[Leica] 35mm 1.4 ASPH

[FIGLIO4CAP@aol.com]

I have been a holdout on this lens. However, last Saturday I was stuck in 
Dallas for the afternoon. When I told Sherry Krauter that I was going to be 
there, she gave me info about a camera show in Mesquite. Well, I went and saw 
not very much Leica stuff but enough to get me in "trouble." I bought a new 
35mm 1.4 ASPH.

Then off to San Antonio for three days of meetings and some picture taking. I 
had both the old and the ASPH Summiluxes.  

In short, the differences between the lenses are not subtle. As many have 
noted here before, the ASPH has a different look, but it is a look that I 
find truly awesome. At last, here is an F1.4 35mm lens that is truly useable 
at 1.4 and not just for the effect. True, it does not produce that ethereal 
look of the older Summilux -a kind of shimmer or dreamy halo. However,the 
older M version needs to be stopped down to 2.8 before it begins to approach 
the ASPH wide open in terms of resolution,detail rendering,color saturation 
and gradation and my feeling is that it never does match the ASPH at any 
aperture.  Erwin says it in his tests and I saw it easily on drugstore prints!
I guess it depends on what you want in a photo but I have to say that this 
lens is the most exciting piece of photo gear that I have purchased in many 
years.
Does this mean that I now have to look at the ASPH lens for my R system as 
well?
Bob Figlio