[Leica] IMG: Dog portrait, with the succulent middle of a 50mm Summilux.

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

succulent:

Despite what ever mind sets come about when you stop down a couple you get
better performance from a lens. Wide open you have some stuff better not
there. At 5.6 these problems goes away.
I was never a wide open shooter. When I got a Noctilux though I wasn't
walking around shooting it at 5.6. Though it was more an f 2000th of a
second and be there kind of thing not an f1 kind of thing.  I got f1 when it
was not too bright out.

But most my shots in my whole life and most people I knew you stopped down a
couple at least to get the best from your lens cutting out the bad stuff and
to also get the thing in focus. Wide open you could miss your focus. And
also wide open you  don't get anything else in focus.

The wonderfulness of pre ASPH lenses I don't buy into.
I shoot with a 40 Summacron C its my favorite lens I wish it was made later
with some ASPH elements in there it would be an even better lens.
And when shot at 5.6 would be no less succulent
As asphs just make it a better lens.
With the more modern ASPH Leica glass is no BS "brittleness" attributed to
them by people who liked their existing glass and didn't want to trade up.
I'd have not traded up either unless I had a huge windfall from a dead
uncle. Though more and more I'd liked cutting edge results wide open not
just getting what I'm getting.

One more from 5.8 and you get 8 and a lens which is not workable at f8 is
hard to find.

The pre apshs though are a couple of generations removed from what's going
on in cutting edge Leica optical design.

And cutting edge Leica optical design is what my money is wanted to go to.
And there is nothing not succulent about its results at 5.6 or 8.
Or f4 even.


[Rabs]
Mark William Rabiner