Sony Nex and Leica Elmarit-M 24/2.8 Asph.

3. Oktober 2010 WSpekner 1 Kommentar

Since so many of you asked, here’s a more comprehensive realworld test of the Leica Elmarit-M 24/2.8 Asph. on the Sony Nex.

The lens looks and handles great on the Nex. Of course you have to focus it manually. Being a wonderful street shooting focal length, it’s not very fast to focus. You definitely need the LCD magnifying function to focus it accurately and I never got really fast doing that (maybe it’s my eyes…). Maybe that’s why there are so many still samples among my test pics. At f2.8 you have quite a shallow depth of field (which of course is the goal), but I missed the eyes of people quite often and got there breast hairs sharp instead… Here’s a sample of that phenomenon (click to enlarge):

As usual I will leave you with a couple of 100% comparisons at different f-stops, to draw your own conclusions.

But before I get to that, I’d like to show a comparison with another lens, which is basically the contrary to the small Leica. It’s big, it’s a long zoom and it’s not a fast lens: The Sony E 18-200/3.5-5.6 OSS. I’ve been using this new lens for a a couple of days now and am quite impressed by its IQ. So I compared the two at 24mm, from f4 to f8, first the center performance (click to enlarge to 100%):

Now the corner performance, where it gets really interesting:

And here is the Leica 24/2.8 at different f-stops, again first the center performance (click to enlarge to 100%):

And now to the corner performance:

I also chose to do a direct comparison between f2.8 and f8 in the center and in the corner of the frame:

I like the lens, but I wouldn’t spend 3.000 Euros to get one for the Nex.
After having done a couple of tests, it really seems, that many of the excellent lenses on the market, performing on a Leica M9 perfectly for instance, are no perfect match for a Sony Nex. But if you have one of those lenses laying around, it’s defintely worth getting an adapter and use it on the Sony.

More important than test images are realworld images. So here are a couple of realworld samples with the Leica 24/2.8, all post-processed in Lightroom. If you see some vignetting, it’s added in post-processing (click to enlarge):

Sony Nex-3, Leica Elmarit-M 24/2.8 Asph., ISO 200, 1/320s, f2.8