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SL with R 180mm


G. van Asch

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  • 2 weeks later...

One off the first pictures made with the Apo 180/3.4-R. ISO 4000 AND SHUTTER 1/320.

THROUGH thick and dirty glass/ zoo Rotterdam.

I'm very happy with this lens.

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SL with Apo 180/3.4 plus Apo extender-R 2x ISO125 1/125. Istanbul/Bosporus

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As I understand this lens has a long minimum focusing distance which makes it not a choice for portrait as it is hard to fill in the frame with person's head and upper body ... This and a bit nervous bokeh ...

 

 

180 mm is often a bit long for Portrait work anyway. The distance required can overly distort faces by flattening them too much. Unless that's the effect you're after, better off with the SL24-90. 

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180 mm is often a bit long for Portrait work anyway. The distance required can overly distort faces by flattening them too much. Unless that's the effect you're after, better off with the SL24-90. 

 

 

I agree about it, @ramarren ... 

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As I understand this lens has a long minimum focusing distance which makes it not a choice for portrait as it is hard to fill in the frame with person's head and upper body ... This and a bit nervous bokeh ...

 

 

Close focus on the lens is around 2.5m or so.  Since it's a 180, that is easily close enough to do head and shoulders portraits.  The lens has a reputation for being better at > 10m, but I have not observed any falloff in sharpness when focused closer.  Frankly, sharpness is rarely at a premium for portraits anyway.  

 

All that being said, 180mm is longer than most people want for portraits as stated above.  I agree that the 24-90mm is a better choice for portrait work.  F/4 at 90mm when doing head and should shots gives just about the perfect depth of field--eyes and nose sharp with ears a bit soft.  The 180 would not be the lens I turn to for portrait work.  The 24-90 definitely would be.  It's a really great studio lens.

 

- Jared

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Close focus on the lens is around 2.5m or so.  Since it's a 180, that is easily close enough to do head and shoulders portraits.  The lens has a reputation for being better at > 10m, but I have not observed any falloff in sharpness when focused closer.  Frankly, sharpness is rarely at a premium for portraits anyway.  

 

All that being said, 180mm is longer than most people want for portraits as stated above.  I agree that the 24-90mm is a better choice for portrait work.  F/4 at 90mm when doing head and should shots gives just about the perfect depth of field--eyes and nose sharp with ears a bit soft.  The 180 would not be the lens I turn to for portrait work.  The 24-90 definitely would be.  It's a really great studio lens.

 

- Jared

 

 

My understanding is that the APO 180/3.4 was designed for military use (Navy) primarily and optimized for distance sharpness and rendering. But as you say, it probably does just fine when focused closer too.

 

I don't know for sure: I have both the Elmar-R 180/4 (which does focus quite close for a 180mm, down to about 1.8m) and the Elmarit-R 180/2.8 v1 (which has marginally nicer bokeh at the expense of being about double the size and 3x the weight of the 180/4). Both produce very good results; I use the 180/4 quite a lot more than the 180/2.8 because the latter is so much larger and heavier. 

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I did the first test with the adapter today. For the 360mm the picture was taken in bad weather. If I take pictures on a more closer range it works perfect. Using it without the extender the lens is perfect and as you say even at closer distance about 2,5 meters it works very good.

Thanks for your answer and explanation.

Gerjan

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As I understand this lens has a long minimum focusing distance which makes it not a choice for portrait as it is hard to fill in the frame with person's head and upper body ... This and a bit nervous bokeh ...

 

 

The lens is high quality, so even if you abuse it with a macro extender (which is actually for the 60mm macro) the results are still fine. So it can even be used at distances closer than 2.5 m. (if you have no dedicated macro lens at hand).

 

Stephan

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I have tried that in the zoo at 2,5 meters and it works perfect!

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180 mm is often a bit long for Portrait work anyway. The distance required can overly distort faces by flattening them too much. Unless that's the effect you're after, better off with the SL24-90. 

 

I am not sure I would agree on this.For instance - 200mm/f2 Nikkor works insanely good as portrait lens...very expensive though. For that reason I bought Zeiss 135/f2 APO in my

Nikon days and after switching 100% to Leica that is the only lens I truly miss...

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I am not sure I would agree on this.For instance - 200mm/f2 Nikkor works insanely good as portrait lens...very expensive though. For that reason I bought Zeiss 135/f2 APO in my

Nikon days and after switching 100% to Leica that is the only lens I truly miss...

 

 

Buy a SL and you can use it again.         :)

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Buy a SL and you can use it again.         :)

 

I did. But I had to sell all my Nikon things - incl. 135 Zeiss to finance that purchase :(

 

Anyway - I regret now selling it...but I wasn't sure how it would work on SL either ( with all those adapters).

 

Anyone tried it on SL? Would be very interested to see some examples and hear about possible limitations when used on SL, tnx

 

 

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I am not sure I would agree on this.For instance - 200mm/f2 Nikkor works insanely good as portrait lens...very expensive though. For that reason I bought Zeiss 135/f2 APO in my

Nikon days and after switching 100% to Leica that is the only lens I truly miss...

Or the R-180/2 Apo

 

:-)

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I have the Apo 180/3.4. For me it is a perfect lens. Weight is 750gr and it's short 135mm.

I have used the Apo extender-R 2x and it works very good as well.

 

Because off the weight and size and "the iron curtain story" ( was already available in 1965 ) on order off the U.S navy.

Gerjan

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I am not sure I would agree on this.For instance - 200mm/f2 Nikkor works insanely good as portrait lens...very expensive though. For that reason I bought Zeiss 135/f2 APO in my

Nikon days and after switching 100% to Leica that is the only lens I truly miss...

 

 

It's all a matter of what look you're after in your portraits. I know one photographer who was using a 400mm lens for portraits, but to me the look was very flat. I prefer a more intimate perspective, my usual "portrait" lens is a 50 or 75mm, but I've used 90, 135, and even 180 now and then. And shorter too ... 

 

 

But to get back to the original point: I'd like to see some photos made with the APO 180/3.4 at close range to see what it renders like. I posted this series with the Elmar-R 180/4 last year, focus plane at about 2m.  

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25268645/Leaves-Test/index.html

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I made this picture at close range (about 3 meters through glass inside at the zoo) ISO 6400/ 1/320

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I did. But I had to sell all my Nikon things - incl. 135 Zeiss to finance that purchase :(

Anyway - I regret now selling it...but I wasn't sure how it would work on SL either ( with all those adapters).

Anyone tried it on SL? Would be very interested to see some examples and hear about possible limitations when used on SL, tnx

 

 

 

 

I use only adapted lenses, R, M, Contax, Nikon  (Mainly R and Contax plus WATE). So no reason to be afraid of the black man - the stacked adapters.

You can get single adapters from Novoflex or use the combination of M to T adapter plus any adapter to connect your lens to M.

Jono Slack was one of the first to test it and his photos show high quality.

So no reason why you should be wary about them.

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