Leica Showcase Zeiss 50mm 1.5 C-Sonnar

I just love this lens at night.

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Do you use any in-body lens corrections (if it's from the M-E again, that is)? I keep wondering about that little lens ...

M.
Whilst I do often code it on the M-E as the 50mm pre asph Summilux (which I *think* is recommended by Zeiss?) I didn't with that image and to be honest, I don't think it makes any difference. Aside from that, no corrections used at all with this lens. The main issue seems to be the ever so slight rangefinder focusing accuracy but I think I've lucked out there, mine seems to focus fine. Getting the lens is a no-brainer Matt, you can get all of your money back selling if you don't like it. You won't though.
 
@rayvonn I'm not saying I won't ever buy that lens, having fulfilled all my 35mm wishes way ahead of schedule ... I find the results intriguing and somehow, wonderful. But I own the Summicron-M 50mm f/2 - and that's a really good lens; I'm not sure I need or even want another 50mm for M mount. But we'll see - and the Sonnar C is definitely top of a very short list of lenses I'm contemplating.

M.
 
The C-Sonnar is the sharpest Sonnar 50 ever made. The West German 50/1.5 is close, and the WW-II version is also close. The latter is very rare to find in good condition, and the Post-War lens requires an adapter. SO- the C-Sonnar is a bargain.

The Sonnar has a very different personality than a Summicron.

An unusual portrait, C-Sonnar wide-open on the M8 with a Deep Orange filter and custom Raw-Processor doing the monochrome conversion. Written in FORTRAN-77 of course.



C-Sonnar, hard to believe I bought mine over 6 years ago.

Lesson in History: The Magic of the "Value for Money" Zeiss C-Sonnar 50mm F1.5 | THEME

I have most of the Sonnar formula lenses.
 
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I love it too. These are from Heidelberg, Germany. It's very sharp and nice and light on the M10. No problem with my focus either. Must have coded mine as an Elmar this time. Normally I use the 50mm Summilux ASPH profile too but probably didn't have my specs on!
 
Ray- there is quite a bit of banding in your M9 shot, this is an issue that can be caused by the battery being on the weak side, or by the specific SD card used in the camera. It is often magnified when using DNG-8 (compressed) mode. I had this issue in some of my M Monochrom shots when using a fast SD card, switched to an older 4x 8GByte card- problem vanished.
 
Ray- there is quite a bit of banding in your M9 shot, this is an issue that can be caused by the battery being on the weak side, or by the specific SD card used in the camera. It is often magnified when using DNG-8 (compressed) mode. I had this issue in some of my M Monochrom shots when using a fast SD card, switched to an older 4x 8GByte card- problem vanished.
Hi Brian, it's not the battery, just got a new one and I've recently changed the SD card as the old one was causing all sorts of problems renowned with the camera. Having said that, the current one may possibly be a bit too 'modern'. The camera's not in compressed mode either. What I have been doing though is shooting at night in arguably too low an iso (that one was at iso 250, not 400 or even 800 as it should have been). As such, exposure and highlights were raised signigicantly in PP and I was wondering whether it was that which was causing the banding. If that's the case, then it's not really an issue for me. The thing is, I love how the camera renders at low iso, to the point where I am happy to sacrifice the banding on night shots. No doubt it would go away with further PP editing or much higher iso but that could take away that certain something that the camera and lens brings to the images and I'm loathe to sacrifice that. None of this is an issue during the day of course. I'm sure I'll figure this all out in time, when you buy this camera you have to do so knowing that it will come with certain issues like this and that it's all part of the 'fun' - I certainly new what I was walking into and am happy to pay these prices of ownership. As @Adam Bonn says, it's the only FF CCD camera.
 
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