It figures, I can finally officially participate here and I'm immediately after Rob's stellar images!
Anyway, I found a decent deal on a used M9 and couldn't resist. First lenses are the ZM 21 f/2.8 and the ZM 35 f/2.8. Next lens will be the ZM 50 f/2.0 and down the road I'd like to add a 75/85. Maybe in a year or so once I'm more comfortable with the system I'll start looking at adding some fast glass.
The weather was nice today and allowed me to do some test shots to make sure everything was working as it should and to get a feel for the lenses. Unfortunately I only have one battery and it died before I could get to where there are some ducks... but instead I found a bench!
ZM 35 C Biogon:
And some more with the 35:
This is my first foray back to Leica since the early 90s when I had an M3 with 50 and 90mm lenses. I didn't really get comfortable with the system back then and sold it relatively quickly. This time around though I think I know better what I'm getting into and actually have specific applications in mind for the M9. It will just take a bit of time to get up to speed with it. And believe it or not, today was also my first time with Lightroom... I resisted for years, having been pretty happy with Canon's DPP. I'll admit, LR does offer some extras to finish images and avoid going to Photoshop, but DPP also has a couple tricks missing in LR. Nice that it comes with the M9...
Thank you Luka I am really enjoying the 75 Lux. Wide open it is sharp, but yet very smooth paint like in its rendering. Dog and horse fur (maybe the Nyquist frequency) I find very difficult to capture, with most lenses, but the 75 and 50 Lux I have enjoyed the most taking shots of horses and other animals.
Your shots with the ZM 18 are excellent on the Z* thread. You are finding the sweet spot with this lens. How are you finding the external VF
Thanks Charles. The ZM 18 seems to be every bit as good as the ZM 25 and the focal length actually fits me better. The use of two viewfinders is of course an added complication in use, but not much as there is seldom any focusing involved. The external Zeiss VF itself is amazing - extremely bright compared to the internal one.
Nice shots Luka. I think I see a bit of a magenta cast in the bottom corners. Did you clean up the top ones manually?
Charles, I also really like the 75 Lux shots, very nice. I am less enamoured with the 35 Lux ASPH II, but I haven't seen many shots so far. It is certainly sharp.
Thank you Carsten Yes the 35 Lux II is different and unique in the leica lineup. I would relate it to more of a Zeiss look. Still learning how to use it properly. So far, I like it very much, and it will interesting to see how it performs in low light for functions.
The 75 Lux has been the surprise package It is fast becoming my favourite lens together with the 50 Lux. It may also be that I was fortunate to get a very good copy of the lens. The focusing wide open has been very accurate.
Luka, the second one is great, as was your previous boat photo.
I find the last one really funny with the cannons facing inwards rather than outwards and that guy standing in the corner like he was going to attack the building with his canons.
Carsten, no it's just that the top was configured as a 21 elmarit while the other two were configured as 28 elmarits. For some reason the ink coding on the lens keeps rubbing off (only on this lens) and the 21 turns to a 28.
Joakim, it was at the city hall and the guy was part of a film crew setting up some lights. No idea what they were going to do with the canons but as they had muzzle loaders and slow fuses ready so they were apparently going to be used. An old school coup d'etat perhaps?
Charles, love that last dog portrait with the 75Cron!
Luka, congrats on the 18/4. Looks like you have put it to good use. Very nice set of pictures! I actually prefer the shots you take with this lens rather than the 25/2.8.
Charles add me to the group enjoying your 75 Lux images. You're absolutely right that it has a certain delicate quality. From what I'd heard about the lens I would have expected more 'glow' as in, softness wide open. Of your dog images, I definitely prefer the fourth portrait the best.
Luka I like what I see with the 18 and from this set like the boat image.
Joe - nice Thanksgiving spread - it looks like a very comfortable setting.
As for a Leica price drop... Perhaps they've managed some internal efficiencies or other savings? But the way the Euro is holding at the moment, down somewhat against the USD and the uncertainty about Ireland, Portugal and Spain's debt, it's possible the Euro will stay flat and therefore cost Leica some money on exchange rates... meaning no USD price drops, but that's just my speculation.
Here's another ZM 35 C Biogon image. While it's not a fast lens, I was curious how it blurs the background at various distances. The image below is at 70cm. I was also fairly surprised that it held the focus on the railing so far to the left after doing the 'focus and recompose' routine which, in my experience with AF and SLRs, sometimes doesn't work very well.
And one with more contrast due to the sun:
Here's one focused between 1-1.5 metres:
I was coding it with the M9's internal lens options as the 35 Cron because the Summarit isn't listed. I found that generally worked fine but there were some images where a touch of magenta was present on the left side. I've now physically coded the lens with a marker as the Summarit, so we'll see if there is any difference. At this focal length, I doubt there will be. During my outing yesterday it also didn't help that half the time I forgot to change the coding menu from 21 to 35mm... Surprisingly (or maybe not) it didn't really have much of a negative effect.
Looking for a bit of 3Dness:
One thing that does irk me a bit about the 35, and actually many other similar focal length M mount lenses, is that there is some field curvature evident and it's towards infinity in the corners. You can see it in the image above and below. Meaning, when focused at a middle distance, objects in the background along the corners and edges of the image are more defined than objects at a similar distance in the middle of the frame. I'd prefer to see field curvature in the opposite direction and it's what I'm used to with the Canon lenses I have in my SLR system that exhibit noticeable curvature. But it's a minor quibble. For the price of this lens, I think it's a really nice performer and definitely tops what I am used to with my 16-35 and 35 f/2 Canons.
Perhaps in part due to the field curvature, background blur tends to be a bit busy wide open when focusing on something 3-4 metres away. I guess in such instances a lens like the 35 Lux will provide greater subject/background separation.
Another example of the field curvature, pretty evident in the top left corner:
I'm pretty sure that was at f/2.8. It's maybe not so evident in a 1000 pixel image, but the full rez viewed at actual size on screen shows the branches in the top left well focused. In comparison the branches in the top middle are more blurred, but it's a nervous blur. I think because of the rather weak degree of background blur at this shooting distance, I'll probably stop down more. The way it looks to me now is it's kind of at an unhappy spot between well burred and better defined.
Interesting rendering with the Jupiter-3. 
