[Leica] Unsharp with 90mm

[afirkin at afirkin.com (afirkin at afirkin.com)]

If you are like me, you will see the 90 images look great on the small
screen, but when you magnify the image to 1:1 the 'faults' begin to show.
Firstly, I think we are more critical nowadays. 'Tack' sharp in the days
of yore was something different. Most of us spent most of our time looking
at 6x4 prints and occasionally enlarging, now with my 30" screen, they are
all 'enlarged'. Who would have thought that Leica would need to update the
35 asph. Summilux? So to a large extent the issues will be observational.
Remember that DOF really does not work in the digital arena. Its a
'relative' thing, and if you enlarge the image, you will see the
'softening' of being slightly out of focus even if you do stop down, the
answer to this is a smaller sensor.

BUT, it is harder to hold a 90 than a 28mm lens and even at high shutter
speeds you may notice tiny movement if you look carefully. To fix that you
need to tripod the camera or get image stabilization, which is not going
to be on an M for a long time I suspect.

For me this will remain the one 'fault' of the M. Image Stabilization
works and if you are shooting hand held shots, its a very powerful
addition. I feel I have to accept the limitations of the lens: harder to
focus, harder to hold etc and delight in the images it is capable of when
the gods are in alignment.

Examples:
1. This is with the 35mm lens focused on the door at 180th sec f8. The
door is tack sharp, Helen is 'soft'. If you look at 100% (this is cropped
to allow that) you will see her foot is quite sharp on the ground, so its
largely movement: and she is not running!! You would never notice at full
frame 10 x 8.

http://tinyurl.com/pm5t5p9

2. Flamenco: this girl is about 2 to 3 feet from the back wall. Shot with
the 90mm at f11 1/90th sec you can see the image is focused on her neck.
Despite the DOF, the wall behind is not tack sharp: infact very little
beyond the plan of the focus is. At 100% this is obvious, but in a 6 x 8
inch print you would only see the subtle movement of the hands.

http://tinyurl.com/oq8kkrr

3. Flamenco: again, she is even closer to the wall here, and I've nailed
the focus and the timing: her head and arms are in the focal plane and
very sharp, but the wall only a foot or so behind her is quite clearly out
of focus at this magnification. Look at the full sized and you can pick
out individual hairs on her head! Did not need IS for this image, but boy
I would love to have it ;-) Same settings as above.

http://tinyurl.com/nqjc6ao



> Since 99,9% of my use of my M9 (and my M6 years ago) has been with a 35mm
> Summicron, I confess to being a rank amateur when it comes to the 90mm
> Chron. After being irritated by too many soft-focus shots with the 90, I
> did a careful test of a fence from about 12 feet and found that the
> rangefinder/lens coupling was slightly off. So I sent it in to Leica, got
> it back about $350 later, checked out out and found it to be spot on.
>
> OK, now here's my experience. When I went to the first of two outdoor band
> concerts in a park, a couple did some very spectacular dancing to the
> music and I failed to get a picture. So, for the next concert, I brought
> my 90mm so that I wouldn't have to get under their noses or have to do an
> extreme crop.
>
> Well, the dancing couple didn't appear, but I took a lot of snapshots and
> every one of them came out very fuzzy. I don't have a record of shutter
> speeds or f numbers, but I was outdoors at reasonable ISO and lighting, so
> I assume the I was probably around f/8/of f/5.6 and probably around 1/250.
> I should have had a depth of field of about twelve feet or more for some
> of those shots and at least two feet for the close couple I took. None of
> them appeared to be sharp anywhere.
>
> Could it be the increase in the effect of camera shake with the longer
> lens?  I would have thought that the inertia from the extra weight of the
> lens would have compensated. Yesterday, wondering if the lens had
> mysteriously lost its calibration, I did a hand-held test at 12, 50, and
> essentially infinity feet and the pictures were needle sharp. However, to
> be critical, I did the test at f/2, so I got pretty high shutter speeds.
>
> Any advice from users of longer lenses on Leica M series?
>
> Herbert Kanner
> kanner at acm.org
> 650-326-8204
>
> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>