[Leica] An informal test of my 50/1.5 Zeiss Sonnar (on a Contax Iia)

[dstate1 at hotmail.com (Dan States)]

I've always been amazed by the performace of the 1.5 AND the f2.  At f2.8 
they are my favorite portrait lenses.  Amazingly sharp and crisp but with 
smooth backgrounds and well controlled flare.  They really were WAY ahead of 
their time.


>From: "Jeffery Smith" <jsmith342@cox.net>
>Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
>To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug@leica-users.org>,        "'RFLIST'" 
><rflist@cameraquest.org>, <paw@micapeak.com>
>Subject: [Leica] An informal test of my 50/1.5 Zeiss Sonnar (on a Contax 
>Iia)
>Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 19:57:28 -0600
>
>I have never seriously used my 50/1.5 Sonnar because my Contax IIa isn't
>terribly light-tight and its rangefinder is out of vertical alignment.
>However, having just bought a 50/1.5 Sonnar in Leica LTM mount, I tried to
>see what the lens could do. I don't have any of the fancy equipment that
>Erwin Puts has, so my lens test consists primarily of walking around the
>campus annoying people under different lighting situations. Here are four
>shots from that roll of Tri-X.
>
>http://www.400tx.com/Susan.html f/1.5
>http://www.400tx.com/Michael.html f/2.0
>http://www.400tx.com/Thomas.html  f/4
>http://www.400tx.com/Phillip.html f/5.6
>
>My knee-jerk reaction is that it is a pretty good lens with nice bokeh, but
>isn't razor sharp wide open (Susan may be blurry because I was at 1/50). 
>So,
>it gives me pretty much what my Summarit and Canon 50/1.2 lens give me wide
>open...less than stellar images. However, closed down just a stop it starts
>performing fairly well.
>
>Jeffery Smith
>New Orleans, LA
>http://www.400tx.com
>
>
>
>
>
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