rscheffler
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 p.5 #2 · Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical "11873" Review | |
Thanks for your thoughts, Fred. The third photo is a classic 'dad!, enough with the 'lens test' photos!' 
nehemiahphoto wrote:
@rscheffler@ I always appreciate your thoughts and observations. While there is absolutely a difference in LoCal levels, the LLL seems to have a fair amount even though it has lower contrast and some SA. That may nor may not be a hassle if depending on how we process the photos. I am surprised at how much softer the LLL is on axis when shot WO even centrally at portrait distance--on the "Rendering Comp: Scene 1" it looks like the LLL is OOF on the bird house.
I have in general found it to be true that busier bokeh in the foreground give way to smooth bokeh in the background transition and vice versa. On my 75 Lux review from years back I noted and showed this.
And, for what it's worth, I have always felt the midzone issue on the 35 and 50 Lux were overblown and more relevant at infinite shooting thatn typical shooting distances in real word usage. Like how the Simera 50 has a better midzone WO at infinite compared to the Lux, but notably worse at shooting distance as Fred showed.
I can say, the more I look at the rendering, I am with @DandA123@ -- this LLL seems to replicate the Pre-FLE more closely than the AA. The AA does not exhibit this, to me nasty, characteristic of FC towards the camera in the corners. CV lenses, MS Optics and others do this. I always feel like it's a very gross look to have uneven bokeh. I like OOF with character and some movement--like the FLE. The OOF on the LLL looks fine until you see the outer 1/3 of the frame in some of these examples. According to this wonderful thread by Sean:
https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1822408/0
we can see the orginal AA does not have this FC characteristic. The original also has rougher bokeh and higher contrast on axis than what we are seeing from the LLL here I think (as far as I can tell without a direct comp). Lastly, it's been my experience that the 35 Pre-FLE has more LoCal than the FLE, so this is again reversed. I have not tested this though, and both lenses have quite a bit.
So, thus far, I think I am with you. This lands more closely an important ways to the Pre-FLE than the OG.
Last thing I'll say--I think the Pentax 31 ltd does what the Pre-FLE and this replica are trying to do but more nicely. You'll find a lot of the faults with older fast glass--LoCal, SA, needing to stop down for across the frame resolution and better contrast, but the images are gorgeous WO, having that warm soft feel.
It's not a RF lens, but I think many of use are not using RF lenses on RF cameras at this point. The Pentax also has some other differences which are fantastic--like a 0.3 MFD, better midzone, much lower price but is also larger. ...Show more →
Thanks for your thoughts on this. I agree about how the field curvature and/or vignetting affects the look of increased sharpness in the corners at certain camera/subject/background ratios and that it is not appealing. For me at least, it is less of a bad thing than purple fringing in the plane of focus at wide apertures.
I'll check out that link. In the meantime, it seems that the LLL AA is a somewhat unique offering, which I think to be fair to LLL, is pretty much what they've stated, given the changes they've made to the original AA formula.
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_jim_ wrote:
I wonder if people have had bad copies of the pre-FLE. Mine is sharper, wide-open, on-axis, at infinity than all the above listed lenses (the Zeiss is sharper up close and in the far corners at any distance, but it is notably weaker in the center of the frame at infinity).
Your statement rouses a sense of deja vu. I'm pretty sure ~10-15 years ago that that was exactly what people were claiming about the pre-FLE. I'm quite certain some were adamant that their copy didn't exhibit focus shift, etc. A lot has changed in the realm of optics in ~10-15 years and given that the pre-FLE originates from 1994, maybe it simply wasn't assembled to the higher tolerances that lenses apparently are now?
DandA123 wrote:
Excellent assessments! As we all know, LLL has done remarkable work emulating some of Leica 's classic lenses, most notably the 35mm Cron 8 element. I cannot really know of their full intent when they announced their development of their replica of the AA lens but I wondered if a bit of marketing was involved to gain both attention and interest in purchasing.In other words if they instead announced their intent to market a replica of the Leica 35mm f1.4 pre FLE with some optical improvement (like elimination of the original's focus shift), they might not have garnered the same interest and excitement but might have been noted to have achieved a more accurate representation of the lens they were attempting to emulate...namely the Pre FLE.
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I could just be that the tweaks that they themselves have admitted to applying to the original AA formula, results in images much closer to the pre-FLE, minus focus shift?
DandA123 wrote:
On a separate note many others in the past noted sample variations in both the Pre FLE lens as well as the Zeiss ZM 50mm f1.5 sonnar among other lenses that were well known to exhibit focus shift on traditional optical rangefinder cameras and as stated previously, this was due to what f-stop each was calibrated for best focus. Zeiss initially calibrated their lens wide open but as time went on, their production changed to calibration at approx f2.2 and they stated as such, to minimize apparent focus shift and even recalibrated lenses if so desires by sending in ones lens to them.
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My recollection of this could be wrong but I was under the impression that during the film era that the 50/1.5 was optimized for slightly stopped down for the reasons you noted, but with the advent of digital rangefinders, and particularly the M9, there were a lot of user complaints about wide open mis-focus. Because of course, why use a fast lens stopped down??  Meaning Zeiss modified calibration for wide open, which of course meant that focus shift in the f/2-4 range was much more apparent.
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