Ok, I decided yesterday to go to Egypt for a week end of December/early January which sort of made up my mind, so I got it today:
The only lens I managed to find was the 35/2 Biogon, but I'll order the 25/2.8 Biogon and 50/1.5 Sonnar today as well. I should have them in a few days. My final agony was over a silly thing - the color. The black version is more discrete and provides a bit more grip but doesn't look good with silver colored lenses. So I chose the gray version although I'm not 100% convinced I did the right thing there.
Anwyay, the battery is currently charging and I'm impatiently waiting to go out and give it a spin.
Congratulations on your new lens, Luka! Oh, and the camera too...
Didn't I read somewhere that the 35/2 Biogon was not quite as whiz-bang as its slower brethren?
Charles, great shots! I have been too busy with other things to give you the credit you deserve. Apologies! Love the colours on the last two. If only the last one had a bit of 3D....
Charles, I like the first photo of the buddha statue the most where the budda is almost looking in to the camera. I am so glad I don't live opposite that green house
Great capture Jeffrey.
John, amazing photo.
Ahh, Luka, you have come over to the dark side. Prepare to be annoyed with some of the quirks of the M9, like the slow image preview and card writing, and the crummy screen--but also be prepared to be very pleased with the image quality.
Personally I prefer the silver, but I could only get black when I got mine. I wish they had a real chrome M9.
abam wrote:
with the exception of thrice's 'sitting girl' and a few others, i'm equally unimpressed by most of these images.
ymmv
What is it that leaves you unimpressed? Camera capabilities, subject matter, photographer skill? I think that's a very provocative statement to make without providing more information. Perhaps you can show us what you consider to be impressive? Maybe we're in leica land and missing your broader experience. I look forward to your more detailed response to help others better understand your point of view.
@luka -nice! Color me jealous! I can't wait to see your work with the new camera. So..err..hurry and what not.
Congrats Luka. Looking forward to seeing some pics from you! The thing is that you could make a great image with a Kodak Brownie! Have fun with your new toy...
Thanks guys! I took a two hour walk with it and first impressions are mostly positive. Focusing is in most cases easier than I thought. As I'm using a 35mm lens framing hasn't been much of an issue but broadly speaking the frame lines are very inaccurate.
The feel of the camera is awesome - I love the shutter. The build quality is appealing as well.
The display is not as bad as I thought - it's better than the one on the X1 (same resolution but smaller). Image preview is a terrible - it's impossible to see if you got perfect focus or not. Auto white balance seems to be a practical joke played by the Leica engineers. The operating speed of the camera is better than I thought - the X1 has far worse performance. As I had expected X1 performance, the performance of the M9 was actually a pleasant surprise.
What is perhaps most important is that it's a joy to use. The X1 can provide decent image quality but is so bad when it comes to usability that I seldom want to use it. With the M9 the experience has been just positive in that respect.
As for the lens 35/2 Biogon, I'm happy with what I'm seeing. It's a Zeiss alright. It has slightly less in-your-face rendering compared to the ZE/ZF 35/2. The corners are somewhat soft at f/2 but they shape up very nicely when the lens is stopped down a bit.
I've ordered the 25/2.8 and 50/1.5 directly from Zeiss, a Domke F-803 bag & -0.5 diopter from B&H and a Thumbs Up CSEP-1 and Lens Coder Kit.
One worrying thing is that I asked in the shop (and they are Leica's primary reseller in Sweden) about calibration of camera and lenses and they said that unfortunately there is nobody in Sweden that can do it. There used to be a couple of service centers a few years ago but they closed down. They told me that for Leica glass + camera it goes to Solms but they won't touch Zeiss glass.
Anyway, I have not had time to look through all the shots, but here are just a couple of random samples:
Well, it is a bit hard to tell at this size, but superficially it looks like you got a well-calibrated kit. That is one less worry. Try shooting carefully wide open and stopped down a touch (f/4 perhaps) at various distances. There should be no variation if everything is set up right, and the Biogon has no focus shift. Of course, everything might be within tolerance with the Biogon, but show up inaccuracies with a 90AA, but that time, that worry.
So what's the lens that has the thinnest DOF at the closest focusing distance?
Say I wanted to try and come as close as possible to framing someone head and shoulders (upper chest).
What lens would give me the thinest DOF at that range?
Name three (if it's the Noctilux .95 followed by f/1 etc, just name noct as 1 lens)...
I hear good things about the 75lux the 50lux and the 90aa (on here we even had a brief 75lux discussion).
The 75 Lux, IIRC, closely followed by the f/1 Noctilux. I guess the new 0.95 Noctilux might beat them both. The 90AA is also a real hard lens to tune exactly.
adamdewilde wrote:
So what's the lens that has the thinnest DOF at the closest focusing distance?
Say I wanted to try and come as close as possible to framing someone head and shoulders (upper chest).
What lens would give me the thinest DOF at that range?
Name three (if it's the Noctilux .95 followed by f/1 etc, just name noct as 1 lens)...
I hear good things about the 75lux the 50lux and the 90aa (on here we even had a brief 75lux discussion).
Best,
Adam
OK, so if you want to frame head and chest with the least DOF, then the choices are the Noctilux followed by the 50mm Summilux. In fact, in order of DOF at the MFD, it goes like this:
Noctilux f/0.95, MFD 1m, DOF about 2.9mm
Noctilux f/1, MFD 1m, DOF about 3.2mm
50mm Summilux, MFD 0.7m, DOF about 4.5mm
75mm Summilux, MFD 0.8m, DOF about 4.6mm
75mm APO Summicron, MFD 0.7m, DOF about 6.7mm
90mm APO Summicron, MFD 1m, DOF about 6.8mm
So, in practical use the Noctis are similar with regards to DOF, and surprisingly so is the 50mm 'Lux and 75 'Lux. The reality is that these numbers don't tell you much: Between different effects from telecompression and different signatures, there are big differences between all of these. Personally, for a purely "head and shoulders shot" my favorite is the 50 Summilux. For a traditional head shot, it's the 75 'Lux unless I want a super-sharp image, in which case I switch over to the 75 APO 'Cron.
You have to figure out the look you want and then you can get the right lens.
Ahh, Luka--you are discovering the joys of the M9. Its hard to explain to someone who hasn't used one, but even with its flaws, its just a joy to use. I am getting more enjoyment out of that camera than I have with any other.
I really like your two shots in the woods with all the yellow leaves. If you like that Zeiss, you will love the 25/2.8. I have the 28/2.8 which is also great, but a bit too close to the 25. I have the 24 Summilux, so I didn't need a slower 25mm lens.
Looking forward to more work from you and your M9!
I am not sure anyway that measuring at minimum focusing distance is an interesting thing to do. The reproduction ratios of these are wildly different. Let's say that a portrait is interesting with a 75mm lens at 2m. The equivalent distance for 50 would be 1.33m, and for 90mm about 2.4m, all at the same reproduction ratio. Then we get:
Congratulations Luka !!!
Very nice shots I have the chrome version too.
I feel you will be even more pleased with the ZM 25/2.8. The M9 is fun to use, in spite of its "quirks" or personality.
Thank you Luka, Philippe and Joakim
Nice shots Joakim! Interesting vehicle testing in Sweden.
Carsten, yes as far as I can see the 35/2 Biogon and the M9 range finder seem to be in sync. I'll do some more proper tests.
After reviewing the images, I can conclude that the 35/2 Biogon isn't quite up there with the raw optical quality that I'm used from my ZE lenses. At least not wide open - it suffers from something I think is LoCA wide open and the corners are very weak. It does improve quickly when stopped down. The contrast is somewhat lower than what I'm used to as well. To be honest though, I don't particular care too much about raw optical performance - I value rendering style more. The 35/2 Biogon has a slightly less dramatic and contrasty rendering compared to my ZE glass but I like it.
Thanks Jeff! Yes, it is definitely nice to use. For some types of photography it is definitely more fun than the 5DII. For other types it is well, not so practical. I just tried to take a few long night exposures from a tripod but gave up, laughing as I could not see the aperture ring nor the shutter dial in the darkness
The image quality as far as resolution goes is superb - definitely a step up from the 5DII. I'm not sure it matters in practice unless you do large prints on a regular basis but still, resolution is very impressive at 100%. The colors look good - definitely better than what I get from the X1. Not sure about how it would be compared to my 5DII but I have not noticed any dramatic difference. AWB is weird though, but that's mostly a non-issue when shooting RAW. The perhaps most pleasant surprise was how accurate the focusing is - at least @ 35mm. I missed focus very few times - much less than I would have with my 5DII when using the optical viewfinder. Granted, I'm not particularly fast with the range finder, but I suppose I'll learn.
Thanks Charles! I have high expectations of the 25/2.8 but the lens I'm really looking forward to is the 50 Sonnar. Apart from the Noctilux, it's the only M mount lens whose rendering I find really interesting. I like the concept of a softer, more artistic rendering wide open and high contrast & sharpness stopped down.
Speaking of lenses, does anyone have some experience with the Zeiss 18/4? I'm worried that the 25 isn't wide enough for me. I love UWAs so I think I would need to get something there. At the same time I'm not crazy about collecting a pile of lenses for the M9 - it would defeat the purpose of the camera if the kit isn't kept light. I thought a 4 lens limit would be good but if I also get the 18/4 and one longer lens (75, 85 or 90) I'll break that limit. Still, without an UWA lens I would often have to turn to my DSLR even in situations/places where the M9 would be better.
Avoid the Zeiss 18/4 unless you want to deal with using CornerFix to correct color shift problems. The rear nodal point of the lens is too close to the sensor, so the light rays hit the sensor at a very steep angle, messing up color rendering. The WATE is a better choice as it's a retrofocal design. On the other hand, once you learn to use CornerFix, it's easy to use. I wrote up a long article on how to use it with the Voigtlander Ultra-Wides:
You might want to consider the Voigtlander lenses. Incredible optical quality, stupidly sharp, and very attractively priced.
I also see you share my opinion of the AWB on the M9. It's terrible. Supposedly it was improved in the last FW revision but only in specific cases, and personally I saw no real improvement in most of my shooting. It was quite good in the M8, so I don't know why they have struggled, but it was also bad in early M8 releases, so I do expect it to be resolved at some point. As you point out, if you shoot raw, it really doesn't matter too much, but I do find it preferrable to have the WB be close to correct before I start processing--it speeds things along.
Karon Beach.
