Re: [Leica] 50 mm M lens comparisons (long)

[Alfred Breull <puma@hannover.sgh-net.de>]

Erwin:

Thanks for your time and effort, commenting my mail. And, as you 
know from several private mails, I value your word very high.

You are certainly true, stating that the current - almost 20 years 
old - 50 mm lenses are the best in the view of optical parameters 
or engeneering.

On the other side, you will never succeed to take a typical
Summar picture with the current Summicron, at least not without
any additionals. You will never get the pronounced softness of 
the Summar's out-of-focus area, which was evidently intended
by Leitz's engeneers (see: Die auswechselbaren Leica Objektive.
Roeder: Leipzig 1935, p 10). And, you will never succeed to imitate
the over-pronounciation of the Summar, or loss of details in 
bright sources of light. Additionally, the strong loss of
shadow details, which adds to the typical 3D impression in  
Summar pictures, is a lost battle for the current Summicron,
even before it begins.

But, we don't need to go that far: If you want to get the same
optical results from the current Summicron in b/w prints as shown 
from the rigid chrome Summicron, you will not succeed either. You
will not get the same results, even if you change b/w paper 
gradiation, since you loose the cripsness shown by the low contrast 
lens: A detail information from a very sharp & high contrast lens 
on soft paper looks always different than a detail information
from a very sharp & low contrast lens.

Or, let's take a typical picture at/in  (?) "black light" ["black
light" is comparable dark daylight - even at noon - which allows 
white areas to appear more white in b/w pictures than the unfiltered 
sky, and which, additionally, accentuates colors at close distances]: 

Specially in these pictures, the rigid chrome Summicron "wins" hands 
down: It's b/w pictures are inimitable, the current one destroys the
picture by it's high contrast performance. And, in color, the 
pictures from the current Summicron look like pictures of "Smarties"
(red, green & blue children sweets), because the colors are
over-pronounced.

Or, show to me one HCB picture, or an early Eisenstadt, which would
be performed by the current Summicron in the same way. I bet, that
you would be in real trouble :)

I don't want or wanted to say that the current Summicron is a "bad"
lens, but - as we say in Germany - "she" has her limitations. She's a 
fine approach if you want to imitate MF lenses, but she's a - somehow -
unhappy solution, if you want something different than a current 
Japanese high-end lens.

Alf

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
At 14:15 24.01.1998 +0100, Erwin Puts wrote:
>Hello Alf,
>You are right is stating that the differences between the several
>generations and types of Leica 50mm lenses are quite large.
- --- snip
>I do not think that there is any photographic situation (not even a high
>contrast one) where the modern Summicron would deliver results that the
>venerable Summar could do better.