Ryan, yes I think increasing the black levels in LR brings the 75 coding closer to the 25 coding.
Thanks Morten In this case I prefer the Leica lower contrast as well, especially how it renders the snow.
I had a closer look at the 85/2 Sonnar today. It's massive! It's larger than my 35/2 ZE Distagon. It's as thick as the 100 MP (ZE) and only slightly shorter. I would have loved to have that lens but that kind of size sort of rules it out.
There are however two good reasons to keep the 75 Cron. The first one is that I have to face up to the fact that I live in Sweden where we have snow for a long period. Snow means high contrast and there the Leica's lower contrast will be of help. The second reason is my Egypt trip later this winter and the reason is the same - it's a high contrast environment.
Joe, great street shot! The 35 Cron IV is a great lens, referred to as the bokeh king
Luka, excellent shots I definitely prefer the 75 Cron ! You just reminded me also, that I do adjust the black levels often in the RAW conversion. May have to do with the ACR algorithm or M9's sensor output. With the 5DII files, I rarely adjust the black levels.
You raised another interesting point too, and that is the quality of lighting! In Australia the lighting is always very harsh, and there is rarely an oppportunity to catch the softer lighting. The Australian scenery tends to be harsher also. Of course, in Europe it would be very different. I know in Thailand and Indonesia, the lighting can be softer, particularly with all the smog and wet season weather that seems to prevail when ever you take shots
denoir wrote:
I had a closer look at the 85/2 Sonnar today. It's massive! It's larger than my 35/2 ZE Distagon. It's as thick as the 100 MP (ZE) and only slightly shorter. I would have loved to have that lens but that kind of size sort of rules it out.
There are however two good reasons to keep the 75 Cron. The first one is that I have to face up to the fact that I live in Sweden where we have snow for a long period. Snow means high contrast and there the Leica's lower contrast will be of help. The second reason is my Egypt trip later this winter and the reason is the same - it's a high contrast environment....Show more →
awe, i was looking forward to seeing shots from that 85mm sonnar.
i haven't seen many (i haven't really made a concerted effort either).
Thanks Charles! They're shooting tomorrow night 18:00 to 04:00, so I'll take along my SF24D and shoot some stuff, they'll have plenty of ambient light (they are filming after all) but I'll add a little fill of my own
Sebboh: Yeah, I wanted to try it as well, but it's size does not make sense on an M9. It's as large as a medium sized DSLR lens.
Cool shots from the movie set Dan!
A couple of more 75 Cron shots from a couple of days ago:
Regarding the last shot, the 75 Cron has a weird aperture blade configuration at some apertures. The 50 Sonnar as well. Instead of a regular polygon the aperture blades are curved inwards creating OOF highlight shapes like the ones you see in the last image. Does anybody know what the point of such a design is?
My conclusion so far is that:
-I like it at infinity and stopped down.
-I like it at medium distances wide open when converted to B/W.
-I can tolerate it at medium distances wide open in color.
-I dislike it close up and wide open.
In essence I'm not crazy about its bokeh. If the OOF parts of the image dominate, chances are good that I won't like the rendering. The sharpness-to-blur transition at certain distances makes very flat images with a very Canon-like look.
It's however more complicated than that - it depends a lot on the background and the distance to it. I've posted this image before, but it's the best example of the type of OOF rendering that I dislike (both with the 75 Cron and most Canon tele lenses):
There is zero depth in the image and no connection between the foreground and the background. The girl could have been a paper cutout.
However, if we look at this image instead, at approximately the same distance and the same aperture:
This looks quite OK to me. I could perhaps tell it apart from a Zeiss, but it would be much more difficult. The visible sharpness-to-blur transition helps adding depth to the image and I have no objections on the way it is rendered.
It's kind of strange near MFD - contrast is very low. Together with a neutral bokeh the images have a rather uninspired look. Here are a couple of close ups with basically black levels or contrast pushed to the max:
Just for reference, this is what the original image without any contrast adjustments looks:
Which brings me to a question for all you Leica experts. Is there some M-mount lens that produces interesting bokeh at/near MFD. I really like to take images like the ones above but for them to work the lens has to provide an interesting, lively OOF rendering. Is there such a lens, old or new? Is there a rangefinder equivalent to the Rokkor 58/1.2?
I don't know the Rokkor, but the three M lenses I have tried which sometimes produce funky boke like that are the 50/1, 75/1.4 and 35/2 IV. However, they also often produce the smooth boke you don't like...
I think we get it Luka, you don't like the 75 Cron. For such an expensive lens to only work for two kinds of shots (medium distance with large aperture and infinity stopped down), and even then, only sometimes, seems like an awful waste of money and you should really return it while you reconsider.
I would be interested to know which shots you saw that gave you the impression you would like this lens, or did you just like the idea of the lens and had money burning a hole in your pocket.
In this case I prefer the Leica lower contrast as well, especially how it renders the snow.
I definitely prefer the 75 Cron ! You just reminded me also, that I do adjust the black levels often in the RAW conversion. May have to do with the ACR algorithm or M9's sensor output. With the 5DII files, I rarely adjust the black levels.
