Leica vs. Zeiss – Episode #1 – 2/50 vs. 2/45

Summicron-M 2/50 v4 vs. Summicron-R 2/50 v2 vs. Contax G Planar 2/45 Being a lensoholic for almost 15 years I have now graduated to Leica lenses, something I was sure I'd "never" do, a couple of years ago. Provocatively I just used the term graduated, but I don't intend to suggest, that I'm wise enough...

The Leica bug and a trip on Haymountain

The career of becoming an Altglasoholic is a long process, at least for me it was and still is. Usually you get into vintage lenses at a price point of about two beer crates, maybe you got an Auto Revuenon or Vivitar lens or a 50mm from Minolta or Canon. You try out many of...

Finest Fifties finale – A Mercedes Benz and a skater

A few weeks ago I saw this beautiful old car in my neigbourhood, standing under an alley of chestnut trees no less. The shadows of the trees and the overcast sky reflected on the surface of the old Mercedes. In my book that's the recipe for some powerful 3D pop. Also it made a nice...

Finest Fifties at Night

As much as I am happy that spring is finally here, albeit still not with as much warmth as I'd like, I'm also sad that the time of Christmas lighting is over. Sadly I only shot with 8 lenses back then and I feel unable to repeat the same thing now with all ten lenses....

Finest Fifties – Rendering – Crocus Cream

In this part I want to show more of the rendering qualities of each lens. It's still about how they render up close. This time color will play a big part, also how the rendering creates a painterly quality. Speaking of which, in this part of the review I added the RE Auto Topcor 1.4/58,...

Finest Fifties – Rendering – Book & Bokeh

I've decided to split this part up into several chapters, providing and analyzing one batch of images in each chapter. This batch "Book & Bokeh" is meaningful in several ways. It will show you the close up performance of each lens at the important apertures and how it makes your subject stand out. Since each...

Finest fifties – Sharpness

From my own point of view, this part of the review is for you. I don't care too much about the sharpness of the lenses at each and every aperture setting. For portraiture or for shooting moods or details it's not important, because they're all sharp enough in the center. For landscape or architecture however...

Some of the finest fifties for fullframe

Introduction to a few review articles about some high end, mostly vintage, manual fullframe lenses, made by Canon, Konica, Leica, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus and Zeiss If I had to own just one lens, it would likely be a fifty, mostly because it provides the best compromise for what I shoot, the optimum in versatility. Also,...