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Will Leica make a T-M adapter, so people who buy these new lenses have a camera to use them on if the line is discontinued?

 

I was asked about the T by a friend here in China, and I told him that I would be very hesitant to invest in thousands of dollars of new glass until this T line shows some staying power. The R and M8 have given me a less than warm and fuzzy feeling concerning Leica longterm product support. Too bad these lenses do not have external aperture rings...

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You said it. How would you set the aperture with the T lens on the M? Perhaps the adapter could have a ring? Sounds hinky to me. I suppose a "next generation" M could be built to accept an adapter that would work the lens. But, a good question.

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Will Leica make a T-M adapter, so people who buy these new lenses have a camera to use them on if the line is discontinued?

 

I was asked about the T by a friend here in China, and I told him that I would be very hesitant to invest in thousands of dollars of new glass until this T line shows some staying power. The R and M8 have given me a less than warm and fuzzy feeling concerning Leica longterm product support. Too bad these lenses do not have external aperture rings...

 

Afraid it's physically impossible. The M lenses to T body adapter adds further distance between sensor and lens mount as M bodies are thicker than Ts. In order to use T lenses on M bodies one should find the way to have the T lenses protruding inside the M body, with obvious mechanical interferences.

 

Cheers,

Bruno

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OK, so no T to M adapter. Flange distance is too close. Same answer as why you cannot use Leica M lenses on Canon or Nikon dSLRs.

 

This brings up two more points.

 

1. Are these T lenses (which are far from inexpensive) capable of being used on a "full frame" T body, ala Sony A7? Is the image circle sufficient large to cover a full frame sensor?

 

2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then as the flange distance is even less than with the M might we expect that the T will have even more issues with magenta edge and vignetting?

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Will Leica make a T-M adapter, so people who buy these new lenses have a camera to use them on if the line is discontinued?

 

Good grief, man! The camera isn't even on general sale yet and you're worrying about it being discontinued. Jeremiah had a more positive outlook.

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OK, so no T to M adapter. Flange distance is too close. Same answer as why you cannot use Leica M lenses on Canon or Nikon dSLRs.

 

This brings up two more points.

 

1. Are these T lenses (which are far from inexpensive) capable of being used on a "full frame" T body, ala Sony A7? Is the image circle sufficient large to cover a full frame sensor?

 

2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then as the flange distance is even less than with the M might we expect that the T will have even more issues with magenta edge and vignetting?

 

1. No. Best that one could theoretically obtain is mounting T lenses on a FF body whose flange distance be equivalent to the T's but with an automated image cropping to fit APS-C format.

 

 

Cheers,

Bruno

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Are these T lenses (which are far from inexpensive) capable of being used on a "full frame" T body, ala Sony A7? Is the image circle sufficient large to cover a full frame sensor?

I don’t think so. And I don’t believe you could successfully adapt a T lens to the E-mount anyway.

 

as the flange distance is even less than with the M might we expect that the T will have even more issues with magenta edge and vignetting?

The flange distance in itself does not create any issues with vignetting or magenta edges. Flange distance is a purely mechanical parameter that has no bearing on the optical properties of the lenses. The key parameter with regard to red edge issues would be the position of the exit pupil which could be in a safe distance from the sensor even when the flange distance was quite short. Now that would require large rear elements and thus a large throat size, and as it happens the throat size of the T mount provides ample room for large rear elements and is thus ideally suited to avoid any such issues. (With lenses designed to use this space that is; adapted lenses would not behave any different than with a smaller throat size.)

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The direction moving forward will be to mount a M lens to a T mount and not the other way around. Camera will increasingly be all electronic and Leica has started that journey with the T.

 

Will be nice to see focus peaking on the T, just like the M, though.

Edited by rramesh
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OK, so no T to M adapter. Flange distance is too close. Same answer as why you cannot use Leica M lenses on Canon or Nikon dSLRs.

 

 

 

This brings up two more points.

 

 

 

1. Are these T lenses (which are far from inexpensive) capable of being used on a "full frame" T body, ala Sony A7? Is the image circle sufficient large to cover a full frame sensor?

 

 

 

2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then as the flange distance is even less than with the M might we expect that the T will have even more issues with magenta edge and vignetting?

 

 

are you on drugs? You must be on a very weird trip to get to those strange questions? ;)

Steve

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OK, so no T to M adapter. Flange distance is too close. Same answer as why you cannot use Leica M lenses on Canon or Nikon dSLRs.

 

This brings up two more points.

 

1. Are these T lenses (which are far from inexpensive) capable of being used on a "full frame" T body, ala Sony A7? Is the image circle sufficient large to cover a full frame sensor?

 

2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then as the flange distance is even less than with the M might we expect that the T will have even more issues with magenta edge and vignetting?

HI There Stephen

1 - almost certainly not - because you can't make full frame zoom lenses this small

2 - therefore irrelevant.

 

One of the reasons that there is so much difficulty with M lenses on the Sony is that the E mount wasn't really designed for full frame - and I think this is going to be an ongoing difficulty. the throat of the E mount is 46.1mm the throat of the T mount is 50mm - ample for full frame in the unlikely event that Leica choose to go in that direction.

 

Of course, the interesting point here is that Leica COULD go down the same route as Sony (with both APS-c and FF cameras on the same mount) - the difference is that Leica already have a mount suitable for this . . . whereas Sony haven't really.

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Which might be a reason for Sony to introduce yet another mount at some point in the future, leaving their current mount orphaned as the OP fears for Leica T.

Leica however got it right in one go.

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The direction moving forward will be to mount a M lens to a T mount and not the other way around. Camera will increasingly be all electronic and Leica has started that journey with the T.

 

Will be nice to see focus peaking on the T, just like the M, though.

 

I think lack of IBIS is more of a concern to me that focus peaking. Also why Leica did not use the 6 bit coding when using M lenses on the T for correction as with the M cameras is beyond me. Also M lenses f stops show up as f0.0 and this could easily be read/estimated like on M cameras with M lenses.

Edited by algrove
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Which might be a reason for Sony to introduce yet another mount at some point in the future, leaving their current mount orphaned as the OP fears for Leica T.

Leica however got it right in one go.

 

Is that based on some kind of old wives tale?

 

Considering almost all 35mm lenses, APS E mount lenses, and countless medium and large format lenses, plus tilt shift adapters work on the A7, why exactly would they need another mount?

Edited by AlanG
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Is that based on some kind of old wives tale?

 

Considering almost all 35mm lenses, APS E mount lenses, and countless medium and large format lenses, plus tilt shift adapters work on the A7, why exactly would they need another mount?

Well, not all; many M mount wide lenses aren't so good. mind you, thats no reason for Sony to change mounts

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Well, not all; many M mount wide lenses aren't so good. mind you, thats no reason for Sony to change mounts

 

This has to do with the sensor not the mount. The mount does not vignette images from M lenses. How could it since the optics are well within the 46.1 mm area? If long telephotos and TSE lenses work on the Sony mount without a physical blocking of some of the light by the mount, there is little cause for concern.

 

A lens with a giant rear element that is immediately over the sensor - such as the lens on the RX-1 would be one of the types of designs that could not be employed on this camera. But I don't know of any interchangeable lens that has such a design. And of course one could not physically get some wide angle view camera lenses close enough to the sensor to work because they are too large to get through the lens opening on the body.

Edited by AlanG
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I think lack of IBIS is more of a concern to me that focus peaking. Also why Leica did not use the 6 bit coding when using M lenses on the T for correction as with the M cameras is beyond me. Also M lenses f stops show up as f0.0 and this could easily be read/estimated like on M cameras with M lenses.

 

I agree about IS. As for the 6 bit code and in camera corrections, seems to me there are two answers: (1) with 6 bit lenses it is feasible to do corrections and thus this could (I hope) be part of a firmware upgrade; (2) there will be LR/CS/ACR lens profiles that will make adjustments. The latter may be just fine and has the benefit of allowing your own tweaking. The F/stop issue is trickier, and I don't know what the exif will show. Perhaps someone who has tried M lenses on a T can tell us.

 

None of the above will deter me from trying out a T.

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