can the 24-90 be the best standard zoom Leica has ever produced

[farnz]

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See your point, but not sure if that's practical or feasible today.

 

Just think the M lenses.  Every digital M applies some digital correction to fix corner performance, color fringing, vignetting etc.  If you ever mount M lenses on other manufacturers' bodies you'd know performance loss is significant without these corrections.  

 

So whether a lens is designed with or without digital corrections in mind is almost of secondary importance at this stage, because you cannot get by without significant digital corrections with any lens or any camera today.  Unless you shoot film.

You've chosen a particular example that is caused by the small rangefinder register not the lenses themselves.  M lenses still work very well without digital correction (obviously) on film cameras from a number of different brands so it's not quite the same thing as a lens that is designed to only work optimally with cameras that run specific software (and are unlikely to extend beyond the Leica brand).

 

I don't quite get why optimal lens performance can apparently now only be achieved with in-camera digital correction when up until recently optical correction of optical aberrations sufficed and current lens performance doesn't appear to outstrip the performance of those with only optical correction (I'm content to be corrected on that point with appropriate supporting information of course).

 

Pete.

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[Joshua Lowe]

The 24-90 would greatly be helped with the addition of a tripod collar, if for no other reason than to provide a better attachment point for the anchor of a single point strap like a Black Rapid.  

[ramarren]

While the matching of in-camera digital software correction with specific lenses is intended to improve the images that the camera and lens produce, and I can see the benefit in that, it also inexorably drives the lens to only be used with the camera (or cameras) that run that software.  When I bought my R lenses I knew that they would produce the same performance on a wide variety of cameras from a number of different brands so I object if the 24-90, for example, will give sub-par performance with other cameras because it's not optically as good as it might be because lens designers are content to allow software to 'fill in the blanks'.  Transportability is very important to me especially as I expected lenses to easily outlive digital cameras.

 

R lenses are relatively simple, manual focus, manually-operated devices. They have mechanical (and sometimes electronic) interfaces which enhance their operation when used on Leica R bodies (auto-diaphragm operation, metering system information for the body, and with the ROM interface there are exposure adjustments based on distance and focal length). Otherwise these additions are not relevant to the basic operation of the lenses which means they they can be used on a number of bodies as long as you can adapt them to the lens mount and are willing to use them 100% manually. M lenses are the same thing (even simpler because they do not have the need for the mechanical aperture control interfaces that R lenses do). 

 

SL lenses and T lenses, unlike R and M lenses, are much more complex devices. They rely upon servomotors to adjust focus, solenoids to adjust the aperture, and control signals back and forth from the camera body to operate the lens' features. They inform the body about dynamic characteristics in use electronically. You cannot use these lenses at all in the absence of the electrical interfaces and control protocols to operate them. So you're never going to use an SL 24-90mm lens on another camera without someone engineering all those protocols and electrical interfaces in order to put them to use in the first place. In that case, implementing the lens correction data injection into the camera for use in in-camera processing and output into raw files is a trivial operation. 

 

It would not matter if the recording medium were film or digital. Lenses in this class of current technology require the right support infrastructure in order to be used successfully. The fact that there are no film camera lenses like this is a result of the historical fact that no one is designing new cameras for film-based cameras anymore: there's no money to be made in that market. 

 

This is just as true for other lens systems with modern features (that is: FourThirds, Micro-FourThirds, Fuji X system, and Sony E system lenses). It's even true about Canon lenses with respect to aperture operation. Only lenses with mechanically-operated primary systems (focus and aperture) are easily adaptable to simple use on non-native mounts. 

 

...

I don't quite get why optimal lens performance can apparently now only be achieved with in-camera digital correction when up until recently optical correction of optical aberrations sufficed and current lens performance doesn't appear to outstrip the performance of those with only optical correction (I'm content to be corrected on that point with appropriate supporting information of course).

 

The M lens situation you're talking about is a red herring; it's not important. The M lens correction situation exists because the mount register and design center of M cameras—created thirty years before any digital camera existed—has inspired lens designs that are fundamentally sub-optimal for a digital sensor although they took advantage of that design center beautifully. SLR lenses are built on a design center that is fundamentally much more compatible with the needs of a digital sensor. It wasn't by intent, it was by accident: the need to make room for a swinging mirror behind the lens had a fortunate side effect in causing the light paths to the recording surface to be more orthogonal, which is why DSLRs are so much more successful with existing lens systems designed for generations of film SLRs. TTL-electronic cameras (aka "mirrorless cameras") take advantage of that fact too, allowing excellent performance with adapted lenses from SLRs.  

 

Beyond that and to your statement, it's not that top-flight lens designs cannot do the job without lens correction software today. They continue to be able to do as well as they ever have on film cameras. But two things have happened:

• Digital sensors are more demanding on lenses' imaging characteristic than film is and show the flaws more readily.
• The ability of users to examine the quality of a lens' rendering is far greater than it has ever been for film.

These two things have pushed the expectations of users way up the scale. 

 

Using optical designs combined with software processing can meet those expectations better than optical designs alone. That's why manufacturers and lens designers have embraced this technology. 

[cpclee]

Great explanation.  I want to add that circa 2003 or so, Leica said designing a digital M was not going to be possible due to the mount register -- I remember this well because it got me to sell my entire M system. Then in 2006 they launched the M8 on a cropped sensor.  This time they said new technologies (offset microlenses, digital image correction, etc) have now enabled a digital M, but on cropped sensors only, indefinitely.  Leica proceeded to revamping their M lens line especially the wides because of the 1.33X crop factor.  (28/2.8 ASPH, WATE, the f1.4 wides, etc.). Then they managed to overcome the cropped sensor limitation too and launched the M9 three years later.  But point is digital for M has been fraught with engineering challenges from the very beginning and was always a very suboptimal way to do digital. It's like the Porsche 911's rear engine.  A problematic concept but only overcome and made practical by exceptional engineering. 

 

 

R lenses are relatively simple, manual focus, manually-operated devices. They have mechanical (and sometimes electronic) interfaces which enhance their operation when used on Leica R bodies (auto-diaphragm operation, metering system information for the body, and with the ROM interface there are exposure adjustments based on distance and focal length). Otherwise these additions are not relevant to the basic operation of the lenses which means they they can be used on a number of bodies as long as you can adapt them to the lens mount and are willing to use them 100% manually. M lenses are the same thing (even simpler because they do not have the need for the mechanical aperture control interfaces that R lenses do). 

 

SL lenses and T lenses, unlike R and M lenses, are much more complex devices. They rely upon servomotors to adjust focus, solenoids to adjust the aperture, and control signals back and forth from the camera body to operate the lens' features. They inform the body about dynamic characteristics in use electronically. You cannot use these lenses at all in the absence of the electrical interfaces and control protocols to operate them. So you're never going to use an SL 24-90mm lens on another camera without someone engineering all those protocols and electrical interfaces in order to put them to use in the first place. In that case, implementing the lens correction data injection into the camera for use in in-camera processing and output into raw files is a trivial operation. 

 

It would not matter if the recording medium were film or digital. Lenses in this class of current technology require the right support infrastructure in order to be used successfully. The fact that there are no film camera lenses like this is a result of the historical fact that no one is designing new cameras for film-based cameras anymore: there's no money to be made in that market. 

 

This is just as true for other lens systems with modern features (that is: FourThirds, Micro-FourThirds, Fuji X system, and Sony E system lenses). It's even true about Canon lenses with respect to aperture operation. Only lenses with mechanically-operated primary systems (focus and aperture) are easily adaptable to simple use on non-native mounts. 

 

 

The M lens situation you're talking about is a red herring; it's not important. The M lens correction situation exists because the mount register and design center of M cameras—created thirty years before any digital camera existed—has inspired lens designs that are fundamentally sub-optimal for a digital sensor although they took advantage of that design center beautifully. SLR lenses are built on a design center that is fundamentally much more compatible with the needs of a digital sensor. It wasn't by intent, it was by accident: the need to make room for a swinging mirror behind the lens had a fortunate side effect in causing the light paths to the recording surface to be more orthogonal, which is why DSLRs are so much more successful with existing lens systems designed for generations of film SLRs. TTL-electronic cameras (aka "mirrorless cameras") take advantage of that fact too, allowing excellent performance with adapted lenses from SLRs.  

 

Beyond that and to your statement, it's not that top-flight lens designs cannot do the job without lens correction software today. They continue to be able to do as well as they ever have on film cameras. But two things have happened:

• Digital sensors are more demanding on lenses' imaging characteristic than film is and show the flaws more readily.
• The ability of users to examine the quality of a lens' rendering is far greater than it has ever been for film.

These two things have pushed the expectations of users way up the scale. 

 

Using optical designs combined with software processing can meet those expectations better than optical designs alone. That's why manufacturers and lens designers have embraced this technology. 

[jaapv]

You've chosen a particular example that is caused by the small rangefinder register not the lenses themselves.  M lenses still work very well without digital correction (obviously) on film cameras from a number of different brands so it's not quite the same thing as a lens that is designed to only work optimally with cameras that run specific software (and are unlikely to extend beyond the Leica brand).

 

I don't quite get why optimal lens performance can apparently now only be achieved with in-camera digital correction when up until recently optical correction of optical aberrations sufficed and current lens performance doesn't appear to outstrip the performance of those with only optical correction (I'm content to be corrected on that point with appropriate supporting information of course).

 

Pete.

Now that is an unsupported assertion and probably not substantiable.

[Peter H]

I imagine that if Leica, for example, were to set themselves the target of building a 24-90mm f2.8-4 zoom lens for the SL that required no digital correction at all, they probably could do. It would take a lot of scarce resources (time and expertise and, who knows, materials too) and would cost multiples of the price of the exemplary current version. Perhaps it would need to be bigger too, who knows.

 

And to what avail?

 

What advantage to a photographer would it yield?

[farnz]

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Now that is an unsupported assertion and probably not substantiable.

 

Oh, accepted, Jaap, and I was merely going on comments from threads on the forum.  I haven't noticed any comments that stated that the 24-90 "blew (whatever) lens away" or similar remarks hence I used the term "appear".

 

Pete.

[farnz]

I imagine that if Leica, for example, were to set themselves the target of building a 24-90mm f2.8-4 zoom lens for the SL that required no digital correction at all, they probably could do. It would take a lot of scarce resources (time and expertise and, who knows, materials too) and would cost multiples of the price of the exemplary current version. Perhaps it would need to be bigger too, who knows.

 

And to what avail?

 

What advantage to a photographer would it yield?

Transportability as mentioned above.  All the downsides you mention are supposition, possibly well-founded, but supposition all the same.  Equally, because we have no way of knowing, Leica might be able to use design resource from its M lens design department, use materials that are common to other products.

 

Pete.

[adamdewilde]

It was said to be "no compromise" but then it's not a constant 2.8 and on top of it, the 24mm end sees ridiculous digital corrections. It doesn't even cover the full image circle at the wide end! Almost as bad as the Q in that sense!

 

I'm not a fan of the zoom at all.. Feel it was a waste of money. I should have just waited until the 50 Summilux-L comes out before I bought into the system. Also from what I paid for the camera/lens at launch and what I can get it for now.. It's a $2,000 difference. Meaning I'd lose at least $3,000 on the sale of it and it's only been in my hands 3+ months. 

 

The lens itself is better then Canon and Nikon offerings (when you take speed out of the equation). But by no means up to Leica standards for unique rendering. And the SL sensor doesn't help with it's Sony A7-esq color profile. 

[Peter H]

Transportability as mentioned above.  All the downsides you mention are supposition, possibly well-founded, but supposition all the same.  Equally, because we have no way of knowing, Leica might be able to use design resource from its M lens design department, use materials that are common to other products.

 

Pete.

 

 

 

 

What do you mean by transportability? Using the lens on non-SL bodies?

 

I really don't want to see Leica designing lenses for reasons like that. I want the best lenses for the bodies they're designed for, and let everything fall as it may. Unless non-digital correction results in better SL photos than digital correction, I see no point in it. It's like treating lens design as a sporting competition, which would be a nonsense.

 

As I said, I see no benefit in ignoring the advantages that digital bodies confer to lens designers. I have no wish to compare lenses on their technical virtues unless those differences show themselves in the photos that come from the bodies that the lenses are designed to work with. 

[farnz]

Peter,

 

We'll have to agree to disagree.  For me, cameras come and go but lenses endure so I'd like to be able to use my lenses with other cameras.  I have a Digilux 2 and the tragedy for me is that its stellar 28-90/2-2.4 Vario-Summicron asph lens is captive to the Digilux 2's (now) outdated 5 Megapixel body and I'm not able to use it with either a film or modern digital camera.   I see a potential parallel with the SL and 24-90 particularly if Leica decided to drop the T-mount line.

 

Pete.

[Peter H]

Peter,

 

We'll have to agree to disagree.  For me, cameras come and go but lenses endure so I'd like to be able to use my lenses with other cameras.  I have a Digilux 2 and the tragedy for me is that its stellar 28-90/2-2.4 Vario-Summicron asph lens is captive to the Digilux 2's (now) outdated 5 Megapixel body and I'm not able to use it with either a film or modern digital camera.   I see a potential parallel with the SL and 24-90 particularly if Leica decided to drop the T-mount line.

 

Pete.

 

 

 

OK Pete, we'll disagree on this one. 

[ramarren]

Oh, accepted, Jaap, and I was merely going on comments from threads on the forum.  I haven't noticed any comments that stated that the 24-90 "blew (whatever) lens away" or similar remarks hence I used the term "appear".

 

 

Not sure what you're expecting when you're comparing the SL24-90 against premium Leica lenses. Improvements are going to be subtle, not "blow XXX away" because Leica doesn't make any lenses that are that bad. 

 

The he good thing about the SL24-90 is that it by and large holds its own against premium Leica prime lenses. 

[farnz]

Not sure what you're expecting when you're comparing the SL24-90 against premium Leica lenses. Improvements are going to be subtle, not "blow XXX away" because Leica doesn't make any lenses that are that bad. 

 

The he good thing about the SL24-90 is that it by and large holds its own against premium Leica prime lenses. 

Please read my (explanatory comment to Jaap) that you've quoted in the context of my earlier comment from post 61:

 

"...  I don't quite get why optimal lens performance can apparently now only be achieved with in-camera digital correction when up until recently optical correction of optical aberrations sufficed and current lens performance doesn't appear to outstrip the performance of those with only optical correction (I'm content to be corrected on that point with appropriate supporting information of course).

 

Pete."

 

I used the term "outstrip", which I think describes subtle improvement, but strengthened it to the vernacular "blow (whatever) away" to clarify what I meant to Jaap.  That you state that 24-90 "largely holds its own against Leica primes" is encouraging but it doesn't convince me that 'lens plus digital correction' is a game-changer in terms of performance or results over conventional lenses.  I'm not disparaging the 24-90, which sounds and looks to be an excellent lens, but simply questioning why Leica's lens designers feel the need to use digital correction.

 

I think I have my answer so to prevent further deviation I'll stop there.

 

Pete.

[cpclee]

A constant 2.8 zoom going out to 90mm would be extremely fat.  That's why all constant 2.8 zooms on the market only go out to 70mm and I'm not aware of exceptions.  The 24-90 is about the same diameter as the competitors' constant 2.8 zooms.  So either you want a constant f2.8 or a little more reach.  I prefer a little more reach given the SL's excellent OIS implementation and high ISO capability.  Though I do think Leica should produce a constant f4.0 zoom (say 35-70 or 28-70) for people who want AF and compactness in the same package.  

 

I read about the distortion correction of the 24-90 at 24mm and didn't like what I saw, but I have no first hand experience.

 

I'm not interested in the 50/1.4 myself.  I need one and only one AF lens which should cover a very wide range of focal lengths, have very high image quality and be fast focusing, and the 24-90 delivers all those in spades.  All other lenses I intend to with the SL shall be MF primes.  

 

I have not found the 24-90 to not match the performance or rendering of any of my latest M ASPH/APO primes.  

 

It was said to be "no compromise" but then it's not a constant 2.8 and on top of it, the 24mm end sees ridiculous digital corrections. It doesn't even cover the full image circle at the wide end! Almost as bad as the Q in that sense!

 

I'm not a fan of the zoom at all.. Feel it was a waste of money. I should have just waited until the 50 Summilux-L comes out before I bought into the system. Also from what I paid for the camera/lens at launch and what I can get it for now.. It's a $2,000 difference. Meaning I'd lose at least $3,000 on the sale of it and it's only been in my hands 3+ months. 

 

The lens itself is better then Canon and Nikon offerings (when you take speed out of the equation). But by no means up to Leica standards for unique rendering. And the SL sensor doesn't help with it's Sony A7-esq color profile. 

[ramarren]

Please read my (explanatory comment to Jaap) that you've quoted in the context of my earlier comment from post 61:

 

"...  I don't quite get why optimal lens performance can apparently now only be achieved with in-camera digital correction when up until recently optical correction of optical aberrations sufficed and current lens performance doesn't appear to outstrip the performance of those with only optical correction (I'm content to be corrected on that point with appropriate supporting information of course).

 

Pete."

 

I used the term "outstrip", which I think describes subtle improvement, but strengthened it to the vernacular "blow (whatever) away" to clarify what I meant to Jaap.  That you state that 24-90 "largely holds its own against Leica primes" is encouraging but it doesn't convince me that 'lens plus digital correction' is a game-changer in terms of performance or results over conventional lenses.  I'm not disparaging the 24-90, which sounds and looks to be an excellent lens, but simply questioning why Leica's lens designers feel the need to use digital correction.

 

I think I have my answer so to prevent further deviation I'll stop there.

 

Pete.

 

 

That a wide to portrait tele zoom can hold its own against Leica primes is a remarkable feat, and likely not possible with optical design alone, Pete. 

 

The rest of your post is wiffling over inappropriate expressions, IMO. You're not speaking clearly or objectively. "Outstrip" is certainly a greater difference than "subtle improvement". "Blow away" is hyperbole. All it indicates to me is your prejudice. 

[cpclee]

from today with the 24-90.  fill flash using SF 20 in A mode with -2EV or so correction

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[cpclee]

another

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[farnz]

That a wide to portrait tele zoom can hold its own against Leica primes is a remarkable feat, and likely not possible with optical design alone, Pete. 

 

The rest of your post is wiffling over inappropriate expressions, IMO. You're not speaking clearly or objectively. "Outstrip" is certainly a greater difference than "subtle improvement". "Blow away" is hyperbole. All it indicates to me is your prejudice. 

 

I see no reason to be insulting.  The 28-90/2.8-4.5 Vario-Elmarit-R asph as one example of an optical-only zoom which equals Leica primes at equivalent focal lengths.

 

Pete.

[ramarren]

I see no reason to be insulting.  The 28-90/2.8-4.5 Vario-Elmarit-R asph as one example of an optical-only zoom which equals Leica primes at equivalent focal lengths.

 

Pete.

 

 

No intent to be insulting; there's nothing wrong with prejudices: they are a fact of life. Perhaps the better word is "predilections"; my apologies. 

 

The 28-90/2.8-4.5 is also a manual focus lens, which is a lot simpler piece of machinery to construct than a fast-focusing AF system lens with optical image stabilization as well. And, btw, there is a lens correction profile for it available in Lightroom that improves its performance. 

 

So the assumption that because a particular lens performs well optically means that it cannot also benefit from lens correction software is incorrect. As I said before in this thread, the notion of designing a lens with software corrections in mind allows one to optimize the lens' output to minimize losses that software correction might induce. The result is performance at a higher level than optical design or software correction alone can offer, over a broader range of focal lengths and focus distances. 

 

Every one of my R lenses is a very very good performer, and yet every one of them benefits from some measure of lens correction as well. The SL24-90 performs on par with all of them, from wide to tele, and there's really no need to worry about how it performs without correction since its correction is always embedded in the raw files and enabled in my image processing environment. It's not a lens that is useful on any camera that doesn't support the mount properly, so that notion of "transportability" is irrelevant in the context of the SL24-90. 

 

If your predilections favor that "transportability" over the lens performance and features that the SL24-90 offers, then the SL24-90 is simply not appropriate to your interests.