leica lenses vs nikon/canon

[mradey]

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the 85mm f1.4G is worth buying just to stare at the front element!

Colonel - I agree. That front element is A Thing of Beauty.

However, I have transitioned to something stronger... The 200 2.0. The room darkens when it take the cover off. I lose myself for days staring into that inky darkness. Do t go there!

[cyberjunkie]

Before I use a new lens on a paying job, I conduct tests to make sure it is performing to my satisfaction. Thus far, the Leica, Zeiss, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, and Fuji lenses have all performed admirably.

 

 

 

I don't have to deal with any paid job since long, long time.

Now I consider myself fortunate to photograph just as an hobby.

I use (and collect) vintage manual focus lenses, mainly used on a Pentax K-1 full frame.

Two points:

1) why only Canikon cameras? I use with full satisfaction a couple of Leitax'ed Leitz lenses on my camera!

2) yes, I do comparisons. Nothing scientific, and most of the times not regarding sharpness. I pursue nice overall rendering and mellow bokeh more than absolute sharpness.

I shoot the same subject with two or three lenses, under very similar lighting. I either do flowers with the subject off-center, or night shots with strong out of focus highlights.

Sometimes the difference is quite big, for example some vintage lenses show strong bokeh fringing (LoCA), that I find rather annoying (but can also be used creatively).

 

I never owned an R lens,...until today! I just bought an old Macro Elmar 100mm made in 1980.

Before I either used the Leitz Canada Summicron M 2/90mm or Elmarit 2.8/135mm. Both have a removable head, that can be removed from the original barrel, fit on the (same) Viso helicoid, that is mounted on my Pentax via a Viso>R 14167 original adapter with a chinese knock-off of the Leitax flange. Leitax sells a special version of their flange for the 14167 R adapter, so I had my generic chinese flange machined to fit.

This procedure turns the Viso to R adapter to a Pentax K mount, and I can even use my old Leitz 4/200mm for the old Visoflex via an OUBIO ring.

I had the 90mm and the 200mm from old Leica times. I'm glad I kept them. The Summicron is not so cheap these days!

I still have a Minolta 40mm on a CL and an M5 body, but I moved to Thailand, I have no darkroom, so I should let them go.

I don't shoot analog anymore. I'm sad they see no use.

I always wanted to adapt a couple of relatively old R lenses, though for a reason or the other I always missed the chance.

Today I bought the first one by mistake! 

It is absolutely true... I bid by mistake on the wrong lens. I wanted the 60mm Macro, I used a sniping tool and I entered the numbers in the wrong place.

I had a the Macro Elmar 4/100mm in the same list and I goofed 

I decided to keep it, even after I found controversial opinions about it.

I wanted the 60mm because of its rendering wide open. I have other sharp macros in the same range.

The 100mm non-Apo seem to be a more "traditional" lens, not two lenses in one as the 60mm.

I have decided to keep it cause it's the first R lens I can use (though the Summicron is practically identical to the R version as far as I know), and because I paid a beautiful example 199 euros shipment included. Not a bad price I guess...

The 60mm would have been more expensive.

 

Anybody else on this forum using adapted Leica lenses?

How is the old 100mm Macro (both around minimum focusing distance and at macro reproduction rates, on tubes)?

Some people think that it doesn't provide the "Leica magic" I found using the 90mm.

I found that some low-elements lenses deliver much more than what their design should allow (at least on paper).

Any consideration/advice? Any other relatively cheap R lens I should consider?

Thanks in advance.

 

Paolo

Edited September 24, 2018 by cyberjunkie

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[ramarren]

By the second year I was making photographs (when I was a mere stripling in 1969), I could tell there was a difference between my Nikon and Leica lenses, although the difference was too often too subtle to matter for my uneducated eye to understand. It took another 25 years for me to understand the differences clearly and then to accept that I really liked the Leica lens renderings so much more that it was sensible for me to dig deep and move away from Nikon and other makes entirely. And then digital happened, I went off to other cameras for reasons of availability, cost, etc, and it took another decade to get back to Leica gear exclusively: Something was missing, and I learned it was the lenses and rendering that only the Leica gear has.

 

My gear is all Leica again now, with some exceptions that I like for their differences, and I can see the difference every time I use something other than a Leica lens. I know each of my lenses as if it were an old friend or a well-worn, comfortable pair of leather shoes, and each of them is an individual.

 

It is often the case that some other gear leads Leica in test numbers, in price, etc. That's all irrelevant: On price, I already have all the lenses I'm likely to want. On performance, I am satisfied with what I have, and no one has ever criticized my photographs based on technical qualities anyway.

 

Make of that whatever you want...