Andrew, thanks for feedback about 50lux, that is inline with my impression about bokeh, which I feel it is much smoother than the previous lux from samples I saw. but I am surprised to hear ASPH has much better center performance.
and another excellent set, especially like the old lady smoking one.
HK, I like the first one which has a special perspective above ground. Nice color and PP too.
Paul, Nice color and PP.
Ron, I always keep my shutter setting as 'soft', though I lose exposure lock but I feel there is no way I can take advantage of Leica's mirrorless hand hold design with 'standard' setting. Very poor designed shutter, not even close to my M3. this is another area I wish they can do something about M10 which I don't see many people mentioned.
Sorry to hear your 50lux 'drift', that sounds scary as you just checked not long time ago, did you?
Again, you have too many good photos to comment individually. but I like all those color and like the big ship in sunset very much.
Thanks Michael. We'll see about the focus drift. I could be my eyes, though where I have noticed it is with close distance shots where the combo has been very reliable. I also use the soft/discreet shutter release setting.
Here's another version of the ship, but after the first shot above, all the sailboats disappeared:
50 Lux ASPH for all except the second and third from last, which were 90 Summarit.
Thanks Ron Excellent series particularly your late afternoon shots! I love the warm late afternoon light! Sorry about the drifting of the 50 Lux calibration. I recently had both of my M9's had drifted after a trip to Thailand. Fortunately it was recalibrated within a few days, still under warranty!
Joel, very interesting perspectives and shots!
Andrew, great set! Very nice examples with the 90 Elmarit
Super set! I especially like the last one in the first set. The branches are a cool image too. The last image that you just posted is really nice, great afternoon colours.
Regarding the focus drift, it could be temperature related, if I remember correctly, your lux was a chrome version? If so a little temp 30+ C could push it out slightly, especially if it was close. When we meet, I'll bring mine along and we can compare them.
Andrew, that's an interesting possibility. We'll see if the drift disappears in cooler conditions later in the year. The most recent calibration was done in February, though certainly not done outside by Leica's tech! Probably in a roughly 20 degrees C facility.
I'm not sure the fact the lens is the chrome version, which is primarily brass, is a negative factor, as brass appears to have a lower thermal expansion coefficient than aluminum, which I believe is the main component of Leica's current black lenses. And I'm not sure how relevant the difference between brass and aluminum build is, as the helicoid in both chrome and black versions is probably the same material. It's brass in all of my Leica lenses, though the rangefinder cam appears to not always be brass. It's brass in my 28 Cron and 50 Lux, appears to be anodized aluminum (or some other silver metal) in the 90 Summarit, and undetermined in the 21 Lux because the anodized cam has not worn sufficiently to reveal the metal type. Beyond the helicoid though, if the predominantly aluminum lenses hold the optics in place with aluminum parts, and the brass lenses use brass parts, then there could be some differences.
Bottom line is it's plausible warmer conditions have an influence (i.e. most super-tele lenses allow focus past infinity on the focusing scale), but I haven't heard of this related to the M system. I don't recall Luka commenting on focus accuracy issues during his trips to Egypt, or the US southwest last summer, but I would think intense heat could affect the rangefinder mechanism in general. Maybe I see this more so with the 50 Lux because I use it frequently at or near wide open and it's the most critical of my lenses for calibration accuracy. The wide angles are naturally more forgiving and the 90 Summarit I don't trust and typically use stopped down a fair amount...
Thanks Charles and Joakim - I too will have some forest scenes coming soon...
90 Summarit except the 'wide' vertical with the 50 Lux ASPH.
Congrats Adam. I think that trade was a pretty reasonable one and looking forward to what you do with the Cron. Agreed on the Canon lenses, though I also think it's partly marketing. While I haven't specifically looked, I can't recall hearing of Southeast Asian Leica users having temperature related focusing issues. One would think this might be possible since calibration at Leica vs. average SEA summer temperatures would be quite different...
A few more sunset postcards:
First two with 50 Lux ASPH, remainder with 90 Summarit.
Joakim, love the texture and feel to the forest shot!!
Ron, beautiful lighting, very nice series!
Hilmar, really nice Nocti capture! Love the roll off and rendering
Thanks Hilmar! Great background separation in that image. I think I can see the family resemblance to the Lux ASPH. Feels like one of the side streets somewhere around Kaufingerstr.
Thank you, Ron and Charles. Yes, Ron, the shot was taken close to the Kaufingerstrasse. The 50 summilux and 50 noctilux are indeed very similar in their respective rendering.
I'm amazed by how you managed to pick this WB in the forest shots, Ron. How did you do that (WB picker in LR or manual selection of WB?)? What else did you do to create this tone?
Thanks Hilmar. The forest scenes are somewhat manipulated and not entirely realistic, in terms of colour spectrum. White balance was set manually, each image is a bit different, but they're between 5000-6000K and with tint between -20 and -8. I find most cameras set to AWB in forest scenes will inject a high amount of magenta tint to compensate for the predominantly green scene, resulting in very strong magenta casts in more neutral objects, such as rocks and tree trunks (see below). To get the somewhat muted, subdued feel, I set contrast in LR3 to zero. I normally use 35 for M9 files. In some I pulled brightness back to 40 from 50, the default. In addition to these settings, I manipulated the hue, saturation and luminance sliders for various colours.
The above images had the following settings:
They're kind of on the green side, which I did intentionally for effect. Maybe it's a bit too much, but I like it. It was a sunny day with some clouds, and I found the images without direct sun the best for this effect. In the second image above, by reducing the green and yellow luminance, the brighter green leaves in the background became darker and blended better with the surrounding area, giving it a uniform feel and depth.
And this one:
Had these settings:
I also added vignetting and did some selective burning and dodging. Something else I have noticed with these, is that I see a lot more deep shadow detail in LR and in the full-rez files, especially the third one above, that appears to be lost in downsizing and compressing for the web.
Here are a few more... the first with the 28 Cron, the rest with the 50 Lux ASPH, all were wide open.
Wow, Ron, thank you for this great service. Really appreciate it! I was asking because I'm often not happy with pictures I took in the forest. Will try out if your settings are going to improve my pictures. Thanks so much!
I think the combination of white balance and tint is important. Also, the M9 seems to really enhance bright greens (which contain a lot of yellow). Pulling back on the yellow and green saturation sliders should help a lot.
Excellent series particularly your late afternoon shots! I love the warm late afternoon light! Sorry about the drifting of the 50 Lux calibration. I recently had both of my M9's had drifted after a trip to Thailand. Fortunately it was recalibrated within a few days, still under warranty!
