Re: [Leica] 35mm 1.4 ASPH

["Henning J. Wulff" <henningw@archiphoto.com>]

At 11:41 PM -0500 11/17/99, FIGLIO4CAP@aol.com wrote:
>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

I don't think the ASPH ever meant as much on any other lens as on the
35/1.4 M. Also, ASPH is quite rare on the R line, not being an 'R' user
(feeding down here with Canons and Nikons).

   *            Henning J. Wulff
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