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:
I agree about your preferred lens choices, btw ...Show more →
Ignore my numbers, I goofed something up. Yours are correct! I do agree about MFD, but its a good normalizer, and we are often shooting portraits at close to the MFD.
Excellent shots Luka! I really like the rendering and colours. I think you you will be dangerous once you receive the ZM 25 and 50 Sonnar
As Jeff mentioned, the AWB really is not good, so you do have to mindful of it. But I always shoot RAW DNG anyway, and I just make sure I have a good reference point. I find sometimes it is very accurate, when you least expect it, and then in daylight, it will be too blue. I always keep a "Spyder cube" nearby anyway. Again this is not a problem, as use some different profiles now in ACR conversion.
I find the printing of the M9 files to large prints is amazing, and a lot of rendering and colours come to life.
Jeff, great blog !!! Yes I know Dan, has a lot of experience with the WA's also. I have kept with the ZM 25/2.8 because it works so well for me. The best coding for this lens is 28/2.8 Asph and not the 24/2.8 Asph. Even though the 24/2.8 Asph has less vignetting, the 28/2.8 Asph works.
Charles, I also find the AWB to be too blue in daylight, although as you pointed out it does get it right every now and then. Also, under tungsten, it really oversaturates red and magentas, so skin tone looks wonky and lips go very red. It can be so off at higher ISO's under tungsten that you can't recover it.
Glad you found the blog post interesting. It saved me from answering that question via email over and over again.
denoir wrote:
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.
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.
Have you considered the ZM21/2.8 on M9?
I have one for a 28mm equiv. on a M8. It equaled corner performance of the 28 Elmarit II, on the 5D. Can't speak for M9 usage, but it seems highly regarded.
Luka, just one other suggestion. For travelling, I like to take the M9 with me most of the time, being relatively unobtrusive. I have the GIOTTO Shott Glass cover SP 8250, on the LCD. It does not obstruct your view at all, and is reassurance that the LCD will not scratch while travelling.
Another view point on lenses for travelling, it is really great to have fast lenses, although slightly heavier, you have a lot more options for rendering and separating subjects in busy and very distracting locations. You then always have the option to stop down the lens too if needed. My fiancee has the Canon S90 P&S, and it takes very good shots. Having the FF and narrow DOF, with great rendering separates the M9 and S90 styles very decisively.
I tried out a 21/2.8 in the shop, and it was quite nice, but I preferred the rendering of the 21/2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH. However, it was a close call. The 21 ZM is definitely cheaper.
The beauty of the 21 FL, is that the cheaper Voigtlander external viewfinder has lines for both 21 and 25, and is amazingly easy and functional to use. With WA, I love the Voigtlander finder for composing shots, and I find easy to keep the shots level.
Adam, tough choice for portaits, with respect to DOF and MFD.
and of course Jeff's suggestion of the Voigtlander 75/1.8 seems like an excellent choice too.
I don't have any experience with the 75 Summicron Asph, but with the MFD of 0.7 and magnification will give you a lot of flexibility. Best of both, unless you need f/1.4. Also the 75 Summicron is meant to be easier to focus too.
Carsten suggestion that the 90 Cron AA is hard to tune is to be considered too, as you may need to send both the M9 and lens to be matched, as the focusing is more critical.
The ZM 85/2 is meant to be an amazing lens for portraits. I had one on order, but cancelled when I found a second had 90 Cron AA, for half the price.
Can't you just code the lens as 18 super elmar to avoid the colorshift? The coded 18 SE does't have problems on my m8 , and I can't inmagine it would on the m9.
I used the zeiss shortly when I was deciding between the leica and zeiss, it was uncoded and didn't give me any problems, but this was only for day, and offcourse on a cropsensor.
@ denoir,
If youre on the market for the zeiss 18, defenetly take a look at the leica 18. Its a smaller lens with great handeling where the zeiss is a bit bulky.
Its already coded and works fine with the digi m body's, and they are about the same in picture quality.
Only downside is the lack of filterthread. You have to buy an extra ring to fit filters in 77mm, with doesn't make it much smaller. The zeiss takes 58mm filters.
The build is really good, and even better than the zeiss. I really liked the zm build quality, but was blown away with the leica's.
And best, compared to the other leica's WA like the 21 elmarit or WATE its low priced.
As for callibrating your leica with zeiss, will van manen from the netherlands does this and has a good reputation with leica's. Holland - Sweden isn't that far away.
I will have to callibrate my set, and it takes about a week with 75 euro ex Vat for the camera and 50 per lens if they are out of focus (my 28 Zm doesn't equal with the leica's so has to have a callibration to) but normaly this is not the case.
jhapeman wrote:
Luka,
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.
Thanks for the comments and the tips guys! This is why I love this forum
Jeff: Thanks! Great writeup on your blog. The CornerFix software seems like a relatively good solution. Of course it complicates the workflow but it is still a viable solution. Perhaps one could write a lightroom plugin to automate it a bit. The WATE doesn't really appeal to me - I'm not crazy about the drawing style and it's too big and bulky (especially if you add the universal viewfinder).
Charles: Thanks! And thanks for the tip about the screen protector. Is there any other must-have accessory for the M9? I've ordered the following so far: diopter lens, domke bag, thumbs up, lens coder kit plus I bought an extra battery and battery charger (dead charger when traveling = disaster).
Jim: The reason why I've avoided the ZM 21 is because of all the lenses that I've own my ZE 21/2.8 Distagon is my undisputed favorite. MTF charts, samples and user reviews show that the ZM Biogon, although very good is not in the same league as the Distagon. So it would just feel like a poor substitute. The 18/4 isn't quite as good as the 21/2.8 but at least it gives me a wider focal length. Also 21mm is sort of close to 25mm. A benefit of the 21 is of course that it's smaller.
Rod: Thanks! One of the things that really surprised me (in a good way) was how low shutter speeds one could use. People have been saying that but I was still surprised when I saw it in practice as I don't have particularly steady hands - with my 5DII the 1/focal length rule of thumb is pretty unreliable for me. The X1 has been a disaster in that department (no mirror, but also no weight). The M9 on the other hand:
That's 1/15 with a 35mm lens. Really not bad - and I took a bunch of shots at that shutter speed and got consistently reliable results.
Bijltje: Yes, the Leica 18/3.8 is an option, I'm just not crazy about the rendering. I prefer Zeiss and especially for UWA where the higher contrast adds to the drama of the UWA FOV.
denoir wrote:
Charles: Thanks! And thanks for the tip about the screen protector. Is there any other must-have accessory for the M9? I've ordered the following so far: diopter lens, domke bag, thumbs up, lens coder kit plus I bought an extra battery and battery charger (dead charger when traveling = disaster).
I've bought a grip (original) which was a major improvement for me when using the camera for a longer period and also recently a 0.85x magnifier to help me to better see the frame lines since I'm wearing glasses but I'm not sure yet how valuable it is. I bought a Y-strap to replace the original one and I think it is an excellent way to carry the M9 when I don't have any extra equipment. None of this is of course must-have but more dependent on personal preferences.
Thanks Charles. It's different from the 35/2 Distagon - less '3D' and less micro contrast (as you had observed as well). As I'm used to the excellent Zeiss ZE optics, I can't say that I'm blown away by the 35/2 Biogon (I would have been had I gone from Canon optics to it) but I'm not disappointed either.
Joakim, the diopter lens is to compensate for my nearsightedness. I don't wear glasses but I'm somewhat nearsighted so I ordered a -0.5 diopter correction. The M9 viewfinder is already at -0.5 by default so adding a -0.5 diopter will bring it to a total of -1, which matches my right eye.
jhapeman wrote:
Ignore my numbers, I goofed something up. Yours are correct! I do agree about MFD, but its a good normalizer, and we are often shooting portraits at close to the MFD.
I am not sure if I would really go closer than 1m for a portrait, due to facial distortion, but in any case, this is a minor point.
I am not sure what you did in your numbers, but I notice that you have the same order as I got when I used a consistent distance, so perhaps you exchanged feet for m or something similar, and forgot to change the focus distance?
Anyway, like you, I am partial to the 50 Lux ASPH and the 75 Lux, but I also like the 90AA very much for portraits. It has a little magic left that I find missing in the 75 Cron.
The diopter lens when you get it right, makes all the difference to seeing the subtle differences on the focusing patch. I am slightly far sighted and I am using +1.0 correction which makes it easy to see the differences even with the 90mm lenses. As Carsten has suggested, I also still have 3 other diopters, +0.5, +1.5 and +2.0, and experiment with them until I am really comfortable seeing the patch and still being able to compose the shot in the background.
denoir wrote:
Joakim, the diopter lens is to compensate for my nearsightedness. I don't wear glasses but I'm somewhat nearsighted so I ordered a -0.5 diopter correction. The M9 viewfinder is already at -0.5 by default so adding a -0.5 diopter will bring it to a total of -1, which matches my right eye.
Funny, you have the same diopter in your right eye as I do. Btw, the theoretically correct diopter is not necessarily the best one, I have discovered. I have both the -0.5 and -1.0 and I find the -1.0 easier to use, for some reason. A little experimentation when you get the opportunity might pay off.
denoir wrote:
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....Show more →
Yes, the ZM glass is not as good as the ZF/ZE glass, in general. Specifically, the 21, 35 and 50 options are not as good. The ZM25 is meant to be better though, as is the ZM85. Leica's lenses are the other way: almost all the M glass is better than almost all the R glass.
Granted, I'm not particularly fast with the range finder, but I suppose I'll learn.
This is one area where the little focusing tab on many Leica lenses is an advantage. You can learn to focus by feel, very fast and very accurately. This is much more difficult with a traditional focus ring.
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.
Try the 25 first. If you don't find yourself running out of space often, firing off two shots and stitching might be more satisfying than carrying an extra lens.
I hate to sound like I am repeating myself, but I think you ought to try one of the top Leica lenses to get a real feel for the difference in rendering, not based on other people's images. I will revise my recommendation from the 50 Lux ASPH to the 90AA, which is not only a top lens, but also has a little of the old Leica Magic (TM) and can be found for very reasonable money, and resold at no loss if it is not interesting to you.
Carsten, yes, I would definitely like to try one of the top end Leica lenses. I had planned to get the 50 Lux ASPH but Leica resellers laugh in your face when you ask if they by any chance have one in stock. As for the 90AA, I'll wait a bit before going into longer lenses. I need to learn how to focus and compose with wide angles and normal lenses before I dare going into tele lenses.
Regarding the 25 - stitching is really not an option. It's difficult enough to compose with frame lines - I don't want to think about stitching. The main reason why I have been skeptical to rangefinders altogether is because of the approximate framing you get with the frame lines. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to getting exactly the framing I want. I usually shoot from a tripod and use live view and take my time to get precision framing. So frame lines are bad enough, I don't want to further cripple my ability to get a composition right.
As for the focusing tab - the ZM lenses have one as well. More of a focusing 'bump' really but enough to know at what distance you are focusing by the position of the tab.
Another shot from dinner on Kata beach 50 Lux of course. Just thought I would mention, the red shoulders are real...sunburn
I included the B&W, just for comparison.
