Please note that posts about the Leica M9 and Leica lenses on this blog are not aimed to be a 'review' in the strictest sense. They should be considered as highly opinionated, biased and therefore not very objective - also due to the fact that I haven't used the camera extensively yet. However, in the technical aspects they do try to be factual. All the posts which have me babbling about the M9 are gathered under the label 'Leica talk'. Click here to see them all...
Leica lenses, they have a reputation.
I don't want to get into that here too deeply, because talk about lenses reminds me too much of religious discussions, but it's safe to say that Leica M lenses are something special.
So special that they are hard to come by.
Well, seriously... it took me almost a month of searching in The Netherlands to find the Summilux 50mm. I think it was the last one in Europe, because I tried every online store out there. Germany, England, Belgium, America, all the Leica dealers in The Netherlands... 'no stock, we've ordered but Leica isn't delivering'. Then by accident I stumbled onto a new Leica dealer, who wasn't in the official list of Leica yet. They were just starting up with Leica, and their store was still full with all the expensive goodies: Nobody had found them yet.
And yes, they had the 50mm Summilux. Just one mind you...
Then in KL I walk into the first Leica store I come across and there they all are. Even the outrageously priced Noctilux, but also the Summilux... as if there's no shortage in Europe...
Sadly the euro isn't doing so great, so prices here are steeper than in Europe when it comes to Leica gear. Then there's the customs issue. Taking it into The Netherlands means paying the taxes you don't pay over here. And smuggling isn't my forte. Paying taxes is fine by me, if that money is compensated by the price over here. But that doesn't seem to be the case...
In the end I might not have a choice though. The 90mm I want is still not being sold in The Netherlands. Every dealer has it 'ordered' but not in stock. And that's been the case since at least last October. So it's a very cheap 'no lens' or a more pricey 'added taxes' real lens over here, if I can find it.
In theory
That 'specialness' of the Leica lens you notice not only in the 'feel' of the lens when you hold it...
...hand assembled, only metal parts - the 50mm 1.4 Summilux is surprisingly heavy seeing its size, mainly due to the glass inside - with beautiful aperture blades that slide into place as soon as you start turning the solid clicking aperture ring, with a damped focus ring, all the symbols engraved in the metal, filled in with paint, the hood being attached to the lens, just slide it out and lock, and the glass of course, you quickly realise it's something special, put together with care...
...but also in the smallness (except for the Noctilux, that's a beast, with its F0.95).
Because here's a bit of a daunting trick if you're used to a Canon or Nikon: M lenses do not auto focus, so they don't have a motor to drive parts of the lens.
Now, you can turn the auto focus off on your Canon, but then you quickly notice you're left with a focus ring that isn't precise enough and that it's extremely difficult to get focus right by looking through the lens, if you didn't change your focusing screen into something meant for manual focusing.
It simply doesn't compare.
The aperture blades on M lenses also aren't fired into place at the last millisecond by the camera: they're set by the photographer manually through the aperture ring.
SLRs let you look through a fully opened lens, else the image in the viewfinder would become too dark with the higher F stops. You can set the aperture on the camera, but the blades won't spring into action until you press the shutter button (or the DOF button). And that requires power and electronics.
An M lens doesn't have that problem, because the viewfinder of the camera doesn't 'look' through the lens. So at whatever F stop the lens is, the viewfinder won't change. No need to fire the aperture blades last millisecond.
An M lens doesn't need power at all - except for the power you provide by turning the rings - there's no electronics in them whatsoever.
Welcome to the legacy.
...one of the minor disadvantages: the exif data in the photo doesn't record the 'real' aperture, only an approximation, since there's no electronic connection between lens and camera, so the camera has no idea what aperture the lens is set to. It guesses a bit through the light intake...
So no motor and no electronics in the lens, another space saver.
There is however a connection between the two, because the camera does apply some algorithms to do with vignetting, based on the mounted lens. Leica solved this by using a 'bit' system: a series of 6 dots on the lens mount. By alternating the dots between black and white you can count from 0 to 63. A reader in the camera picks up on the dots, so the camera knows which lens is mounted. But that's about it, and it only requires power on the camera side. The lens just needs the right dots.
In practice
Ultimately of course you should notice the specialness of the lenses in the photos you take.
I'm still withholding judgement on the 50mm Summilux, since I haven't used it extensively yet - although the bokeh seems to be something else - but my recent experience with the 28mm Elmarit (it's a F2.8 lens) was one of amazement. I have never seen sharper and clearer photos come out of any camera I used. In fact the downscaled images coming from Picasa on this blog are a bit too sharp for my taste. The 'true' big ones are ok I think, the downscaling of Picasa makes them go over the top. The only way to prevent that is to upload them at the blog size, but then I can't show them bigger.
I should adjust Lightroom (still getting used to that one too), which is set to a sharpening default that seems to be too much for this lens.
Of course, I'm sure the lack of an anti-alias filter in the camera itself also helps with the sharpness.
An anti-alias filter 'smooths' the edges of objects in the photo a bit, which can help prevent jagged diagonals or moire effects. Most DSLRs have them, the M9 doesn't.
But without good lenses to take advantage of the lack of the filter, it probably wouldn't show.
Not only the sharpness of the Elmarit (sharpness really isn't everything), but also the lack of chromatic aberration and distortions is hard to believe after the use of wide angle lenses on my Canons (10-22mm on the 40D and the moderately wide 35mm F2 on the 5DII).
I agree that the comparison isn't totally fair, because the 35mm F2 isn't Canon's best 35mm out there, but I've also seen test shots of the better Canon lenses, and those aren't cheap either (let alone their size and weight).
Then when you see the package - just this tiny lens of 200 grams - the 2.8 Elmarit is Leica's smallest 'modern' lens - you know Leica must indeed know what they're doing.
Here's a shocker. And although the left lens on the picture is not the Leica 28mm, the size is similar to the Voigtlander 21mm shown here (the Elmarit is slightly longer)... this can be the difference. And if you now say 'but that Canon is a zoom' that's true. But some of the better non zoom Canon wide angles are as big as shown here.
But to be totally honest, Leica also produces bigger lenses. The Elmarit really is their smallest. If you look at the wide angles of Leica with low F number, you see those Ms aren't tiny either.
It's simply a given: the lower you can go with the F stop, the bigger the lens gets. Leica can't escape physics. But because of the camera design, even the low F numbers of Leica are still smaller than the low F numbers of a Canon or Nikon. The Canon 85mm F1.2 L - or even the 50mm F1.2 L - is like mounting a pineapple or a turnip...
... continue with part III - Downsides
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