A few months ago, when the Simera 75mm was released, someone posted a question in the Fred Miranda review for the lens. “Does it have much glow?”

I didn’t have a multitude of 75mm glass to compare the Simera with, but all of the Simeras render similarly. I did have three 28mm lenses of different provenance, one of which was the 28mm Simera, so I thought that I’d take some test shots with those to see how they’d compare.

Some Unexpected Results

The vintage-derived 9-element showed the most subtle glow of them all. It also shows the most microcontrast of them all.

I may have done the Simera a disfavor in this scene. Even though the lens shows some glow, the shot is terrible. The warm tint of the lens didn’t really work here, and the angle didn’t play to its relaxed rendering or its f/1.4 aperture. Too much of the signage is out of focus.

It occurred to me afterward that I should’ve stopped down to f/2 to see how the glow compares then. That’s probably what I would’ve done if I were shooting normally, because there isn’t anything about this scene that calls for f/1.4. That having been said, there’s no way this shot will be re-done.

The Summicron 28/2 (11618) surprised me as much as the other two. I’d expected it to misbehave with the bright lighting. But that simply didn’t happen.

A Note on Reviews

Subjectively speaking, the LLL9e and the 11618 did well for themselves in this scene. After having railed on lens reviews before, I’ll say that I can empathize with reviewers on this one matter: How do you come up with a test that is “objective,” when photography just isn’t really done that way? I set out with a pre-determined criteria to measure something, and ended up with test shots that biased against one of the lenses.

After thinking on that a bit, I decided that I’d try harder to shoot each lens in the way that I normally would, in the way that would best suit it. What does it really mean to be “objective,” in any case? Maybe one could say that a more realistic test would measure glow at the settings that we’d typically, actually, use. But even this would prove difficult.

Also, What is “Glow?”

Quite literally, “glow” is literally the light that diffuses around brightly-lit objects (or sources of light) — particularly when a lens is shot wide-open.

“Glow” is a product of a lens’ spherical aberration. As such, you don’t see much of it in most modern “over-corrected” lenses.

There are many photographers who feel that we lost something in our drive for optical perfection. In vintage lenses, glow sometimes shows itself across the frame, reducing the overall contrast — and not merely around the sources of light themselves.

Some older lenses known for their glow include the 50mm Noctilux f/1.2, the 75mm Mandler-designed Summilux, and the 35mm Summicron v1.

The LLL 9e shows a little bit of flare in this scene. This lens can be difficult to shoot with in the daytime, but I did not expect a lamp to mess with it. The photographer in me is somewhat taken aback, but artistically, it’s hardly so bad.

The Simera does far better in this lamp test, and we can now see its glow more clearly now. Maybe it isn’t “fair” to compare an f/1.4 lens with an f/2.8 lens, but the Simera’s glow is particularly apparent in the dark parts of the lamp base. I think we can appreciate how cleanly it renders as well. Put together, it’s a tad unexpected: A “modern” rendering with no small measure of localized glow.

The 11618 Summicron was the wildcard, and there is a *literal* halo around the lamp at f/2. You might’ve also noticed a semicircle around the out-of-focus light source in the background. This kind of artifact can make for great fun if you desire it in your shot — and also ruin others if it was unintended.

Stopping the 11618 down to f/2.3 cleans up the halo, and reduces the semicircle to a quarter-circle, but now we have something else thing going on. I don’t know if it’s flaring, or if it’s internal reflections, or if this is still some kind of glow, or some combination thereof. I personally find it delightful, and I’d never seen the lens misbehave in this way before. The svelte rendering that we saw before in the signage shot also makes a return.

Stopping down another half stop to f/2.8 cleans up the semicircle, and mutes the glow. It’s much cleaner and professional-looking now, but I think I preferred the party that was happening at f/2.3.

The LLL 9e finally starts to show some noticeable inkling of glow. It’s dispersed much more widely than the Thypoch Simera’s, and is one of those things you’d only notice if it was taken away. If you look closely, there’s a drop in microcontrast in the statue’s face. This sort of thing looks lovely in portrait shots when you can control the lighting.

The Simera’s glow is a little overpowering at f/1.4. I suppose this shot would’ve actually been better if I found a different angle for the composition. Indeed, the glow is so strong it appears as if the statue is shrouded in a veil of light. In this case, it’s not a holy miracle, — only a lens designer having fun with spherical aberration.

Stopping down to f/2 makes the effect subtle. The Simera has 2 click stops between f/1.4 and f/2. Some reviewers disliked this feature, but I think Thypoch used 1/3rd stops for a reason. The lens also has a de-click switch so it’s even easier to dial in the effect you want. At f/2, the similarity to the Elmarit and the CV Ultron becomes apparent. The rendering is somewhat less relaxed, and instead, there’s more contrasty “pop.” The warm color of the Simera is much more suited to this scene.

The sun has started to go down by the time I got to the Summicron. It does not have as much of a chance to glow as the LLL 9e or the Simera, and what a difference that lighting makes.

The 9e was the last lens I used this time, and the sun had unfortunately gone down. All the same, its rendering is comely and approachable. Doesn’t the robin look comfortable too? It’s funny how I haven’t had the impulse to re-take a single shot with the 9e until now.

The angle doesn’t suit the f/1.4 of the Simera again, but this time, it’s because a better angle would’ve required stepping on the homeowner’s lawn. That the flag is out-of-focus is my fault, and yet, the ample lighting still flatters the Simera’s glow. When you compare this shot with the 9e (which didn’t have as much light to work with), or the first of the two Summicron shots, you can see what a little light and “glow” can do for a photo.

The second shot with the Summicron is the better one, but the first shot gives us a somewhat better comparison with the Simera’s character. Both are out-of-focus. This was a very rushed set, but I’ve kept it to make a point.

The artifacts of the Summicron are noticeably present around the beams and the flagstaff. The microcontrast in the brightly-lit areas isn’t “great” (not merely because it’s slightly out-of-focus), and I’ll need to lean on some older photos to explain.

If you click through to the photo of the trail marker, you can see that the blue marker’s text appears as if someone applied a mist filter to it, whereas the bark just below has noticeably more microcontrast. All lenses that “glow” will do this to some extent, but the effect is particularly obvious with the 11618 Summicron. It has the most resolution of the three lenses in this set, but a little glow will cause microcontrast to fall off readily.

It’s clear that the Summicron won’t be winning any lens reviews with the highly-technical crowd. In a rigorous test, it would lose points for its lack of microcontrast at wide apertures. But supposing we’d let go of such things, look how sparkly those shots came out!

Imagine for a moment that this wasn’t a lens comparison. With a few more seconds (and only one lens), we could’ve stopped down to f/2.3, or even f/2.8, trading a little glow to clean up the artifacts. Or we could’ve composed the Simera shot better. Or the sun wouldn’t have set by the time the 9e had its turn.