braindeadmac: I'm relaxed, and more than precise enough in my language ... we both know what you intended when you said to G-W-N " No, I'm an idiot". My post suggested that OOF and/or camera shake might explain the totally unacceptable samples from the Canon zooms, and asked "What's up", since you had offered no explanation of methodology and no analysis other than stating the 24-70 samples were from an "excellent copy". My curiousity was prodded by the fact that I would never have considered as excellent a lens that produced images with obvious soft, double edges at the focal point within focal range. I made no assumptions about the test conditions, simply asked in casual fashion if you had an explanation for what appeared to be an abberant result. Your language and opinion seem a little less than precise...you continue to defend the accuracy of your test result, while at the same time you say to Guy "Overall I found this test about as useless as the brick wall test is for me".
Frankly, the manner in which you presented this thread is as close to a troll as you can come, although I don't think that was your intent. I'm sorry I bit...
Pondria wrote:
Ah..., I guess you are getting D 21/2.8 ?
No, but I am using the Leica Elmarit 28mm f/2.8 to get a prime lens coverage for that focal length . As I mentioned earlier in a different thread, I am referring to the current version of the Leica lens.
Everything seems a little fishy to me, the samples from the Canon lenses look either out of focus out blurry due to camera shake. For example... in your 16-35mm sample at F2.8, the sharpest area actually seems to be the red L stripe where it's further back at the left. Also, in that sample I'm seeing some sort of "ghosting" (no idea what it's really called) especially around the numbers on the distance scale, like how you get with camera-shake. Look at the upper half of the shot and you'll see a few circles of confusion (bokeh) which lead me to further believe it's a focus problem.
Sorry, but I'm really finding it hard to believe anybody would even want to use a 1DsMKII if these two lenses were this bad when used with it.
Guy Mancuso wrote:
I also would like to see a test at 5.6 between the leica and the zeiss f2 in daylight at 4ft and 15 ft. I mean how often do you shoot wide open truthfully with a wide angle. personally almost never
I did that with a working condition of about 15 feet, but I cannot post the images at this point since I am not home... I can do that next week on Wednesday.
The Leica is a keeper. I started doing some test shots at about 10 feet but it started raining cats and dogs. Both the Canon zooms perform much better at this range, although there is still a noticeable difference between them and the Leica, especially wide open to past f/5.6. I wasn't able to complete testing due to aforementioned downpour. Not entirely true--I completed it but found the the 24-70 and Leica wide open shots were a bit out of focus....so back to the drawing board.
Just tried some similar shots to see what happened - 24-70/2.8L on 1Ds II, approx 30 inches from subject. The different coloured card backgrounds are to easily see where each crop has come from. The exposure was the same for each shot, the difference in brightness at the edges between the shots is due to brightness falloff with the 24-70 on the 1Ds II at wider apertures. Mirror lockup was used, and light was provided by studio strobes with 250W modelling lamps, so plenty of light for the AF to work from. All shots ISO 50:
Steve, that's helpful. I'll try a setup similar to yours at some point. Still unpacking from move--I now which boxes my lights are in, I just can't reach them . Any more time on lenses this weekend and wife will kill me....
. As I mentioned earlier in a different thread, I am referring to the current version of the Leica lens.
. Any more time on lenses this weekend and wife will kill me....