Prosophos

I had the pleasure of using the Leica 28mm Summilux ASPH today, thanks to Alex of Setadel Studios here in Toronto who graciously lent me his personal copy.

The verdict:  I like this lens.

Technical notes:

• Purple fringing.  Like most fast lenses shot wide open against objects with high contrast edges, undesirable purple fringing is elicited.  This was present in the first image below but was removed during post-processing.
• Distortion.  There’s very little.  I assume that in a wide-ish f/1.4 lens like this it exists but I didn’t see any obvious sign of it.  In fact, all of the photographs below are uncorrected.
  
• Size.  Bigger and heavier than the the 35mm Summilux FLE, as expected.  However, some of the reviews I read about the 28 ‘Lux led me to believe the additional weight was negligible but I was definitely conscious of it while photographing.
• Sharpness.  Excellent, starting at f/1.4 …and it only gets better from there.
• Bokeh.  I didn’t have enough time for rigorous evaluation of out-of-focus rendering; having said that, I didn’t see any objectionable qualities in this respect.
• Usability/Miscellaneous.  The lens barrel has a focus tab, which I like.    The hood is the same screw-it-on-and-it-stops-just-where-it-should type found on the 35mm Summilux FLE and 21mm f/3.4 Super-Elmar, which I also like.

—Peter.

–

↑Leica M9 (CCD Lives! – Prosophos Open Letter to Leica) + Leica 28mm Summilux ASPH.