Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/10/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]My M6 has recently come back from a trip to Solms for rangefinder adjustment. To make sure that the problem had indeed been solved, I ran some tests last week. What I did was the following: 1) Mounted the camera on a sturdy tripod. 2) Focused on an object about 0.9 meters away until the image looked sharp in the viewfinder. 3) With my 35mm Summicron (2nd version), I exposed at f2, f2.8, f4 and f5.6. 4) Repeated the exposures without moving the camera but with the lens focused at 0.8 m. 5) Repeated again, this time with lens focused at 1.0 m. I then proceeded to do the same test with my 1.4/75mm Summilux (apertures f1.4, f2, f2.8 and f4) and the 2.8/90mm Elmarit-M (f2.8, f4, f5.6). Since the minimum focusing distance of the latter lens is 1m, I had to move the camera back a bit, so that the subject to film plane distance was about 1.1m. I did the tests using Kodak's E200 film (I know I should have used Fuji Velvia but did not have around the house). I looked at the slides on a light table with a 10x loupe. Some conclusions: first, it appears that my rangefinder now functions correctly, as the image that looked right in the viewfinder was also the best compared to the other two focus settings. Second, with the 35mm Summicron there was a distinct difference in image quality going from f2 to f2.8. At f2 the image was a bit soft, even in the centre, and vignetting was obvious (although not uniform in all four corners). This has me thinking about upgrading to the 2.0/35mm Summicron ASPH. According to Erwin Puts, there is a significant difference between the newest lenses and the older ones especially at full aperture and close distance. I would like to hear from someone who has upgraded from the old to the new Summicron--did you experience a visible quality (sharpness) improvement? Third, with the 75mm and 90mm lenses, the improvement when stopping down from full aperture was much less pronounced and hardly visible with the 90mm Elmarit-M (just bought in Bonn in September). In general, based on this limited test, I have concluded that the 90mm Elmarit-M is sharper than the 75mm Summilux--but on the other hand the Summilux gives an incredible image quality considering the f1.4 maximum aperture. Nathan - -- Nathan Wajsman Overijse, Belgium Photography page: http://members.tripod.com/~belgiangator/index.html Motorcycle page: http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/downs/1704/index.html