woodstork wrote:
I’ve been waiting on this one. I similarly waited for the Z 135mm after testing the Sony 135 GM and finding it loses a bit of its microcontrast magic and color pop when adapted to Z mount. That patience worked out great.
I also previously found the 35mm GM loses a bit adapted to a Z7 when compared directly to its render on a native A7R3 body. My copy of Leica 35mm Summicron on L-mount was notably better than the Sony native or adapted and I kept a Panasonic S1R just to shoot that lens for a couple years.
So I’m expecting a similar improvement to what we saw in adapted GM vs Plena with the 35. In fact I’m hoping for something at Peter Karbe Leica level - incredibly good wide open to the corners. Great falloff. Sublime bokeh. Also great stopped down with a nice 3D microcontrast for landscape. Literally a lens you can put the subject anywhere in the frame at any aperture and it will be super sharp and clean as limited by diffraction only. And please please please have no coma wide open as an astrolens.* Then take my money (next year after the first sale price hits or nice used copies start showing up on FM).
*if the new 35 does all these things it will be heavy like the Plena because it will be designed with an extra large image circle - essentially needs the optical bulk of a fast medium format lens designed to resolve a relatively small pixel pitch.
I have the same experience when adapting my 135mm GM/Batis and my 35mm GM on my Nikon bodies.
They just don't have the same sharpness and contrast, maybe Sony adds some processing in their raw files depending on the lens.
I also own both the 35mm APO SL and the Nikon 35mm f1.2S.
The 35mm APO SL only shines in the center of the image wide open on my S1RII. It is much better on my SL2 and even mid frames are very strong. I can't explain why, maybe because of the sensor difference.
Futhermore, I found the 35mm APO SL to have sometimes a sort of slight "illumination" at the point of focus, making the subject to pop a lot. But this effect only appears when shooting photos and can't be seen on the viewfinder before taking the pic, it only appears when the photo has been taken. And it never happens in video, so I think it's just some processing.
My Nikon 35mm f1.2S is maybe one of the lens I use the most. The contrast and colors are out of this world. However, the lens is clearly not as sharp as the Sigma 35mm f1.2 DG II and much less less sharp than the 35mm APO SL or Sigma 28-45mm (I tried 3 copies of the Nikon). At least when using ACR (default settings) to process the pictures.
Using NX studio with default settings shows better "sharpness" but it doesn't look natural and we can't add the Leica files on NX studio to compare.
Mar 23, 2026 at 05:23 AM
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