[Leica] Re: 50mm lenses again

[pieter@world.std.com (Pieter Bras)]

Maria Speroni wrote:
>I'm trying to decide which 50mm M lens to get.  I've perused the LUG
>archives but I have an interesting (imho) twist to the dilemma that, as
>far as I know, has not been covered already.  As you might predict, I
>have been recommended the 50/2 as it's the sharpest 50 out there, but
>when one person said "in the same league as the 35/1.4 ASPH in every
>way", I hesitated.  The reason is that I have had two 35/1.4 ASPH, both
>sold because I ended up prefering the images from my 35/2 non-asph.
>While the images from the 35/1.4 ASPH were indeed very sharp, especially
>wide open, it lacked the "3-D" and pleasant out-of-focus rendition of my
>classic 35/2.

Check out Alfred Breull's comments on the relative merits of the various
50mm lenses:  LUG digests v02.n300, v02.n302, v02.n304 (April '98).
Note that he prefers the rigid chrome Summicron, which has the same
optics as the DR Summicron.

I have a DR Summicron and just love the pictures it takes, and have never 
been disappointed with the quality of its out-of-focus rendition.  You
can see a couple of scans of pictures I took with the DR Summicron at:
ftp://ftp.std.com/pub/pieter -- Sunflower.jpg and CableReels.jpg.

The scans are pretty mediocre and don't begin to do justice to the
3-dimensional quality of the Kodachrome originals, but they do give some
idea of the 50 DR's out-of-focus rendition.

I also have the fourth version of the 35mm Summicron (last pre-asph.
version) and find it to be contrastier than the 50 DR, especially wide
open.  The out-of-focus renditions of these lenses are equally
agreeable.

Hope this helps.

- -- 
Pieter Bras