Thanks Luka I don't think they are far off the mark either. It is just a nice lens that works on the M9.
Thank you Rod Yes it is not cheap, but it is a nice lens. Just decided to cull my setup, sell a lot of lenses, that I have not used and a 7D to fund 2 very good lenses that will stay with me and do justice to the M9
Would you mind giving your opinion on the differences you see between the Sonnar and 50 Lux? I'm contemplating an M9 and the Sonnar is one of the lenses that interests me. I currently use the Canon 50 1.2L and from what I can gather there are some similarities between the two (I believe you are familiar with the 50L). But the Lux certainly looks nice based on your images and a number of reviews I've read. From a budgetary perspective the Sonnar (or Planar) is attractive because I could add a few other ZM/CV lenses for the price of a Lux.
Beautiful shots Charles. If it wasn't for the skin/hair/eyes/lips of the girl I would prefer the B/W as well I need a second job to get one of those 50 Lux ASPHs....and the ZF 35 1.4
Charles........wow beautiful pictures. The way that lux renders is amazing. Wow no wonder they call it the best 50mm 1.4 ever made. WOW.....did I say wow?
Thank you Ryan Excellent shots!!! My favourites are #1, 2 and 3. Great colours and rendering.
Thanks Tobin
Ron, I have had the 50L, great lens, but has some focus shift and AF issues. Yes I have tried three times the option of the Sonnar too, for the zeiss and cost factor. There is a focus shift that you do need to aware of. But this is of minimal consequence if the lens is calibrated and optimized at f/1.5. If not, the lens can be calibrated by a service centre for a small cost.
charles.K wrote:
Ron, I have had the 50L, great lens, but has some focus shift and AF issues. Yes I have tried three times the option of the Sonnar too, for the zeiss and cost factor. There is a focus shift that you do need to aware of. But this is of minimal consequence if the lens is calibrated and optimized at f/1.5. If not, the lens can be calibrated by a service centre for a small cost.
Thanks, and the Sonnar vs. the Lux would primarily be a difference of Zeiss vs. Leica rendering - or is there more to it?
rscheffler wrote:
Thanks, and the Sonnar vs. the Lux would primarily be a difference of Zeiss vs. Leica rendering - or is there more to it?
Ron
Zeiss tend to be quite clinical and high-contrast with their modern lenses.
The sonnar doesn't fit that description until about f/4.0
They deliberately didn't fully correct spherical aberration and other aberrations that lead to nice bokeh and soft 'round' rendering.
Wide open it is soft, has a lot of coma but still resolves some very fine details amongst the haze
The lux asph on the other hand (and the lux pre-asph to a lesser degree) is more like a planar design in rendering but the asph is something unique, it doesn't have a double gauss OR a sonnar/heliar/primoplan/ultron design, it is a unique optical design and is fantastic wide open with high sharpness, great bokeh and no coma. I bought the Sonnar because it is smaller, has more 'character' and I now have the 75mm Summicron which is the 50 asph design with an extra element so I get the best of both worlds.
If you shoot a lot of colour night-time street shots, I'd get the lux asph. If you shoot portraits without bright point light-sources in the plane of focus (thus avoiding coma) then I love my Sonnar.
Zombii, rsolti13 and a few of you other guys : how do you get that "metallic shimmer" to your photos ?
I am guessing this is due to the pp ?
I have an M 8.2 with a CV 50mm 1.1, a Summicron 50 f2 and a Summarit 35mm 2.5 and I just donīt get that crisp metallic shimmer...especially impressed with a lot of the BW converted images !
Hmm, never thought of it as shimmer but I think I see what you mean. Part of it is sharp lenses but PP definitely is a part. I've got some Lightroom presets for B&W conversions that that give a good start point for M8 images. PM me your email and I'll send them to you. I also use the Clarity slider in LR3 on most images which gives the sensation of sharpness without over doing it.
I don't think they are far off the mark either. It is just a nice lens that works on the M9. 
