Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/20

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Quality of the 5cm f1.5 Summarit (and the earlier Xenon)
From: Stephen Holloway <stephen.holloway@balcab.ch>
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 14:30:59 +0100

Doug Richardson wrote:
> 
> I've been interested to see the generally favourable comments which
> users have made concerning the 5cm f1.5 Summarit. I'd always assumed
> it was simply a coated version of the Xenon, a lens I once owned in
> (third-party?) coated form and found to be horribly soft at full
> aperture. Perhaps I just had a bad or poorly-reassembled example. A
> recent article in the "Viewfinder" compared a single example of the
> uncoated Xenon and the a contemporary uncoated 5cm f1.5 Sonnar, and
> reported a generally similar level of performance from both. I've been
> looking for an LTM f1.5 Sonnar - perhaps I should be thinking of the
> Summarit instead.
> 

I wouldn't say it's horribly soft wide open. But it certainly has a soft
look. This is more due to low contrast (it has a lot of flair) than lack
of resolution. It's a bit worse at minimum focusing distance. It doesn't
hold shadow details very well but the midtones have a very smooth creamy
look.

It's got boatloads of coma (fat-comet shaped out of focus highlights)
which gives it charming, distinctive look. You can get a really nice
'wrap-around' framing effect with it.

I've got some pictures on my site taken with it. Check out 

http://deepturtle.ch/steve/photos/pod/1feb00.html through to 17 Feb.

- -- 
Stephen Holloway
http://www.deepturtle.ch/steve/photos