[Leica] IMG's plus advice needed - Guy, girl, bokeh

[rpalmier at depaul.edu (bob palmieri)]

Folks -

After looking at George Lottermoser's wildlife shot on his blog I  
figured I'd post a couple of Humans from last week.  In contrast to  
the birds, I don't feel like color is particularly necessary for  
determining gender:

Guy -

http://www.pbase.com/bobsworld/image/110451982

Girl -

http://www.pbase.com/bobsworld/image/110451983

(Feel free to deliver comments, admonishments or jocular banter as  
needed.)

Both shot with my  daily M6 - 50 'Lux - Tmax 400 in Xtol rig.  Used  
to be pretty happy with this setup, but there seems to be an issue  
that I can no longer ignore.

I threw these up a few days ago and noticed that the "Girl" shot gets  
twice as many views as the "Guy" shot.  Must be the 50 (late  
spherical) 'lux's Lemon Bokeh, which is all over the "Guy" shot.

First of all, I'd like to know what causes this.  Is it a comatic  
effect, an image of the aperture off-axis or something else?  I guess  
it doesn't really matter too much, 'cuz it's clearly Here to Stay  
with this lens design.

I hesitate to bring up a topic such as this, but I'm really  
interested in hearing some opinions on Fast Fiftys for M's.

I basically like almost everything about my late-spherical 50  
version.  These aspects include close focussing to 0.7m, terrific  
ergonomics on the very-lightly-damped rings (with the fast-racking  
helical on the focus ring I can beat most autofocus setups in dim  
light.)  I wanna know if there's a 1.4 (or 1.5) 50 that can keep up  
with most of these qualities (as well as high contrast and low flare  
wide open plus acceptable focus shift ).

The Nocti's are out due to weight and cost.  The versions of the  
Leica aspherical I've tried had much stiffer focussing (and I  
probably can't afford one of those either.)  So I guess it's all  
about Zeiss (new or old), Voigtlander and Canon or Nikon LTM's.

But if I can't find something else I may well become a member of the  
Bokeh-After-the Fact club.

Bob Palmieri