Charles, very nice set. The second image is my favorite.
Ditto for Ryan. My favorite is the bench
Joe, congrats on snagging a 50 Lux ASPH! Excellent shots from the playground! You should try it in color some time as well - no point in paying for a full color lens when only using it in BW!
KL, great shots with the 90. I like the third one best
I got my 75 Cron back today (repaired aperture ring) and took a couple of shots. I can only conclude that I still don't know how to use the 75mm length. Some random shots:
It's partly this specific lens though. I was trying to get some shots of the building of the school of architecture (nominated each year as the uglies building in Stockholm and it usually wins the contest) when this young hooligan approached me and asked me to take his picture:
This should have been a really good shot, but it's not. The drawing style is so impersonal, formal and just flat that it detracts from the image. The 50 Lux ASPH would have done a far better job as would have the 90 Cron V3 - not to mention the Zeiss 85/1.4 Planar (ZE/ZF) which would have been really marvelous for this.
To be fair in my experience the 75 Cron is excellent for head & shoulder portraits. Full body portraits on the other hand, like the image above have always been underwhelming.
Thanks lovinglife. You should not pay any attention to my complaints about the 75 Cron. My 75 Cron and I have had disagreements since day one. I've tried to get rid it by sending it back to Solms.. twice. But it keeps coming back to torment me
No, but seriously, when the lens is used in a proper way it can be really great. I've seen some nice shots (taken by other people) from it.
Very nice bokeh shot by the way!
Oddly enough I seem to be more comfortable with composing 75mm shots in portrait mode than in landscape mode. The portrait mode shots I took outnumber the landscape ones 2:1.
Joe - great shots at the playground. Looks like you are already comfortable with that 50 Lux
KL - nice shots with the 50 Cron. I would love to see a side by side with the Lux
Lovinglife - what a 2 lens kit you have going now! Can't wait to see more. Post more pics with the Lux, too!
Luka - the picture of the 'hooligan' is great . I like #1 & #3 from your last set best....#3 takes the cake though! Great framing. I definitely see a loss of contrast in these shots and it doesn't give me the same 'Luka' shot yet. Very interesting that most of the shots are in portrait and not landscape
rsolti13 wrote:
Joe - great shots at the playground. Looks like you are already comfortable with that 50 Lux
KL - nice shots with the 50 Cron. I would love to see a side by side with the Lux
Lovinglife - what a 2 lens kit you have going now! Can't wait to see more. Post more pics with the Lux, too!
Luka - the picture of the 'hooligan' is great . I like #1 & #3 from your last set best....#3 takes the cake though! Great framing. I definitely see a loss of contrast in these shots and it doesn't give me the same 'Luka' shot yet. Very interesting that most of the shots are in portrait and not landscape ...Show more →
Nice shots with nice gear!!!
i havent had a chance to get out lately (the qualms of owning a business).
i'm actually plannig to go to the LA film festival this weekend - hopefully that will bring some photo-ops.
Guess I'll have to learn to see in color to make the most of my lenses
Luka, that first 75Cron at the fruit stall is rendered nicely, the others (especially the 3rd shot of the tree) are well composed but in terms of lens rendering, it clearly looks like the 75Cron is one of the weaker ASPH lenses. Now that I've gone "ASPHeric" myself, I do realize what you and Carsten mean with the 75Cron performance. Maybe you should go ahead and get the 90Cron AA? Although I understand that its out of production because Leica is trying to fix the focus issues on this lens.
Lovinglife, cool shot with the 75Cron.
Ryan, nice work with the 35Lux. That second shot with the ladder is fantastic. Great shot!
Question for you guys....the colors on my photos look very dull on my work computer (IE) vs. my monitor at home. Does it look dull to you guys as well?
joe88 wrote:
Luka, that first 75Cron at the fruit stall is rendered nicely, the others (especially the 3rd shot of the tree) are well composed but in terms of lens rendering, it clearly looks like the 75Cron is one of the weaker ASPH lenses. Now that I've gone "ASPHeric" myself, I do realize what you and Carsten mean with the 75Cron performance. Maybe you should go ahead and get the 90Cron AA? Although I understand that its out of production because Leica is trying to fix the focus issues on this lens.
Joe, that's a tough one. For a while I thought the 90 Cron AA would be the solution but after looking at a bunch of samples I've decided that I definitely prefer the rendering of the 90 Cron V3. The problem with the latter is that it doesn't really cut it in terms of optical performance when doing landscapes. The 75 Cron for landscapes is a hit and miss. Sometimes it does a brilliant job while other times the image just looks "wrong". I can't put my finger on what it is and I have not managed to work around it with PP.
My current conclusion is simply that I at this point can't find any tele lens that would suit my purposes. The Zeiss 85/2 Sonnar ZM could have been an alternative but Zeiss has discontinued it plus it is a large lens shaped rather oddly.
I think the primary problem with the 75 Cron is that Leica has gone overboard with correcting all aberrations resulting in a completely neutral rendering. I think that if you took a mid range Canon prime (like the 85/1.8), increased the raw optical performance tenfold then you'd end up with something very close to the Cron.
It's not without merits though. As a portrait lens it can be very good in an unforgiving kind of way due to the ruthless sharpness of the lens combined with the neutral OOF rendering.
The DOF at f/2 can be a bit narrow though
There are a couple of other things that I think it works very well for, but in my experience it's definitely not like the 50 Lux ASPH which just produces great rendering at all distances and apertures.
rsolti13 wrote:
Question for you guys....the colors on my photos look very dull on my work computer (IE) vs. my monitor at home. Does it look dull to you guys as well?
Great shots Ryan - love the last two! And to answer your question - definitely not dull. That green tree is exceptionally vibrant.
You should install Internet Explorer 9.0 - it supports color profiles properly. Older versions are essentially unusable for viewing photos as they mess up the colors.
denoir wrote:
Joe, that's a tough one. For a while I thought the 90 Cron AA would be the solution but after looking at a bunch of samples I've decided that I definitely prefer the rendering of the 90 Cron V3. The problem with the latter is that it doesn't really cut it in terms of optical performance when doing landscapes. The 75 Cron for landscapes is a hit and miss. Sometimes it does a brilliant job while other times the image just looks "wrong". I can't put my finger on what it is and I have not managed to work around it with PP.
My current conclusion is simply that I at this point can't find any tele lens that would suit my purposes. The Zeiss 85/2 Sonnar ZM could have been an alternative but Zeiss has discontinued it plus it is a large lens shaped rather oddly.
I think the primary problem with the 75 Cron is that Leica has gone overboard with correcting all aberrations resulting in a completely neutral rendering. I think that if you took a mid range Canon prime (like the 85/1.8), increased the raw optical performance tenfold then you'd end up with something very close to the Cron.
It's not without merits though. As a portrait lens it can be very good in an unforgiving kind of way due to the ruthless sharpness of the lens combined with the neutral OOF rendering.
There are a couple of other things that I think it works very well for, but in my experience it's definitely not like the 50 Lux ASPH which just produces great rendering at all distances and apertures.
Great shots Ryan - love the last two! And to answer your question - definitely not dull. That green tree is exceptionally vibrant.
You should install Internet Explorer 9.0 - it supports color profiles properly. Older versions are essentially unusable for viewing photos as they mess up the colors. ...Show more →
JimBuchanan wrote:
Not sure I can agree with that, but if more start to believe it, maybe I'll have a chance to get one at a better price, one day.
From everything i've read the 75 is supposed to be one of the best ASPH lenses - and also it has some advantages over the 90. I think it had something to do with the 90/APO/ASPH not having a floating element if i recall correctly, and also a closer MFD resulting in more magnification.
I know I may be biased since I own this lens (just got it today) - but i did a lot of research on it.
The 75 lux, like mentioned by Carsten and others definitely has the advantage of having a unique character and speed - the cron is supposed to have better 'clinical' attributes in regards to IQ - of course they are 2 different lenses, not sure there's a need to compare. I would have been happy to have either!
I think the problem here is the use of "weaker". I don't think Joe means weaker in terms of raw optical performance but the overall drawing style.
Optically speaking the 75 ASPH is the best corrected of all current Leica lenses. In fact I think that is just the thing - they have IMO gone a bit too far with it. Of course this is primarily a matter of personal preference and may or may not be relevant depending on the type of photography that you do.
I mentioned "rendering" not optical performance or charts. Luka said it more eloquently, in terms of "drawing style", in terms of what evokes emotions to the user, in this case, to me, and also some others, I find the 75Cron to lack "soul". To each his or her own opinion.
You should understand that I am comparing what I've seen of the 75Cron to what I've shot with my own 28Cron, 35Lux and 50Lux and a whole host of older Leica glass. And we are talking about all excellent Leica glasses here, they are so close in performance that which lens you choose is a matter of taste rather than focal length alone. That's what I find so enjoyable with the M mount system, you have so many options to choose from.
joe88 wrote:
Just to clarify before I ruffle some feathers.
Yes, Luka said it more eloquently, in terms of drawing style, in terms of what evokes emotions to the user, in this case, to me, and also some others, I find the 75Cron to lack "soul". To each his or her own opinion.
You should understand that I am comparing what I've seen of the 75Cron to what I've shot with my own 28Cron, 35Lux and 50Lux. And we are talking about all excellent Leica glasses here, they are so close in performance that which lens I choose is a matter of taste rather than focal length alone. That's what I find so enjoyable with the M mount system, you have so many options to choose from.
Joe thanks for clarifying - that makes more sense.
This lens reminds me a lot of the Zeiss 2/100 Makro Planar which is one of my all-time favorite lens, but with less CA and a bit sharper wide open. The only thing i disliked about a 100MP was that 100mm was a bit too much focal length for me, so these I think fits the bill.
. I like #1 & #3 from your last set best....#3 takes the cake though! Great framing. I definitely see a loss of contrast in these shots and it doesn't give me the same 'Luka' shot yet. Very interesting that most of the shots are in portrait and not landscape
