Apo Telyt 135 on M8

[chris_tribble]

Got my M8 and have been learning - how nice to be able to work with a rangefinder. Latest discovery is that the Apo Telyt 135 is remarkable useful with the M8. I attach an example + crops. NOT fine art, but revealing (if nothing else of my wife's clean desk environment...)

VERY interested to hear of others' experience with using the 135 and other long lenses.

Present example:
ISO 1250
Aperture F4
Shutter 125

I'm astounded both by the resultion, EASE of focus and the lack of noise in the image. Crops are unsharpened and processed in Lightroom Beta using ACR 3.6.

Chris

[albertknappmd]

very clear and great to know that the camera can accept the lens. I suspect you just approximate the picture as you have no guidelines?

[marknorton]

I think Andy Piper said twice the width and height of the rangefinder patch...

[4season]

I've been fussing around with a 135/4.5 Hektor lens on my M8 and find it's really tough to focus precisely, and I think a 1.25x viewfinder magnifier will help enormously. And I can see every little bit of camera shake! Of course there is a tendancy to be hyper-critical of one's M8 photos because it's so easy to view them at 100%, which is far larger than anything I ever printed in the darkroom.

[lars_bergquist]

Originally Posted by marknorton

I think Andy Piper said twice the width and height of the rangefinder patch...

The sensible thing for Leica to do would be to bring out the lens with goggles, so it could use the 90 mm frame. Myself, I'm impatient to try out my goggled Tele-Elmarit on the M8 -- when it arrives. I have been queuing up for half a year now ...

The old man from the Age of 135 mm Photography

[chris_tribble]

Originally Posted by 4season

I've been fussing around with a 135/4.5 Hektor lens on my M8 and find it's really tough to focus precisely, and I think a 1.25x viewfinder magnifier will help enormously. And I can see every little bit of camera shake! Of course there is a tendancy to be hyper-critical of one's M8 photos because it's so easy to view them at 100%, which is far larger than anything I ever printed in the darkroom.

Thanks for comments...

re framing, the rule of thumb "twice the focusing screen" makes sense

re the 1.25x viewfinder, I've got this, but don't use all the time - though yes, it does help.

re camera shake, yes it's there on the shots I put up - but this was hand-held in very poor light at 125th of a second

As it is, it feels rather nice to have a useable fast, very sharp 180mm lens in the bag without the weight penalty of my Canon kit...

I'm now considering travelling with my old 75mm 1.4 + the 135 and not bothering to take my very heavy 90 Summicron (pre-Asph ). Any one with experience? of a combo like this?

Best

Chris

[chris_tribble]

As a follow-up - the same scene (just a few more animals...) shot with tripod and using the maginfier. This time ISO 640 / shutter speed 60th. This I can live with (but I'd still like the frame!)

[lensblur]

Apologies. I know, this thread is half a year old!

Apart from focus difficulty, does this lens has front/back focus problem? Does coding the lens help?

[rjrose]

The APO Telyt is a wonderful lens on the M8. So far as I know there is no coding for this lens. There have been no back focus problems either (although I did adjust the focus on the M8 with the hex wrench method). I do use the 1.25x magnifier, and the best you can do for framing is an approximation of twice the focus rectangle.

It is simply the finest lens I own for Leica. Here are some samples:
http://web.mac.com/robert.rose/iWeb/Site/Yosemite.html
The APO Telyt was used for the L1000636 and L1000867 to L1001010 pictures. The other L pictures are Tri-Elmar, and the DSC pictures are from a D2x.

Regards,
Bob Rose