Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]The Summarit is not that exciting. Like a lot of Planars of that era, it is essentially an f/8 lens that can also be shot at f/1.5 if necessary. The Xenon it came from is not a shooter's lens. If your main goal is to get a Leica product, you can't buy any f/1.5 product made before the Summilux that is going to compete with Zeiss, Nikon or Canon. The Summilux was the first lens that started to overtake Zeiss. These are, IME, the lenses and their optimizations: Canon 50/1.2 (1956) - open and close - peaks at f/5.6 Nikkor 50/1.4 (1951) - open and close - peaks at f/4 Canon 50/1.5 (1949) - open and mid-range - peaks at f/5.6 Zeiss Opton 50/1.5 (1946) - open and mid-range - peaks at f/4 Summitar 50/1.5 (1951?) - mid-aperture, mid range - peaks at f/5.6-8 Voigtlander Nokton (2000) - mid-aperture, mide range - peaks at f/8 By "close," I mean about a meter. By mid-range, I mean 3-5m. Interestingly, all of these cost about the same amount. In terms of effective speed, I don't think the new Nokton is as fast as one of the old Sonnar-types (which typically peak at f/4-5.6), because it hits the top of its performance (which is about the same 100 lp/mm) one to two stops smaller. Of these, my favorite is the Nikkor - why on earth would you get a high-speed lens and shoot it stopped down? Fast lenses stopped down are never as good as slow lenses. The key limitation with the Nikkor and the Canon 1.2 is plane of focus curvature, which translates into big flare wide open at infinity. Cheers - ------------ Dante Stella On Fri, 26 Apr 2002, Javier Perez wrote: > Howdy > It's a very old design. I think it was based on a > prewar Schneider Xenon. The only other option in the > Leitz camp if you have a screw mount camera would be a > screw mount Summilux if you can find one and are > willing the ridiculous price. The summarit isn't a bad > lens but it's prone to flare and gets blown away by > both the Summilux and the old Zeiss Sonnar. One > alternative might be the > Nokton from Voigtlander > > http://www.cosina.com/nokton50.htm > > See Ya > Javier > > --- Mark Kronquist <mak@teleport.com> wrote: > > on 4/25/02 5:12 AM, David C. Mason at dcm@pobox.com > > wrote: > > > > > > > > What can people tell me about the Summarit-M > > 50/1.5 - I have a chance > > > to get one cheap but I really don't know much > > about this lens. > > > > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > > > Dave > > > -- > > > To unsubscribe, see > > http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > > cheap and nasty. Unloved and from my experience > > rightly so. But others might > > have a different view. Buy a CV Nokton thanks Mark > > > > -- > > To unsubscribe, see > http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more > http://games.yahoo.com/ > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html