Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/04/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Erwin, Would you call the Summarit a good portrait lens? Jonathan Eastland refers to this lens as the little gem. Is he right? Best regards, Chris ps. I am not a Unix user. At 08:57 PM 4/13/97 +0100, you wrote: >I just completed a comparison between the Voigtlander Nokton 1,5/50 and >the Leitz Summarit 1.5/50. Overall the Nokton exhibits a bit more >contrast and has the ability to resolve slightly finer structures. At >full aperture both lenses have low contrast, which does not improve that >much when stopping down. Both reach their optimum at 5.6. The Summarit at >full aperture has a bit higher center sharpness, but is much worse in the >corners. The Nokton has a more even field. It is the suppression of halo >around strong light sources where the Nokton is the better lens. It is >significantly so. However in daylight situations the internal reflections >of the Summarit are better controlled. As can be seen when photographing >trees in backlight. The deep shadow areas of the Summarit are black, >where the Nokton is a little greyish. Overall however the Nokton is the >better lens and , surprisingly, has the same characteristics that makes >for the famous Leica glow. When one takes pictures with apertures from >2,8 to 5,6 both lenses are almost equal in performance and character. The >Nokton has a little more bite. >Very fine detail is not resolved and the contrast stays on the low side. >The pictures have a very nice smooth representation of the objects and >its various textures. There lack the brittleness and high contrast of >modern Leica lenses which brings out every detail with great clarity. The >reason why some people prefer the older type of image quality could be >the visual information overload which one gets with the newest lenses. >But this is my personal opinion and I need to reflect on this more. >Erwin Puts > >