Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Stephen: Nice Pictures! That lens looks pretty good, at least at screen resolution. The look is very much like I have been getting with the 50/2 Summitar. Were any of them taken wide open or at F-2? some look like they were stopped down a bit. Mike Durling KD4KWB http://www.widomaker.com/~durling/ - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Holloway" <stephen.holloway@balcab.ch> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2000 8:30 AM Subject: Re: [Leica] Quality of the 5cm f1.5 Summarit (and the earlier Xenon) > 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 >