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Leica R Glass with Nikon/Canon DSLR


roguewave

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There have been some interesting images posted using R lenses with both Nikon & Canon digital bodies. Andy's recent posts and some of the images from Gunnar and his Canon/Leica R glass images make me curious about this avenue. With the prospect of NO LEICA SOLUTION (Bad boys you have been!), I suspect those of us with DMR's and a love of R glass need to start collecting data points about this. Jamie Roberts has lots of experience, so hopefully we can get him to navigate us through the thicket. I'm not sure what is the best way to collect, share & disseminate the knowledge base, but I would welcome help for myself & others for whom this is salient. Thanks, Ben

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I'm very impressed with this combination. The best of both worlds, I think.

 

Two from this morning. Jpgs literally straight from the camera. AWB really works well. 640ISO. 28 Elmarit.

 

 

 

 

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Greenest office in England, this one, btw :)

 

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Very nice Andy! I'm happy we're going to get to see your R glass on the D700 (and I thought you might like the files :) If you switch them to 14bpp RAWs you'll like them even more!)

 

I'm looking forward to seeing many more from you! Please link them somewhere so we can see them.

 

How did you find the conversion? Easy enough or difficult?

 

I haven't done this yet for the D3... but I'm thinking about it. Since I still use the DMR, it's a bit more problematic :)

 

There are some great web sites about adapting R glass to EOS or Nikon mounts. The Leitax site is the Nikon solution Andy used:

 

http://www.leitax.com

 

But on an EOS (Canon) mount you can use an adapter to put R glass on a Canon body... Here's the site I always used:

 

http://www.pebbleplace.com/Personal/Leica_db.html

 

... and they have a forum too:

 

http://www.pebbleplacephotography.com/forum/yaf_topics6_LeicaR-and-Canon-EOS-Compatibility.aspx

 

And there are other sites. In general, you can use many of the primes on the EOS adapter / Nikon mount and a few of the zooms on various Canon bodies.

 

Some of my favourite R lenses won't work or won't work without major camera or lens mods, like the 19mm Elmarit or the 35 Lux. :(

Edited by Jamie Roberts
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I still love my DMR. It would be good if I can use it with my R glasses. It's been in NJ for over a month due to focus problems and loose-fitting DMR after the DMR's circuit board was replaced . In contrast, I brought my Canon 5DM2 for manual focusing problems. They adjusted the lens mount and focusing screen bracket and I had it 2 days later. Canon (and Nikon for that matter) does open up some new possibilities.

 

This is something I wouldn't even think about with the DMR.

 

Canon 5DM2 with Elmarit 28 II at ISO 6400, wide open, 1/8 s (tripod not allowed at the cave). There is obvious noise reduction going on inside the camera, but I think the image is very usable.

586984215_Ejuf9-XL.jpg

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There have been some interesting images posted using R lenses with both Nikon & Canon digital bodies. Andy's recent posts and some of the images from Gunnar and his Canon/Leica R glass images make me curious about this avenue. With the prospect of NO LEICA SOLUTION (Bad boys you have been!), I suspect those of us with DMR's and a love of R glass need to start collecting data points about this. Jamie Roberts has lots of experience, so hopefully we can get him to navigate us through the thicket. I'm not sure what is the best way to collect, share & disseminate the knowledge base, but I would welcome help for myself & others for whom this is salient. Thanks, Ben

 

Ben The Leitax.com mounts for the Nikon ,Pentax or Sony are a good solution. The Leitax website shows how the conversion process is done on most of the R lenses. A few of the lenses are difficult because of the light baffles (these can sometimes be removed). I have done three or four lenses and used them extensively in Florida this winter. The only disadvantage is that you have to designate the lens as a non cpu lens and make a menu selection (some have set up a function key) and of course ..its not automatic so shooting at anything over 5.6 can get pretty dark.

 

The sharpness shows up right away in the images(compared to say the L glass or the Nikon Pro Lenses). The Leica glow is there on say the 80/1.4. You don t get the color saturation or mid tone contrast of the DMR . But you do get ISO up to 6400 and quite usable ISO 800..its 2 stops better than the DMR and stays in the game thru 6400.

 

Roger

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{snipped}

The sharpness shows up right away in the images(compared to say the L glass or the Nikon Pro Lenses). The Leica glow is there on say the 80/1.4. You don t get the color saturation or mid tone contrast of the DMR . But you do get ISO up to 6400 and quite usable ISO 800..its 2 stops better than the DMR and stays in the game thru 6400.

 

And in the 5d2 and new Nikons (D700/ D3 / D3x) you also have the ability to get a high-bit raw file, which is more DMR-like than they used to be. Every now and then I'm astonished at how good the D3 really is for colour, but my vote still goes to the DMR at lower ISOs.

 

But they're catching up, and shooting at ISO 3200 is a treat sometimes.

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I have posted elsewhere here about the conversion process, but the 28 was dead easy and the 60 was a bit more complicated (but doable - I did it :) )

 

Focus confirmation works at f5.6 or below only and works extremely well on the various focus points. The viewfinder on the D700 is a good one (but not as good as the R8), so stopping down isn't so much of a problem

 

Saturation and contrast can be tweaked, of course ;)

 

I usually shoot RAW, but these were just a q&d set for record purposes and nothing special, so I shot on jpg only. An 8 gig card takes nearly 3,000 shots, if you inadvertently set the image size to small... LOL :)

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As far as I understand it, some of the R glasses cannot be used on Canon 5DII, e.g. R19 (type II). However, a little "modification" could be done on the glass so that it can be used on it. I am not sure if D700 could use R glasses, I heard that there will be "infinite focusing problem" for the thickness of the camera.

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Most R lenses can be adapted to fit on the D700. Look at my examples above. Even the 19 Elmarit works fine.

 

No problem with infinity focus, as the mounts are a different thickness from the Leica ones

 

Thank you for your information. I am looking for a FF body recently and I do like D700, compared with Canon 5D II. If all my R glasses can do with D700, I will definitely go for it! Thanks again!!!!

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Just testing dynamic range at 800 iso with my good old Elmarit-R 135/2.8 at f/4 (Canon 5D, C1, FF & 100% crop). Bit of blown highlights but not that much, no smearing effect, no disturbing noise, difficult to ask for much better results IMHO.

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