which one manual focus lens for A7r ?

[Barry Haines]

My first post...I tried 4 of my standard lenses on my A7R and ended up selling 2 of them.
The 55mm f1.8 FE Sonnar performed the best in terms of IQ IMHO.
I still felt that the 58mm f1.2 Rokkor had a look all of it's own to make me still want to keep it as well.
I was pretty happy with the 50mm ZM Planar until I tried the 55MM FE Sonnar.
The Leica Summilux was my least favourite of the 4 lenses tested on the A7R.

 

[jlindstrom]

Barry: it's been widely recognized that summilux-m 50 doesn't really play nice with the A7(r). Some report success but vast majority say it's useless. Summilux-R however seems really nice. Though if you're looking for just one 50'ish, then the native FE55 puts up hard to beat competition.

Godfrey: been playing with the 50 cron for some time and especially wide open it seems rather soft. Unfortunately I have a crap adapter, so I can't say whether that is the actual culprit.. maybe I'll just buy a quality one and see what that does. This chinese one I got for free.. so guess i'm getting what I paid for - a full bag of nothing

//Juha

 

[Godfrey]

Godfrey: been playing with the 50 cron for some time and especially wide open it seems rather soft. Unfortunately I have a crap adapter, so I can't say whether that is the actual culprit.. maybe I'll just buy a quality one and see what that does. This chinese one I got for free.. so guess i'm getting what I paid for - a full bag of nothing.

I just tested the Summicron-R 35, Summicron-R 50, and Summilux-R 50 on the exact same setup (tripod mounted, ISO 400, remote actuated shutter, one exposure each from wide open to fully stopped down; focus on the same detail target for all three). All three lenses are Walter Mandler designs, I believe, and all three show the exact same characteristics: a slight bit of glowy softness on center wide open (the 'Lux has more), a bit more at corners and edges wide open. One stop down center tightens up to near perfect. Two stops down the corners do the same. I wouldn't call any of them "soft" wide open as edges of things are quite distinct and clear, but there's a bit of glow around the edges (which I find quite lovely).

Here's a page showing the results of the Summicron-R 50mm:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25268645/summicron-r_50/index.html

I use a Novoflex NEX/LER adapter and a Novoflex ASTAT/NEX tripod mount. Expensive. Worth it.

G

 

[jlindstrom]

Here are a couple of samples. I'm not actually sure wether these were wide open or even stopped down to 5.6.. anyway, not crazy sharp. I was actually expecting a bit more..

https://db.tt/BHgtpErK
https://db.tt/91ML8rqL

In the first photo focus was on the lady in the left and second on the lady in center. Straight out of camera, unaltered raw files to download and play around with...

//Juha

 

[MikeEvangelist]

anyway, not crazy sharp. I was actually expecting a bit more..

Which 50mm Summicron is this? (there are several different versions, going back to 1953)

If it's one of the more modern designs, it is indeed disappointing. For older designs, it's perhaps within expectations.

 

[Godfrey]

Which 50mm Summicron is this? (there are several different versions, going back to 1953)

If it's one of the more modern designs, it is indeed disappointing. For older designs, it's perhaps within expectations.

The lens featured on my test page noted earlier is a single-cam Summicron-R from 1965 according to the serial number listings.

G

 

[MikeEvangelist]

The lens featured on my test page noted earlier is a single-cam Summicron-R from 1965 according to the serial number listings.

Your images certainly confirm that the Summicron-R is a beauty on the A7; wish I hadn't sold mine.

But I'm curious which M version Juha is using, as the results are not what I'd expect from a Summicron (even an old one).

 

[Barry Haines]

Barry: it's been widely recognized that summilux-m 50 doesn't really play nice with the A7(r). Some report success but vast majority say it's useless. Summilux-R however seems really nice. Though if you're looking for just one 50'ish, then the native FE55 puts up hard to beat competition.

//Juha

I am no N00B But thanks for pointing that out to me //Juha
I personally first became aware that the 50mm Summilux-M might not perhaps be the best choice for my A7R when my Sony package arrived in Nov 13.

B

 

[jlindstrom]

Which 50mm Summicron is this? (there are several different versions, going back to 1953)

If it's one of the more modern designs, it is indeed disappointing. For older designs, it's perhaps within expectations.

Actually according to Leica wiki just two versions of summicron-r 50 exists and this is of the later design. My lens is from 1983 if I remember correctly, so of the later design.

Maybe I need to do some more test shots around the house.. perhaps on a tripod.

//Juha

 

[MikeEvangelist]

Actually according to Leica wiki just two versions of summicron-r 50 exists and this is of the later design. My lens is from 1983 if I remember correctly, so of the later design.

I misread your earlier post - thought you were talking about a M Summicron.

Given that your sample shots were from a R lens, they do seem less sharp than would normally be expected.

 

[Godfrey]

Here are a couple of samples. I'm not actually sure wether these were wide open or even stopped down to 5.6.. anyway, not crazy sharp. I was actually expecting a bit more..

https://db.tt/BHgtpErK
https://db.tt/91ML8rqL

In the first photo focus was on the lady in the left and second on the lady in center. Straight out of camera, unaltered raw files to download and play around with...

DSC0095.ARW:
The light falloff at edges and corners, plus the focus zone, suggest an f/2 exposure. Compensating for that with the Lens Corrections panel in LR5.3, it looks like the plane of critical focus is about 1-2' closer than the woman seated on the bench, running slightly in front of the woman walking on the right. You can see how quickly the zone of focus drops off past the woman on the left ... normally you would expect that if she was the critical focus plane, there would be a bit more focus behind her than in front of her, but the reverse is true. However, there is still good detail in both of their clothes, and there's a little bit of the typical Summicron-R veiling 'glow' (coma, flare, whatever) from being wide open. You can see that in the test shots I provided by looking at the differences between the f/2, f/2.8 and f/4 1:1 clips.

DSC0097.ARW:
In this one, the light falloff looks much more typical of f/2.8-f/4, and the ISO has bumped up to 250 in similar light as the previous supporting that idea too. Again the critical focus plane is slightly in front of the central figure of the woman; it drops off a bit too quickly behind her. If you examine the ground carefully, there is evidence of some camera movement in the critical plane of focus (look at the ground, you'll see a little side-to-side blur on what should be stationary pebbles). There's still good detail in her dress, in her face and hands, but its lacking the crisp pop of a dead-on focus and vibrationless camera.

Judging from these two photos, the lens seems to be performing as expected. I'd suggest focus practice and work on holding the camera more steadily. I've seen camera movement blur even at 1/1000 second, so don't think just because the exposure is made at 1/400 second you're guaranteed to be steady.

G

 

[jlindstrom]

Godfrey: thanks for the analysis, exactly why I posted the raw files.. helps getting a better 2nd opinion on things.

For the first photo (focus, woman left) I'm a little surprised about bumming the focus. I was fraiming first, then moved the focus rectangle over the woman and used the magnification to focus. With focus and recompose that would have a more likely thing to happen.

Same also applies somewhat to the 2nd one, but maybe that's more due to the camera movement.

But I'm also still wondering about the adapter.. just thinking that since it has that 2-3mm play at the mount, I suppose it doesn't have to rotate much after focusing to screw it up.. and it is easily loose enough, that it could have turned..

1/400 and camera movement is also quite surprising. I wouldn't have expected that from myself, as I had perfectly good time to adjust the shot and stand still. She stopped to pose for me.. dissapointed in myself mostly with that.

//Juha