[Leica] 28 vignette

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 10:25 AM -0600 1/16/07, Lottermoser George wrote:
>I certainly observe fairly severe vignette in my recently acquired 
>28 summicron. Certainly more than the 28 elmarit. And more than your 
>samples display. I don't mind the effect in many personal situations 
>as I tend to burn corners a bit anyway. However, when I first saw it 
>I immediately thought that I should start looking for a "center" 
>filter.
>
>Regards,
>George Lottermoser
>george@imagist.com

 From the pulished Leica tables, the old Elmarit has _very_ slightly 
less vignetting, probably due to having a higher retrofocus ratio. 
This makes sense as the Summicron is no larger than the Elmarit in 
spite of its greater aperture. As the difference in light falloff is 
probably nowhere more than 5%, the difference is generally minor.

At f/2.8 the Elmarit is significantly worse than the Summicron, but 
by 5.6 the Elmarit is slightly better. The new Elmarit ASPH is 
essentially the same as the Summicron, but with poorer performance in 
other respects, particularly when you get past the portion that 
covers the M8 sensor, but it is somewhat better than the old Elmarit.

The Tri-Elmar at 28mm (its weakest focal length) is poorer than the 
fixed FL lenses, but it does turn in the best vignetting score by a 
fair margin; again, a factor of the greater retrofocus ratio.

As you say, George, for any film user the vignetting is no big deal, 
especially after years of shooting the 21 Super Angulon. :-) And with 
digital post processing, it really fades as a concern.

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