Hey Adam, just wondering what you're planning to use the 21mm for? If its for landscapes then obviously the SEM is a better choice but if you're into PJ or street then elmarit is probably a better choice. I absolutely love the 21mm focal range and I use it all the time when I was using the D800. I own the WATE but I dearly miss my Zeiss 21mm due to its well controlled distortion and close focus. I had looked into other available 21mm in the M mount but I don't think any of them will suit my needs like the Zeiss can. I will probably end up getting an F-M adapter just so I can use that lens. Best of luck with your hunt
adamdewilde wrote:
Guys thank you all for the comments.. I'll check out Boris' post, n maybe shoot him a PM.
I'm leaning more towards the 21 SEM, as I feel the rendering is going to be similar to the 28elmarit-asph based on the images I've seen.. That high micro contrast look you all talk about.
But I'll do a bit more poking around before I decide. And yes, it's going to be used mainly for my upcoming honeymoon in Italy, so buildings, etc.
rirakuma wrote:
Hey Adam, just wondering what you're planning to use the 21mm for? If its for landscapes then obviously the SEM is a better choice but if you're into PJ or street then elmarit is probably a better choice. I absolutely love the 21mm focal range and I use it all the time when I was using the D800. I own the WATE but I dearly miss my Zeiss 21mm due to its well controlled distortion and close focus. I had looked into other available 21mm in the M mount but I don't think any of them will suit my needs like the Zeiss can. I will probably end up getting an F-M adapter just so I can use that lens. Best of luck with your hunt
Yeah, to this day my three favorite lenses are the 21ZE 50MPZE and 100MPZE (only reason I sold them off is because I switched to Nikon, and I haven't bothered buying them in ZF.2 mount since I don't use them for work). Honestly, in my opinion nothing can beat those three lenses for HOW I LIKE TO SHOOT (when not working)..
I've had the 21 2.8ZM though, and from what I remember about it (can't seem to find my first Leica M9 HDD), I didn't LOVE it... It was just ok.. Which is another reason why I'm leaning towards the SEM.
Honestly though, I'm trying to not get into a lens buying frenzy right now. I have a history of buying more then I can use. And right now I'm already over my 3 lens rule.
Elisemkii, you captured that moment very well (sleeping on sofa).
Allen, I like the woman and dog photo.
leonasj, great portrait of the kid.
Michael, I like your recent landscape photos
rirakuma, great landscape photos
Phil, nice mood in your Monochrom+Nocti photos on p 753 and also earlier. Are they from some kind of park or...? The building shot with the 21 Ultron impresses. Looks like a great lens.
Charles, nice low-light photo of the three ladies. 1/15 is quite impressive
Ryan, I agree she appears to be a natural in fron of the camera. Nice set and also great colors in the set from the fishing boat.
Luka, nice to see you back. Great assorted set.
CVickery, cool shot.
Ron, great b&w set. I think the first is my favorite because of the layers.
Jonas, great perspective in that photo.
Thanks joakim, yes Balboa Park, San Diego Ca. there is a japanese garden on the property that has wonderful subjects. If your ever in the area let me know and maybe we could hook up for a meet, lunch on me
Thanks Ryan, still trying to get used to the filters, I have red, yellow, and orange, and from my limited experience with them I prefer the orange or yellow at the moment, the red really darkens the image and creates a very dark contrast which I guess would be good for some situations. I guess I have to just go out and test them and look at the strenghs and weakness of each filter in varying conditions. Where I live in the desert area there is lots of haze and cloud activity is rare at the times I prefer to shoot, hence less dramatic skys, actually I prefer to use my ND filters over them at times, need to start stacking filters and see what comes up. BTW nice images, really love your contrast and expsoures in all your images, it adds to the mood
CVickery, Nice composition and color.
Phil, another nice BW shot. How you like that VC21 f1.8?
Ron, the first BW simply beautiful.
JonasY, love the cold tone, and pop color.
Ryan, Another nice set. I see you have a honeymoon with VSCO I forget to answer that last time you spot on one of my Savannah image. I wonder how come, just realize you are from that beautiful city. I am surprised I haven’t see any inside church pic from you
Here are two images from 50lux and Kauai. I want keep BW theme in this thread this time.
Thanks guys. I also like the first one of mine best. They graininess is a consequence of using the 'channel mixer' feature of Lightroom rather than just desaturating the image. Because the scene is primarily green and yellows, it has a fairly narrow spectrum, and when I pulled back in the green slider and boosted the yellow, I guess there's just too little file information for smooth transitions. With chroma NR enabled, the image looks really blotchy. But with chroma NR at zero, it results in a nice grainy look.
Michael, I think I like the first one better, with the stronger lines. I guess I was taking too long to write my post and didn't notice the continuation of the B&W theme. I only have color to offer at the moment.
Phil - forgot to mention I really like the image of the bamboo rod and water!
Joakim - I have a couple 3-stop NDs from Hoya. I feel they're OK and introduce a bit of a green/cyan color shift. I don't have any of the B+W or other more premium filter brands at hand, so not sure how they compare against the Hoyas.
Safe travels, Edward!
Ryan, very nice mood in those. The Summaron seems to have a nice smoothness.
Jonas - nice find.
Adam - it would be interesting to see a comparison of the 21 SEM against the ZE/ZF 21. On paper the SEM should be pretty much equal, if not better. On paper, the ZM 21/2.8 doesn't match the ZE/ZF, so interesting to read your thoughts about it.
M9 & Nikkor 10.5cm/2.5 and last with 50 Lux ASPH.
BTW, finally received the Panasonic Gold (non-pro) cards I ordered last week and have done some preliminary tests with them against the Transcend SDHC Class 10 (non-UHS-I) cards I currently use. Just as some background, the battery used was one of my older ones, at about 80% full, DNG was set to compressed and firmware is still 1.176. I did both black frame tests, lifted 5 stops in LR, as well as real world shooting, where I intentionally underexposed a bit and lifted 1-2 stops in post. So far I see little difference between the two cards. With both I can see relatively faint streaking in darker areas of 'real world' images, especially if pushed a bit in post. This is definitely the case when shooting quick bursts of more than a couple frames, where the later frames in the sequence will show more streaking/banding. This happens both with single frame advance and continuous. In the dark frame 5 stop pushes, I'm leaning very slightly in favour of the Panasonic card. Despite it still showing streaky banding, it appears more random than the Transcend card most of the time. With the Transcend sometimes the banding is like a fixed and repeated pattern of streaks. I also noticed that shooting at ISO 640 instead of 160 results in much less visible banding because the noise in the file masks most of the banding. This applies to both cards. So far I haven't been able to reproduce the really bad banding I posted samples of recently...
From these preliminary results, I think for things like weddings. I will definitely favour shooting at ISO 640 in darker situations, rather than at ISO 160 and pushing more in post because the grain of the ISO 640 images will help mask the underlying banding.
I've heard Nik's Define 2 might be effective against this banding and will give it a try and report back
rscheffler wrote:
BTW, finally received the Panasonic Gold (non-pro) cards I ordered last week and have done some preliminary tests with them against the Transcend SDHC Class 10 (non-UHS-I) cards I currently use. Just as some background, the battery used was one of my older ones, at about 80% full, DNG was set to compressed and firmware is still 1.176. I did both black frame tests, lifted 5 stops in LR, as well as real world shooting, where I intentionally underexposed a bit and lifted 1-2 stops in post. So far I see little difference between the two cards. With both I can see relatively faint streaking in darker areas of 'real world' images, especially if pushed a bit in post. This is definitely the case when shooting quick bursts of more than a couple frames, where the later frames in the sequence will show more streaking/banding. This happens both with single frame advance and continuous. In the dark frame 5 stop pushes, I'm leaning very slightly in favour of the Panasonic card. Despite it still showing streaky banding, it appears more random than the Transcend card most of the time. With the Transcend sometimes the banding is like a fixed and repeated pattern of streaks. I also noticed that shooting at ISO 640 instead of 160 results in much less visible banding because the noise in the file masks most of the banding. This applies to both cards. So far I haven't been able to reproduce the really bad banding I posted samples of recently...
From these preliminary results, I think for things like weddings. I will definitely favour shooting at ISO 640 in darker situations, rather than at ISO 160 and pushing more in post because the grain of the ISO 640 images will help mask the underlying banding.
I've heard Nik's Define 2 might be effective against this banding and will give it a try and report back...Show more →
Ron, thanks for sharing the info. Given problems prone to happen with burst shooting, I strongly believe it is because of heating issue. The different card might have different write speed for slightly hardware difference, more time writing definitely make heating worse. the same with shooting compressed make more sense with M9.
for Leica M9 is so sensitive about SD card telling me that there must be a design flaw in their signal chain, which doesn't meet the spec requirement at extreme condition. in this case: temperature. I wonder if you notice it behave better in winter
I agree with you the first one is better and suit more BW with strong definition of geometry. will post color version later.
Another nice set, I always like your 'green' shot.
Michael, I like the first one.
Ron, nice set where the second one is my favorite. Thanks for the info on Hoya, I might try one.
Here is a set of daytime landscape photos with the 28 Summicron, quite a different lens from my 24/3.8 Elmar so even though they are close in focal length I'm glad I bought the Summicron as well.
Michael, I too prefer #1, like the lines in the image
Ron, nice greens. The sonnar definitely renders that scene great. Like #2 best. In your card test, did you notice any difference in speed?
Joakim, noticed you posted at the same time. I really like #2 and #4, but the angle you got #4 at is perfect. I love the way the 28 Cron renders.....possibly my favorite of all
Joakim - like all of them, but #2 & 4 stands out for me. I agree the 28 Cron is pretty special.
Ryan - #3 for me. The Canon looks great. I had a chance to try Cal's recently and from the few shots I did with it, was impressed. Too bad the build quality isn't a bit better, like the Nikkors or ZMs.
Between the two cards - Transcend 16GB Class 10 non-UHS and the Panasonic 32GB Gold non-pro - the Transcend is consistently about 10% faster. Single DNG compressed frames seem to clear in the low 3 second range, while the Panasonic is around 3.5. Both will do 8 continuous compressed frames in a burst before hitting the buffer (these speed comparisons were all at ISO 160). The Transcend clears fully at about 20 seconds after the first frame was fired, the Panasonic at about 22.5 seconds.
Michael, not sure if it's heat. My gut feeling is it's some sort of RF/electrical interference. Maybe a power management issue, since that's what the latest FW seems to address. The next thing to try is the current firmware, but with some work coming up, will wait about a week before I try that, just in case I accidentally brick the camera.
So far I've played a bit with Nik Dfine 2. Its auto image analysis seems to be slightly better against the streaky banding, but not hugely better than LR...
M9 & Nikkor 10.5cm/2.5 LTM and again, last one with 50 Lux ASPH.
Thanks for the comments guys! Wow more B and W images than I am used to seeing
Michael still getting used to the CV 21, a 21 viewfinder is def. my next purchase, I thought I could get away with it, but finding I get way more in my image than I really wanted to get, but it's def. a keeper lens for sure, also for the price point and one of my less used focal lengths it fits me well, I prefer the 50mm of the Nocti or 35mm. BTW beautiful first image! love the tones on this one, very balanced through out
Ron beautiful greenery, may I ask what processing you use, to get that vibrant green natural look? I can never get my images to pop like yours. That last shot on your second set rocks!
joakim 1st and last image for me, I'm jealous of your clouds , I bet that last shot would be awesome in B and W!
Ryan love that last shot! I'm a sucker for bokeh the vertical bokeh lines compliments the water very well here for me
Thanks Phil - greens can be tricky and are something I am not always happy with either. My processing is all in LR4. For cool, clean green foliage, I find it helps to keep the WB a bit cooler than normal, and also pay close attention to the tint value. Especially with auto white balance, cameras have a tendency to really ramp up the magenta tint component in forest scenes, or anything with a lot of green. It's why you end up with purple tree trunks sometimes. Pulling that and the WB K value down somewhat, adjusting the yellow and green hue values and sometimes pulling back on yellow and green saturation tends to eventually find a reasonable look. The more red/magenta in something green, the more olive to brown it shifts.
zhangyue wrote:
Ron, thanks for sharing the info. Given problems prone to happen with burst shooting, I strongly believe it is because of heating issue. The different card might have different write speed for slightly hardware difference, more time writing definitely make heating worse. the same with shooting compressed make more sense with M9.
for Leica M9 is so sensitive about SD card telling me that there must be a design flaw in their signal chain, which doesn't meet the spec requirement at extreme condition. in this case: temperature. I wonder if you notice it behave better in winter
I agree with you the first one is better and suit more BW with strong definition of geometry. will post color version later.
Another nice set, I always like your 'green' shot. ...Show more →
Ron, I was going to ask you if it's better in winter as well.
Honestly though, I live in 32degree (89.6 for the Americans) weather all year round. And I've never had issues like what you're posting online. I've always used sandisc extreme I think they're a mix of 45mbps to 60mbps. I've also used sandisc ultra cards that are 15mbps to 30mbps, they've also worked fine.
Maybe the camera needs a trip to Germany, good excuse to buy an M240!
Ron, your first set I like the last image best. Second set, the second one and last one. And the third set, makes me wanna buy the 21 SEM.
Yeah, still obviously in love with those ZE lenses.. For walk around/travel they were my favorite. Actually had the whole set, liked all of them, loved the three I mentioned though.
The M camera now being my walk around / travel camera, I'm still trying to figure out what I love (lens wise).. I know the 50lux is definitely one of them, and the 28cron is still a maybe (seems less good on the M240 for some odd reason). The other lenses I seem to have a hard time holding onto..
Phil love how the bonsai just pops from the background. Which version of the noctilux do you have again?
Ryan, in the Canon 100, the bokeh seems rectangular?! Kinda neat.
Anyway, I'm getting annoyed with the M240. It's causing me to miss shots.. From dead startup and also from sleep mode, it literly takes 5 proper seconds before the camera is ready to shoot. Honestly think it's slower then the M9P.
That and still having problems reviewing images (but that'll stop in a week or two, once I get back into the habit of using the M style meter, and I start trusting my manual settings instincts again).
