Hi,

I just put online all the lens test (MTF) of the 'M' Line, it's from a french magazine, Hope it will help :-)

http://simon.alibert.free.fr/leica/lens/

-- Simon Alibert (simonalibert@mac.com), April 14, 2002

Answers

Hope it will help? With what? Adding to the confusion? What's the use of the diagram if there's no legend to explain to me (and others) what's represented by the light and darker blue bars?

-- Bert Keuken (bkkn@wanadoo.nl), April 14, 2002.

Sorry, I didn't upload the right page, It should be fine now.. I don't know if it can be of any help, but at least this french review of the M lens line is online now..

Best regards,

http://simon.alibert.free.fr/leica/lens/

-- Simon Alibert (simonalibert@mac.com), April 14, 2002.

These are very interesting. Thanks for posting. Which French magazine did the tests. The 135 is outstanding, according to the test.

-- David Enzel (dhenzel@vei.net), April 14, 2002.

Thanks Simon Very interesting lens performance histograms! The results are sometimes what I expected but other times I find the French magazine graphs at odds either with Erwin or Photodo MTF measures. Surprises for me were:

- The 24mm being edged out by the 21mm in lower barrel distortion and performance at f/5.6 & f/8.0 in the center.

- The Nocti dominating over the 50 Lux at all common apertures at the edges.

- The 50 Summicron dominating the Tri-elmar at 50mm at all apertures save f/8.0 at the edges.

- The 75 Lux tying the 90 AA at f/2.0 and surpassing the 90 AA at all other common apertures tested.

- The 90 Elmarit-M lagging behind the 75 Lux at all common apertures tested.

According to this magazine's tests the "Leica World Beater Lens" is the 75 Lux. So much for APO & ASPH when you've got Mandler on your side! Go Canada!

-- Doug from Tumwater (dbaker 9128@aol.com), April 14, 2002.

Looks like the 50 Summicron is as good as any of them according to these tests.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), April 14, 2002.

One thing that leaps off the page at me is the fact that the 35/1.4, the 35/2.0 the 50/2.0, the 75/1.4 and the new 90/2.0 APO all have virtually identical performance from f/2.0 to f/8. The 35 and 75 Summiluxes have essentially identical performance from 1.4 to 8, while the charts for the 35, 50 and 90 Summicrons are essentially identical from 2.0 to 11. IMO this speaks volumes for the consistency of lens design at Leica.

A few other observations:

It's obvious that the 50/1.4 could use a redesign (as so many of us have asked for to no avail).

The new 28 Summicron has been said to be identical to the 28 Elmarit, with an extra stop. This chart seems to confirm that.

The performance of the new 135/3.4 looks remarkable - to score that high at 4.0 is amazing for a short tele.

The bench results of the Noctilux are egregious. Luckily most lenses seem to perform better than their bench tests might indicate (or the really good ones are compromised by our lack of technique so it all evens out).

It would sure be nice to have some other lenses from different manufacturers to compare, but I think CdI might start to object if too much of their material were to show up on the web - they're notoriously humorless about this sort of thing :-/

-- Paul Chefurka (paul@chefurka.com), April 14, 2002.

Where did the 50 Elmar-M come in?

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), April 14, 2002.

It would be intersting to see tests by the same source of non-Leica lenses, just for comparison purposes. From these graphs it would appear, taken by themselves, that Leica lenses are just like all the other brands, i.e. at their best from f/5.6 on average, with substantially less performance at the wider apertures...something that flies in the face of one of the primary justifications of paying for Leica lenses.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), April 14, 2002.

Some of these results are very surprising to me - as outlined by Doug - they certainly fly in the face of much of what Erwin Puts says in his book and what I (perhaps imagined) I had noticed about the lenses I have used. They look like "Chasseur d'images" test results, fwiw.

-- Steve Jones (stephenjjones@btopenworld.com), April 15, 2002.

Jay, I was under the impression that most other lenses by other manufacturers are at their best between f8 to f/11, especially with zoom lenses. Sometimes they reach their peak at f/5.6, but rarely.

Whereas most Leica lenses achieve their maximum quality starting from f/4. That's a 2 stop advantage, especially if shooting in lower light levels.

Well that was what I thought. I could be wrong, but form my experience using Pro Canon and Nikon, this was the case. My Summilux 35/1.4 at f/2 is as sharp as my old Nikkor AF-S 17-35mm at f/5.6.

And also for the 35 Summilux VS Summicron debate, it indicates that the Summilux is a slight winner. And the 28 Summicron isn't quite as good. But is this from bench tests or field tests? I am sure that in the field the differences would be hard to distinguish.

-- Kristian (leicashot@hotmail.com), April 15, 2002.

Irritatingly I don't have a scanner, but I was able to find a few chasseur d'images tests from a magazine I bought last time in France. They test the voigtlander 35 2.5 classic - it gets (exactly) at 2.5 average for edge, good for centre and peaks at 5.6 with exactly good for edge and just over very good for centre. In the same edition, a minolta af 100 macro d gets average edge and almost good centre at f2.8 and peaks at f11 with very good edge and just over very good centre. A Canon 28-105 3.5-4.5 mk 2 usm gets almost up to "very good" at f8 and a Nikon vr80-400 peaks around f8 to f16 from good to not quite very good depending on where in the zoom range.

There you go, wish I had a scanner, but hope that puts the results into perspective: the leica 35's at f2.8 are equal to the v.c. skopar at 5.6 according to this test and fwiw.

-- Steve Jones (stephenjjones@btopenworld.com), April 15, 2002.