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Leica R 28 Elmarit v.2


james.liam

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Well, I'll bite. Although I have little personal experience with the 28 R v.2, I have used the Nikkor 28 f/2.8 AIS, Zeiss G Biogon, Zeiss Contax R, and Canon FD 28 f/2.8s, as well as all the flavors of Leica M 28 f/2.8s.

 

I've never run across a really bad 28 f/2.8 (at least among those designed in the past 40 years) - presumably because the combination of moderate aperture and moderate-wide field of view make it a relatively easy lens to get right for either SLRs or RFs.

 

Leica's first attempts at retrofocus 28s (M v.2, R v.1) stumbled ever so slightly with some corner fuzziness, but that was 40 years ago. Erwin Puts rates the v.2 R lens as "2 stops better" than the v.1 - and better than the contemporaneous 1992 M 28 f/2.8 v.4 by f/5.6 - which is saying a lot.

 

Given that by 1994 Leica had such lenses as the 19 f/2.8 v.2 (a much wider and thus trickier lens to design) - I can't imagine them going ahead with a redesign of an "easy" 28 that was anything less than stellar. Especially since "stellar" seems to be a low bar for that focal length and aperture.

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There have been four models of Elmarit-R 28/2.8 AFAIK: 11204 (1970-1985), 11247 (1985-1994), 11259 (1994-1997) and 11333 (1997-2009).

Yours is the 11259 or 11333 i guess.

I've been using the 11204 and 11259 with film and a Canon 5D1, together with a Zuiko 28/2 recently.

My favorite is the Zuiko for its speed, tiny size and lesser vignette but the 11259 is not far and i find its built-in hood quite handy.

The 11204 is smaller, has the charm of its vintage but vignettes too much on the 5D1.

The Nikkor 28/2.8 D is better than its reputation i feel but it lacks character compared to the others.

None of those lenses can be compared favourably to both the Summicron-M 28/2 and Elmarit-M 28/2.8 asph as far as sharpness though IMHO.

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I have used the latest version, with ROM and built-in hood for several years now, on film, DMR and now Nikon D700.

 

I am extremely pleased with it.

 

There are lots of examples on my website, and the Hadrian's Wall one via this link LANDSCAPE AND TRAVEL is currently hanging on my landing wall.

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