Best telephoto portrait lens for M9?

[peterm1]

I am looking for a portrait lens for my M9 that can really throw the background out of focus with beautifully smooth bokeh. Critical sharpness isn't as important. Maybe a 90mm or a 135mm (I have a 1.25x magnifier to help focus). I just sold my 75mm Summarit because I thought it was a bit too short and too close to my 50mm Summilux.

Thanks,

Peter

 

[f 10]

Sorry, it´s a M8

Enough bokeh for you?

 

[peterm1]

Which lens is this?

 

[panda81]

i'm really limited in my knowledge of leica lenses so far, but i played with a friend's 90 summicron non-asph this past saturday, and it seems like a big winner as a portrait lens, especially when considering price/performance.

 

[M5-Guy]

Seems like the 90 Cron would fit the bill....
V2 below:
f/5.6 I think. sharpened a bit more than normal..I wanted to see how it did with hair mostly..

Very Sharp too. but if you don't sharpen too much, it can also produce a nice image..

f/2 An image not sharpened too much.

 

[f 10]

Which lens is this?

1,4/75mm

all pics @ 1,4

 

[Lars]

1,4/75mm

all pics @ 1,4

Nope, not enough bokeh for me I must say I don't like the background defocus of that lens much, at least not wide open, too much vignetting makes COC clipped away from center, it's disturbing, you have look out and avoid specular highlights towards the edges and corners. Probably looks better stopped down at bit at f2.

 

[paulmartin483]

Which lens is this?

I thought that there is 1,4/75mm lens in there.It was good lens.It winding and images was too good.Sometime It could be lack the background result.So it is quite acceptable by me.

 

[John Black]

Hi Peter - Lots of 90mm Summicron pre-ASPH images here. In your research, you might want to take a look at the 90mm Summarit too. I have the Summarit and had the 90 APO. The 90 APO was very nice, but for the price difference it's very difficult to knock the 90 Summarit. I think the 90 Summarit renders more like one of the current ASPH lenses, the 90mm Summicron (pre-ASPH) had a hint of the 75 Lux's signature.

If just for portraits, I have a soft spot for the 90mm Summicron (pre-ASPH). Its rendering is a bit more gentler. Some of the newer lenses can be too contrasty, too sharp - and end up showing every wrinkle, age spot, etc. I tried the 135/2.8, second version. I wasn't so fond of that lens, I'd suggest one of the 90's over the 135mm. The 135mm F2.8 had too much of the "Leica glow" at F2.8 for my tastes. At F4 it cleaned up very nicely, but there wasn't nearly as much bokeh as I expected. For shooting longer lenses like a 135mm, I'll stick with the 1Ds3.

You said 75mm was to close to 50mm, but if you like to shoot really tight, the 75 APO can be very rewarding. The 75 APO is my favorite portrait lens at the moment. Some sample shots here. The only downside of the 75 APO is its wallet-busting price.

 

[deepdiver]

How about Zeiss 85/2
the bokeh look very smooth on Erwin's review

 

[gero]

How about Zeiss 85/2
the bokeh look very smooth on Erwin's review

same question from me.

John, I had never thought about colorfringing in boke; it was good to see the comparison of the 100 zeis & 75 cron.

 

[John Black]

Gero - If I had one -big- complaint with the 90mm Summicron Pre-ASPH, it was the various color fringing in the bokeh. Sometimes it would be okay, other times is was everywhere. Here is example -

Here's a 100% crop from the red edge / arrow location -

That is LoCa aberrations. Nothing horrible, but it's there. Just about tele lens I've used has it (Canon, Leica, Zeiss, Mamiya, Hasselblad...) The problem with this CA is that with the right colors, it can really contrast and pop out. Like on Zeiss lenses the yellow-green hues contrast sharply with blue oceans, so a neon outline of sorts can appear in the bokeh along high contrast edges. It's a pet peeve and drives me bonkers. Alot of times I'll fix it in Photoshop, but sometimes it's just not possible to fix because of a complex backgrounds with alot of colors.

Anyway, the 90mm Summicron Pre-ASPH had this more-so than my other lenses. I tried a couple 90 'Crons and they all had it. Even the 90 APO had it (tried two of those) - that really surprised me. I thought APO's were supposed to eliminate this for of CA. The 75 APO does a pretty good job of controlling it.

For most people what I'm talking about is extreme bit picking, and I get that. But all the same, it bugs the crap out me and has led to extreme spending to find lenses that manage this form of CA better than others. Generally, I don't think Zeiss and Canon worry too much about the CA in the bokeh. Leica generally seems to have less, so I'm guessing their optical engineers try minimize it.

If Peter said the 90mm was just for landscapes and such, I probably wouldn't suggest the 90mm Summicron Pre-ASPH. For portraits it does a really nice job, especially if the backgrounds are fairly clear of potential CA garbage. Here's an F2 shot that may have some CA in it, but the scene completely masks it -

And a typical portrait -

The last two shots were taken with the M8 (if that matters). As a portrait lens, I think the 90mm Summicron Pre-ASPH is a great choice. I haven't tried the 90mm Elmarit, but that just arrived this morning

 

[harmsr]

For portraits I would consider the latest (but now discontinued) 90/2.8 Elmarit. It resolves more detail than the new Summarit and is much smoother.

May favorite 90mm.

Best,

Ray

 

[Gary P]

Here's one with the 90 Elmarit. I love this as a portrait lens.

Gary P

 

[peterm1]

I wound up buying a used 90mm Elmarit.

Thanks,

Peter

 

[Leicadoc]

I have used both the pre-aspheric Summicron and the latest Elmarit 90.
The only one in my bag after using them side by side is the cron.
Bokeh wide open is amazing.
I'll post one I truly like later today.
I don't think there is fairness in the comparison...

 

[thrice]

Weird, I owned the pre-asph summicron, the apo asph summicron and the elmarit-m... I only have the Elmarit-M now as it matched the APO for sharpness and has better bokeh than both the other two. Maybe just my experience.

 

[Hacker]

Leica 90mm, Canon/Fujinon 100mm, Nikkor 105mm and even the Leica/Canon/Nikkor 135mm.

 

[gero]

Gero - If I had one -big- complaint with the 90mm Summicron Pre-ASPH, it was the various color fringing in the bokeh. Sometimes it would be okay, other times is was everywhere. Here is example -

John, I always thought that the different color in bokeh was a result of a mixture between more or less of one or the other of the two colors in a blurred line (I thought of it as natural). In general I have learned to live with the different faults of the lenses and even started to like them. I think of the problems that our brains are used to (because of the faults of our eyes). In general we are part of a complex mixture of un-perfect things that are all relative to each other (perfection is an illusion).

Thanks for the explanation.

 

[pgmj]

The Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 90/3,5 is very nice if you can live with the not-so-large max aperture.