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Aperture Series: Church At Night (M240)
While outstanding in overall visual impact, this series also assesses weaknesses of the Leica 28mm f/1.4 Summilux-M ASPH including color aberrations and field curvature.
Church At Night
Adobe Camera Raw 9.1.1 (461). ACR settings. Camera Profile = Embedded. Contrast control used to make image much more interesting.
Focused at f/1.4 at maximum magnification using the EVF.
Overall visual impact is excellent. But with focus all the way on the face of the mosaic (two leading figures, which is quite distant), one might hope that wide open or shortly thereafter that the entire face of the church would be sharp. But this is not so: the entire center section of the mosaic goes soft, then the farthest area goes sharp again. The effects of this field curvature can be confirmed by observing that the tile roof is sharp in these same mid zones: the field curves forward in the mid zone area (12mm offset in the MTF chart, see f/2.8) that not until f/8 is the mosaic fully crisp! Had I been aware of this behavior prior, I would have focused deeper into the scene to balance the focus across the church and mosaic. This may have helped a great deal.
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Diglloyd Guide to LEICA contains in-depth coverage of Leica M system cameras and lenses, with additional coverage of Leica M Monochrom, Leica Q.
Special emphasis is placed on Leica M lenses and certain Zeiss ZM lenses.
- Make better images by learning how to get the best results right away.
- Save money by choosing the right lens for your needs the first time, particularly the Summilux/Summicron/Elmarit choice and/or Zeiss ZM.
- Make better images, a sort of “cheat sheet” saving yourself months or years of ad-hoc learning. Processing parameters are discussed and shown.
- Jaw-dropping image quality found nowhere else utilizing Retina-grade images up to full camera resolution, plus large crops [past 2 years or so].
- Real world examples with insights found nowhere else. Make sharper images just by understanding lens behavior you won’t read about elsewhere.
- Aperture series from wide open through stopped down, showing the full range of lens performance and bokeh.
- Optical quality analysis of field curvature, focus shift, sharpness, flare, distortion, and performance in the field.
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