Re: Cardish/Aspherical (2)

[ABreull@aol.com]

I have similar experiences: My (1935, later coated) f/2 Summar shows
definitly that type of 'bokeh' or 'Leica glow', which Leitz made famous once
and many LUGlers have been asking for, recently. 

The 'bokeh' is strong, and in no comparison to the results of my 1996 f/2
Summicron, which on the other side reveals details of which my Summar would
"dream" only - but might have lost the famous old bokeh because of its (too)
strong contrast additionally. Further, the color impression (E 100s) from the
Summar often remembers on the color impression given by the f/1 Noctilux
(1981), although the slides are less sharp also. 

Besides, it's remarkable to me, that LUGlers, who are in search of fine lens
characteristics or the lost Leitz bokeh, even prefer the f/1.5 Summarit to
modern Leitz lenses, which actually is a coated post war Xenon from
Schneider.

Alf

In einer eMail vom 03.09.1997  13:39:48, schreiben Sie:

>About the 50mm f/1.5 Summarit... Already owning the 50mm Summilux
>and 50mm DR Summicron, I bought a 50mm f/1.5 Summarit about three years
>ago and began using it. Why? Because I remembered the wonderful look
>of a photograph I made in 1956 with one I borrowed from a fellow
>student, Don Nichols. At wide-open it has a special character. I 
>choose the look I want and use the lens that gives it. Bob Schwalberg
>once told me that the 35mm f/3.5 Summaron (first version) that I have,
>used wide-open, gives better sharpness at the corners than at the
>center. I've never tested it for this feature, but use it with this
>in mind. The 50mm f/2 Summar I also own gives a wonderful low-contrast
>relatively high resolution result. Remember the Eisenstadt photos
>of the 1930s? The one shot above the Atlantic ocean from the top of
>the Graf Zep? Probably shot with a Summar. Not a bad image.
>I also have a 50mm f/2 Carl Zeiss Sonnar with the British Leica
>adapter. This lens produces very high contrast and sharpness. I
>got it when I want it...
>So, improvements in optics are not always improvements in optics,
>I say.... Ed Meyers
>
>On Tue, 2 Sep 1997, Patrick G. Sobalvarro wrote:
>
>> On the topic of the "Leica glow," I just wanted to say that my various
>> Leica lenses have really very different looks to their out-of-focus
>> regions, even when open to the same apertures.  My older 28/2.8 Elmarit-R
>> has what Photo Techniques would call "complex bokeh," and while I like the
>> look of its out-of-focus regions very much, they are a very distinctive
>> element of photographs and must be accounted for in composition.  They
>> aren't anything like the very smooth out-of-focus regions that my
>> screw-mount 50/1.5 Summarit yields.  I would say that at f/4 the Summarit
>> has the most pleasing out-of-focus rendition of any of my lenses,
certainly
>> more so than the sharper 50/2 Summicron-R.
>> 
>> The half-dozen or so other lenses I use regularly all have quite different
>> characteristics.  I don't have enough experience with Japanese lenses to
>> know where they would come in on this spectrum except that since I started
>> paying attention to out-of-focus rendition, I've come to dislike the very
>> obvious pentagons and hexagons one gets with lenses that have only five or
>> six diaphragm blades, as is true of most newer Japanese lenses (and some
>> Leica lenses).  But in rendition of out-of-focus regions there's so much
>> variation among Leica lenses that I'd expect the same to be true with
>> Japanese lenses.