R lenses on the D3/L1

[spylaw4]

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As it has been a sunny day here in London, I decided to go out and have a try with the 90/2.8 Elmarit on my L1.

 

Impressions -

* Advancing years have not done anything for the steadiness of my hand - and no OIS (or is it the drink that does it?)

* Ditto for the ability to manual focus - live view I don't get on with for focussing (on a tripod it might be ok) - I reckon if one is going to do a lot of manual focus - get one of those split prism screen thingies, and possibly an eyepiece magnifier.

* Only a very limited (compressed) tonal range was recorded. More work in Lightroom was needed to get an acceptable image. One image looked as though it was being taken through a haze (not posted).

* Obviously one is relying on the camera to set the right shutter speed. I am not convinced that it gets it right every time.

 

However, here for the D3/L1 brigade et.al. to dissect are some results - comments and suggestions are welcome

 

 

[ATTACH]33790[/ATTACH]

 

 

[ATTACH]33791[/ATTACH]

 

 

[ATTACH]33792[/ATTACH]

 

 

[ATTACH]33793[/ATTACH]

 

This is where focus becomes noticeable.

 

[ATTACH]33794[/ATTACH]

[dugby]

Brian, thankyou for going to the effort to get an Leica R lens, and Adaptor onto your L1.

 

You've post many fine images before and now you've done well with the new ones.

 

Were the images taken with Firmware V1.1 or V2.0 ?

 

I'm curious about -

 

a) are they in-camera jpegs or those created from RAW (any post processing ?)

f-stop and shutter speeds, and ISO ?

 

I know the R 90/2.8 Elmarit is not comparable to the 14-50mm vario kit lens (particularly focal length), but is there any way you could shoot identical scenes and crop them just so that we can get a technical comparison.....

 

Regards

[spylaw4]

Dugby - thanks for your compliments (blushes).

In answer to your points:

My L1 is updated to V2 firmware.

a) all from RAW with a much needed degree of Lightroom post processing : mainly stretching of the tonal range/exposure adjustment. In the case of the orange building some noise reduction was required. The lone branch however needed virtually no post work.

As I recall all sot around f5.6 - 8 (I felt I needed the depth of field to allow for focusing errors), ISO 200 (my standard on the L1), various shuttter speeds from 1/800 to 1/4000 were recorded.

 

I'll have a bash at the identical scene work - hopefully sometime soon.

 

Best

Brian

[ron110n]

Very nice Brian,

 

I will shurely get one while my D2 is out on sick bay.

Thank you for the effort!

 

Best,

-Ron

[howard_cummer]

I have had some success in using my Leica R lenses on the Olympus 330E - here are a couple of samples, the 90mm Summicron and the 180 APO f3.4, at sunset on the local beach. I find that focusing these lenses is easier on the 4/3rd system (live view magnified) than on the Canon system (5D) which I used before.

Cheers

Howard Cummer

[spylaw4]

Welcome to the forum, Howard! Let's see some more photos from you in the Photo Forum, and here if you've a point to make.

 

BTW - I like the light in #2 reflected on the water.

[designdog]

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Don't have Leica "R"s but do have some pretty good manual focus lenses - Contax 28, 50, 85, and 135 which I am using on the L1. Like you I am "struggling" with manual focus.

 

Two thoughts:

- the distance scale, an unheard of detail on "modern" lenses can be very helpful

- the green focus light actually comes on, or at least flutters, when coming into focus. It is a good indicator.

 

-ddog