SLR Magic HyperPrime LM 50mm T0.95 Review

[sirimiri]

Wait, that's Pete's Cafe on 4th and Main!

 

[Double Negative]

Caution - we have issued an important update regarding this lens!

 

[SYGTAFOTO]

Loctite to hold the aperture and focus rings... IMO, that about says it for this company and its products.

 

[Double Negative]

Apparently there's no provision (space, threads or otherwise) for screws in the design. Therefore, Loctite is used. The lens can then still be taken apart for servicing without destroying it, had they used something like epoxy. Though even the red Loctite which they're using - apparently isn't doing the job.

So, um, yeah...

 

[GDI]

Wow, the price versus performance of this thing is unbelievable. Now, they are falling apart, geez...

 

[Double Negative]

Yeah... Optically they seem pretty nice.

We're working with SLR Magic to get another copy for review.

 

[GDI]

Yeah... Optically they seem pretty nice.

We're working with SLR Magic to get another copy for review.

Remember, "unbelievable" can be taken two ways!

$5k seems wildly expensive for what this is; it seems to render similar to old lenses that cost a fraction of that. Plus, you could pay a couple hundred more for a good Noctilux f1.0; they figured out how to bolt that one together with screws somehow.

Seems pretty sharp in the middle, though.

 

[StephenPatterson]

At $5000 USD it's a no-brainer, DO NOT BUY THIS LENS. You are much better off with a 50 Summilux ASPH (for $1000 less) or a genuine Noctilux. I was one of the early "adopters" who was offered the opportunity to purchase for $2600 (still a lot of money). After three of the lenses fell apart I said "NO THANKS" and demanded a refund, which was very difficult to get.

Bottom line, this lens has serious short cuts in the mechanical design and uses Loktite thread glue to hold the entire lens together. Now other lenses designs also use some epoxy in places, but I know of no other lens that completely relies on a temporary adhesive to keep things together. Because of the need to take the lens apart SLR Magic cannot use a permanent epoxy (disassembly would destroy the lens), which is why they are using thread locking compound for something it was never designed for.

If I had known about the use of Loktite I would have never purchased this lens. Even at $2600 it's an expensive lens that is incapable of rendering sharp images across it's focus range.

 

[zombii]

After reading DN's warning earlier today, I sent an email to Andrew asking him to advise me about the problems that were mentioned. He asked me to send him the part of DN's comments that I was concerned about. I copied and pasted the second paragraph that described the Loctite issue. I've used both red and blue Loctite in the past and I know that red Loctite used properly can be pretty tough to break loose. Here's the part of his answer that dealt with the Loctite issue.

"Loctite like compound is commonly used for making lenses for decades. The issue was we did not use enough. I have attached a photo of the Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 and Leica 90mm f/2 lens. You can see that the Zeiss use compound to hold screws of key focusing mechanism and Leica use compound to hold key optical element."

He attached a picture of the inside of a Zeiss lens showing red Loctite around the heads of several small screws in the mechanism. The rest of his email was dedicated to the vagaries of focus accuracy on fast lenses on rangefinder cameras. That really wasn't what I was concerned about and he didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. I kind of felt like he sidestepped the main issue which, if I understand the previous posts, was that the focus ring at least was held to the helicoid with red Loctite. If that's not a correct reading, please clarify it for me. He does say they didn't use enough but he doesn't say how it was used. Red Loctite used in sufficient quantity on clean mating threads is tough stuff. That's what it's designed for. I suspect other types of uses aren't supported. If anybody has actually seen the inside of one of these, I'd like to hear your description and better yet, see some pictures.

 

[StephenPatterson]

Red Loctite is designed as a thread locking compound, but SLR Magic are using it as an epoxy to hold the lens together. Andrew explained to me (after my second lens failure) that there is insufficient room in the mechanical design for traditional screw fasteners to hold the lens together. Without the use of adhesives this lens would not be possible to assemble. As using epoxy would destroy the lens during disassembly the only choice for SLR Magic was to use Loctite.

Using Loctite in this way is unlike any other manufacturer (in spite of SLR Magic's attempted claims to the contrary) and is not what Loctite is designed for. No Leica or Zeiss lens is held together with thread locking compound, from Loctite or any other manufacturer. I believe over time, especially in high heat and humidity, all of the SLR Magic Hyperprime lenses will fail. I urged Andrew to recall this lens, but I believe he is ignoring the facts and hoping the problem will just go away.

 

[GDI]

Red Loctite is designed as a thread locking compound, but SLR Magic are using it as an epoxy to hold the lens together. Andrew explained to me (after my second lens failure) that there is insufficient room in the mechanical design for traditional screw fasteners to hold the lens together. Without the use of adhesives this lens would not be possible to assemble. As using epoxy would destroy the lens during disassembly the only choice for SLR Magic was to use Loctite.

Using Loctite in this way is unlike any other manufacturer (in spite of SLR Magic's attempted claims to the contrary) and is not what Loctite is designed for. No Leica or Zeiss lens is held together with thread locking compound, from Loctite or any other manufacturer. I believe over time, especially in high heat and humidity, all of the SLR Magic Hyperprime lenses will fail. I urged Andrew to recall this lens, but I believe he is ignoring the facts and hoping the problem will just go away.

Your post makes perfect sense; I have seen loctite used in many situations, and used it myself - as a threadlocker! Of course "Loctite", the corporation, makes adhesives as well, but it seems the product used here is a threadlocker.

Obviously, if there is no room for proper fasteners, it is a design problem. There is no way that Leica and Zeiss use Loctite to hold together mechanical parts of their lenses, they use it for locking the threads on screws. Does anyone know where these lenses actually originate? I know the earlier "Noktor" m4/3s lenses were re-purposed security camera lenses. Maybe this lens uses the glass from similar lenses (though with larger coverage) and they cobble them together to make an m-mount lens?

Of course people can spend their money on whatever they would like, but it just seems illogical that anyone would pay $5000 for this lens rather than an F1 Noctilux that won't fall apart when the loctite melts. But I guess you could go for the non-RF version and save $2000! (btw, $2000 + another $1000 gets you a new Summilux Asph) Leica couldn't ask for a better competitor to make their lenses look like a great value!

 

[StephenPatterson]

I see another Hyperprime owner in Hong Kong is trying to sell his lens on Steve Huff's site. I love the ad, because it features the "new and improved" shipping box that is supposed to solve all of the focus issues customers are having with the Hyperprime.

I have never seen a company come up with so many excuses to explain why their lenses are not properly calibrated and fall apart. Blame the shipping company, blame the customer's rangefinder, blame the customer. My first lens was so far out that my hit rate was zero, and Andrew actually told me I needed to focus and then make a muscle memory adjustment to achieve proper focus. I should have known then that this guy is clueless. The second lens was better from 1m-10m, but hopeless beyond that (and the aperture ring fell off). The third improved focus accuracy out to around 15m, but the mount was screwed up and the lens barrel and aperture blade coatings started coming apart and shedding debris inside the lens. After three failures I knew it was time for me to find another lens.

Show Ad - LNIB SLR MAGIC HYPERPRIME LM T0.95 for Leica M/Rangefinders - Hong Kong - Hong Kong - Cameras, Lenses, & Everything Photo! | STEVE HUFF PHOTOS

 

[Brian S]

Not being in focus across range for a normal lens: The focal length of the optics is off, or the index of the cam does not match the exact focal length of the optics.

For a lens like this: I would expect the exact focal length to agree with the Leica standard of 51.6mm, as that is what the RF is calibrated to. If the focal length deviates, the Cam of the lens needs to be indexed across range- and for a normal lens, this cut in the cam would be less than 0.1mm as it goes from 1m to infinity.

After reading Stephen's experience here and at the other forum, this lens should be avoided.

 

[GDI]

Not being in focus across range for a normal lens: The focal length of the optics is off, or the index of the cam does not match the exact focal length of the optics.

For a lens like this: I would expect the exact focal length to agree with the Leica standard of 51.6mm, as that is what the RF is calibrated to. If the focal length deviates, the Cam of the lens needs to be indexed across range- and for a normal lens, this cut in the cam would be less than 0.1mm as it goes from 1m to infinity.

After reading Stephen's experience here and at the other forum, this lens should be avoided.

Installing a proper RF coupling and and adjusting it sounds better than using "muscle memory" to focus!

High quality lens development and production is a precision proposition; it makes one wonder how a company can pop out of the cyber-ether and come up with, and actually sell $5000 lenses. How can one expect Leica quality (as implied on the Huff site) from a company with no history/track record at all? CV and Zeiss have a hard time accomplishing that, sometimes they succeed, most times not - and we are talking about a pretty big company with state of the art factory and glass plant.

 

[Brian S]

I was asked recently if my 50 year old Canon 50/0.95's had any play or wobble in the mount. I've owned an RF coupled version and an early uncoupled (TV, but not marked "TV") version for 10 years. Both are very smooth, well damped, and do not show any wobble. Canon used a Cam directly coupled to the optics, and the focus is accurate at F0.95 across the entire focus range. The TV lens- was used in an outdoor weatherproof enclosure, saw some hot temperatures.

These lenses were designed and manufactured 50 years ago. They are not epoxied together, and are possible to work on. I cannot understand why this company cannot make the fittings larger to accommodate proper assembly.

 

[StephenPatterson]

I cannot understand why this company cannot make the fittings larger to accommodate proper assembly.

I believe this was a marketing decision. The Hyperprime is already 40% larger and heavier than the 0.95 Noctilux, and they wanted to keep it as close as possible in appearance to the Leica lens. The Hyperprime is so heavy that when mounted on the M9 you can cause the rangefinder patch to move a significant amount just buy supporting the weight of the lens or letting in hang in the mount. Now I know that certain designs, such as jet airliner wings, are designed to flex...but M mount lenses, not so much.

Andrew likes to point out that the 0.95 Noctilux has all of the same problems as his lens, but that certainly has not been my experience. I've been using my new Noctilux for the past month and have experienced none of the problems that I did with the Hyperprime. My focus is accurate across the entire range, the lens is solid as a tank, and there is no debris inside the lens.

 

[3D-Kraft.com]

I got the impression that at the moment there are a few people talking quite loud about negative experiences with that lens and some others just jumped on that train in order to spread their subjective perception from other readings. At the moment this is propably no representative balance to satisfied users/customers simply using that lens and not spending their time writing in forums.

So far I recognized complaints only about the LM (RF coupled) version of that lens and those people that had problems with their early prototypes either got a replacement or a refund.

I also got one of the early six prototypes (the CINE version without RF coupling). What I recognized by comparing my sample images with others was that the early prototypes seemed to be different in calibration and may be also in coating. All seemed to have a good center sharpness but the out-of-focus rendering looked different. Some copies had circles of confusion (COC) with hard rings, some others were rendering very neutral (my copy as well).

My first copy had some debris inside as well and the focus ring was a bit too free-moving. The debris was not directly visible but seemed to cause a spot close to the center of the COCs. The mechanical condition was still unchanged after carrying it three weeks on a round trip through Cuba where it had a hard time.

After SLR Magic had enough feedback about their early concept samples that may have pointed out these prototype issues they decided to send me a replacement as well. The new copy is clean, has a perfectly smooth rendering of out-of-focus areas and very neutral circels of confusion. The operation of the focus ring feels perfectly now and is comparable to the operation of the earlier Noctilux 50/1.0 that I preferred because it had a longer focus throw than the current 50/0.95 Noctilux. Andrew said that there was a change in the mechanical design so that the lens also weighs a bit more now. Image samples can be found in this flickr group: Flickr: SLR Magic HyperPrime CINE 50mm T0.95

This lens has nothing to do with the earlier Noktor 50/0.95 (that did not cover the fullframe sensor and was far away from the optical performance of their new construction). One of the design goals of that lens was that it should have less vignetting than the current Noctilux. This required larger lens elements (some are said to be made by Schott, Germany; in fact it has an 0.92 aperture) and so a larger barrel.

Although I am not speaking for the LM (RF coupled) version, I think that my experiences regarding the excellent optical performance can be applied to current samples of that version as well. It has at least the same center resolution, less vignetting and less purple fringing at open aperture as the Noctilux 50/0.95 and I would judge the out-of-focus rendering on the same level.

As far as the RF calibration is concerned, I can not understand those people recommending the older Noctilux 50/1.0 as this had significant problems with focus shift and a strong vignetting that you even see when adapting it to a little FourThirds sensor and disturbed out-of-focus rendering at open aperture. I could use the old Noctilux only at F1.4 with satisfying results so that I decided to replace it by a Summilux 50/1.4 ASPH. Fot the few situations that justify an even wider aperture, the HyperPrime is doing a good job for me.

So for those who do not need the RF coupled version (adapting to NEX, X Pro 1 or may be a M10 later when it does not rely on rangefinder focusing exclusively anymore), I see no reason to avoid that lens. For those looking for the RF coupled version I think you should wait until more reports exist that give a better basis for an objective decision. Personally I believe that SLR Magic is knowledgeable enough and will be able to learn from those early customers that in fact have a problem with the quality of that lens (and not with the limitations of the rangefinder system with lenses at or below F1.0 in general) and should be given that time and credit.

 

[StephenPatterson]

I got the impression that at the moment there are a few people talking quite loud about negative experiences with that lens and some others just jumped on that train in order to spread their subjective perception from other readings. At the moment this is propably no representative balance to satisfied users/customers simply using that lens and not spending their time writing in forums.

I also get the impression that you are talking quite loudly and positively about the Hyperprime, based upon the fact that 100% of your posts on Leica Users Forum and here at GetDPI are in defense of SLR Magic, so let's call a spade a spade...

So far I recognized complaints only about the LM (RF coupled) version of that lens and those people that had problems with their early prototypes either got a replacement or a refund.

By Andrew's own admission there is no mechanical difference between the LM (RF coupled) version and the CINE or non-calibrated version. It's the same lens, so trying to suggest that the problems are limited to only a small selection of lenses is false. Also the communication from SLR Magic and demand for 20% penalty for those seeking refunds for faulty lenses is nothing short of criminal.

My first copy had some debris inside as well and the focus ring was a bit too free-moving. The debris was not directly visible but seemed to cause a spot close to the center of the COCs. The mechanical condition was still unchanged after carrying it three weeks on a round trip through Cuba where it had a hard time.

I was at the Steve Huff LA Workshop in January where Andrew showed us the lens and allowed us to purchase at $2600. There were around 25 people in attendance, and I believe around 12 of us ordered lenses. Of that group I believe the failure rate to be around 80%. At this point every person I know who has received this lens has either had a mechanical failure, has received a lens so far out of calibration as to be unusable, or has decided to not keep the lens and sell. Not very impressive.

This lens has nothing to do with the earlier Noktor 50/0.95 (that did not cover the fullframe sensor and was far away from the optical performance of their new construction). One of the design goals of that lens was that it should have less vignetting than the current Noctilux. This required larger lens elements (some are said to be made by Schott, Germany; in fact it has an 0.92 aperture) and so a larger barrel.

To quote Gary Tyson from F8 Photography in Hong Kong, "The Hyperprime vignettes worse than a fat whore's thighs".

Although I am not speaking for the LM (RF coupled) version, I think that my experiences regarding the excellent optical performance can be applied to current samples of that version as well. It has at least the same center resolution, less vignetting and less purple fringing at open aperture as the Noctilux 50/0.95 and I would judge the out-of-focus rendering on the same level.

I'm a pretty big fan of the optical properties of the Hyperprime, although I did have issues. I agree that center resolution is excellent, I disagree that the lens vignettes less than the 0.95 Noctilux (which I own) and I agree that the Hyperprime also has less purple fringing, although this really is a non-issue as it is easily corrected in post. It's just too bad that these elements are not in a lens built by Zeiss or Voigtlander. None of the Hyperprime lenses I used was capable of sharp focus at infinity, and I have heard this same complaint from several other early adopters.

So for those who do not need the RF coupled version (adapting to NEX, X Pro 1 or may be a M10 later when it does not rely on rangefinder focusing exclusively anymore), I see no reason to avoid that lens.

You really see no reason why customers should avoid buying the Hyperprime? Seriously? When an overwhelming majority of the early adopters either had mechanical and or calibration failures you see no reason not to recommend this lens? To make a statement like that, coupled with the fact that you have only posted on Leica forums on this issue in defense of SLR Magic, leads me to seriously question whether your statements are those of an unbiased customer or rather an employee or associate of SLR Magic.

 

[SYGTAFOTO]

Regardless of the optical qualities, the fact is that the lens is put together by loctite. I'm not touching it with a ten foot pole.

 

[GDI]

I got the impression that at the moment there are a few people talking quite loud about negative experiences with that lens and some others just jumped on that train in order to spread their subjective perception from other readings. At the moment this is propably no representative balance to satisfied users/customers simply using that lens and not spending their time writing in forums.

But it isn't just unreasonable complaints from a few customers. Responses from the company rep confirm that the lens uses threadlocker as a mechanical fastener, and that he feels the focus problems are to be expected. (If the posters here can be trusted in their accounts; and I can see no reason to doubt them).

Some copies had circles of confusion (COC) with hard rings, some others were rendering very neutral (my copy as well).

Wouldn't that imply that these lenses had different optical formulas? Or very sophisticated compensating lens elements? What was the explanation for this?

One of the design goals of that lens was that it should have less vignetting than the current Noctilux. This required larger lens elements (some are said to be made by Schott, Germany; in fact it has an 0.92 aperture) and so a larger barrel.

Now your are getting somewhere. One of my biggest questions was "where are they sourcing the glass for the optics?" However, the claim that the glass is made by Schott in Germany is not borne out by the SLR Magic website, which indicates it is made in Japan.

Is there really documentation that the optical glass is created by Schott for SLR Magic, or, even, that it comes form the Schott catalog? It seems if it truly Schott glass, some of the most prestigious glass made, a small company like SLR Magic would anxious to identify it as such.

Although I am not speaking for the LM (RF coupled) version, I think that my experiences regarding the excellent optical performance can be applied to current samples of that version as well. It has at least the same center resolution, less vignetting and less purple fringing at open aperture as the Noctilux 50/0.95 and I would judge the out-of-focus rendering on the same level.

Indications from the website are that the only difference between the versions are the mount and RF coupling, and of course that would make sense. And from what I have seen, the OOF rendering from this lens is far short of any Noctilux version, and even other lenses.

As far as the RF calibration is concerned, I can not understand those people recommending the older Noctilux 50/1.0 as this had significant problems with focus shift and a strong vignetting that you even see when adapting it to a little FourThirds sensor and disturbed out-of-focus rendering at open aperture.

Focus shift has nothing to do with a lens not being able to properly focus across its range. If the RF indicates focus at one distance that is correct and another that is not correct, the lens is simply flawed. I can't imagine such a lens would see the light of day if from Leica, or CV/Zeiss. (See Brian's post above).

As to why choose a Noctilux over this lens, there are a number of reasons; the RF mechanism actually works, it is smaller, it has overall better quality and is not threadlocked together, the images are better (very subjective indeed), it has a known pedigree from what is arguably the most respected maker of photographic equipment in the world and it is a far better value.

So for those who do not need the RF coupled version (adapting to NEX, X Pro 1 or may be a M10 later when it does not rely on rangefinder focusing exclusively anymore), I see no reason to avoid that lens.

Yes, using a different camera is a solution for an unusable RF mechanism.

If you enjoy your lens, that is great, I hope you continue to do so and have good luck with it.