SL is a non-solution solving no problems

[IkarusJohn]

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No idea. Too many experts here. I'm simply reporting what happened (as reported to me). I wouldn't begin to expound on the technicality of what Leica did or what was possible.

 

All I can say is I went looking for focus shift and couldn't find it.

[Jeff S]

Which lens did you use to test?

 

Jeff

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[Eastgreenlander]

These business wars leave me cold - as long as I can remember there were Sony products. They always claimed to be the best and most innovative (no matter what the product was). Some products had a huge success - but what does it mean to me ? And all are gone now ....

Some Sony products offered a lot of fun (walkman, TVs, etc.), but strange enough the cameras were never among them.

Many Apple products replaced them for me. So for me Sony is rather a loser (to Apple or Samsung). It will be interesting to see what the next few years will bring .....

Sony has just released some nice ultra wide zooms with fixed F stops thoughout zoom range for their A9/A7's. Leica SL lens program is looking pale in comparison. Way too slow to roll out new lenses. Sony may not be a luxury brand name or have same smooth leica experience or pride of ownership and all that but Sony is on roll here, being really innovative with real great photographic all round product with their mirrorless cameras. IMO Sony deserves some respect for going all in, for meeting photographers demands in regards of compact lens offerings and zooms. ...Probably not the correct forum to post such infidel viewpoints [emoji3] Edited May 18, 2017 by Eastgreenlander

[Go Figure]

Sony has just released some nice ultra wide zooms with fixed F stops thoughout zoom range for their A9/A7's. Leica SL lens program is looking pale in comparison. Way too slow to roll out new lenses. Sony may not be a luxury brand name or have same smooth leica experience or pride of ownership and all that but Sony is on roll here, being really innovative with real great photographic all round product with their mirrorless cameras. IMO Sony deserves some respect for going all in, for meeting photographers demands in regards of compact lens offerings and zooms. ...Probably not the correct forum to post such infidel viewpoints [emoji3]

yep ... today Sony became a real system 

[FlashGordonPhotography]

Sony has just released some nice ultra wide zooms with fixed F stops thoughout zoom range for their A9/A7's. Leica SL lens program is looking pale in comparison. Way too slow to roll out new lenses. Sony may not be a luxury brand name or have same smooth leica experience or pride of ownership and all that but Sony is on roll here, being really innovative with real great photographic all round product with their mirrorless cameras. IMO Sony deserves some respect for going all in, for meeting photographers demands in regards of compact lens offerings and zooms. ...Probably not the correct forum to post such infidel viewpoints [emoji3]

 

How quickly we forget that Sony released the A7 with 2 lenses, one of which was a kit zoom and pretty damn average one at that. After a year they had 5 lenses including two 24(8)-70's.

 

GM lenses started in year 3 of the system and it's almost year 5 and we get the "new" wides.

 

For the first 2 years the bitching about the lack of Sony lenses was loud and clear. Same thing happened with m43 when it first came out.

 

And I'm already seeing posts on other forums about how "slow" Hasselblad and Fuji are with lens releases for their new MF systems.

 

Same posts, different systems.

 

Gordon

[IkarusJohn]

yep ... today Sony became a real system

Not sure what's "unreal" about the SL. Three native SL lenses, and compatibility with all M & R lenses. Works like a system for me ...

[ramarren]

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Do we really have to revisit again the Digilloyd nonsense every three months? 

[jaapv]

I fear that is the way the internet works. Despite his technical blunders DL has managed to set himself up as an expert in matters photographic to some people.

[IkarusJohn]

Do we really have to revisit again the Digilloyd nonsense every three months?

Sure, if it's informative.

[steppenw0lf]

For me the SL is the richest system, with the widest choice of lenses of all systems I ever had.

That is actually why I use it - I never had so much lens flexibility before with such a high quality. (and so much fun)

I wonder why there has to come one "XXX fan" after another who has no idea how to make good use of the SL, but telling us that "system XXX" is much much better than anything the SL offers. (and always will be).    

 

So boring and absurd.

It took Sony - a multi-billion company - more than 5 years to offer a more or less complete lens range. Is this a special achievement ? Does this deserve respect ? In what way ?

Is this better than what smaller players offer ? (Fuji, Hasselblad, Pentax, Olympus)

 

I am quite happy with the SL lenses - my main problem is actually how to fund them, if they get available.

 

If I would ever change the system, I would probably switch to Pentax. A quiet company with only a small budget for marketing. But dedicated to long-time photographers, not so much to sensor and feature fetishists. And they have even innovative features incorporated that the big Sony is not offering (e.g. pixel shift technology).

Sony has probably the success, but Pentax has all other qualities that I like in a "photo company".

 

An interesting report here - mainly discussing technical pros and cons and not so much marketing.

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/k1-pixel-shift-resolution-updated-field-test

 

So whatever Sony now offers does not deserve my attention, because it simply does not give me anything additional (any added value in marketing speak). Pentax on the other side deserves my attention, because they survived in difficult circumstances and are still innovative despite limited resources. Btw the K-1 already offers the fully electronic shutter  (S mode of the SL), that the A9 introduced as "first" camera.

Edited May 18, 2017 by steppenw0lf

[ramarren]

... 

It took Sony - a multi-billion company - more than 5 years to offer a more or less complete lens range. Is this a special achievement ? What did the poor Sony users do during the last 5 years ?

Whine and moan. And use Leica lenses.

[steppenw0lf]

Vine and Leica lenses ?            (I took the artificial whining and moaning out, before I saw your comment).

[mjh]

The only way to correct an actual focus shift (with aperture change, as you mentioned the SL focuses wide open) with a firmware fix would be for the camera to automatically change the focus slightly when changing aperture to compensate.

Yep, that’s the standard approach to correcting focus shift. It’s fairly easy to implement, provided the camera knows about the characteristics of the lens.

[Guest NEIL-D-WILLIAMS]

Do we really have to revisit again the Digilloyd nonsense every three months? 

 

Who's Diglloyd??

[LocalHero1953]

Who's Diglloyd??

Just another internet guy that 99.9999999999% of people in this world have never heard of, let alone read.

[Joshua Lowe]

Sony has just released some nice ultra wide zooms with fixed F stops thoughout zoom range for their A9/A7's. Leica SL lens program is looking pale in comparison. Way too slow to roll out new lenses. Sony may not be a luxury brand name or have same smooth leica experience or pride of ownership and all that but Sony is on roll here, being really innovative with real great photographic all round product with their mirrorless cameras. IMO Sony deserves some respect for going all in, for meeting photographers demands in regards of compact lens offerings and zooms. ...Probably not the correct forum to post such infidel viewpoints [emoji3]

 

By the end of the year there will be a 16-35, 24-90, 90-280, 35, 50, 75, and 90.  What do you feel is missing besides a macro?

[ramarren]

By the end of the year there will be a 16-35, 24-90, 90-280, 35, 50, 75, and 90.  What do you feel is missing besides a macro?

 

 

A couple of macros in addition to the above would be nice (60-100-180 for instance). And then a couple of ultra telephotos (400, 600) and a teleconverter for the long zoom and long teles (1.4x would be enough for me). 

 

But I really don't care too much. The camera has so many lenses that can be used on it already it's mostly just a matter of satisfying those who desperately want AF, and I"m not one of those folks.

[Guest VVJ]

By the end of the year there will be a 16-35, 24-90, 90-280, 35, 50, 75, and 90.  What do you feel is missing besides a macro?

 

A 28mm prime would be really nice, hopefully weighing less than the current lenses... A 21mm and a 15mm would be nice as well, or a 12-24mm...

 

There should also be at least 2-3 lightweight native walkaround lenses, I am perfectly fine with f2.8 or even f4...

 

And the 16-35mm and 35mm won't be there at the end of the year... if all goes well a few people might receive a 16-35mm this year, most mortals will receive their copy around March or April 2018 and the 35mm mid next year....

Edited May 19, 2017 by JorisV

[steppenw0lf]

After checking I have 6 lenses offering 28mm, including zooms. All of them are excellent according to tests. But I am also not really happy with any of them and most of all possible new lenses I would like a new Summicron-SL 28.

But it shows also how spoilt I am. And with a little effort (pull yourself together) I should be able to live without for a few more years.   

 

The SL is so perfect and gives me no troubles, so that suddenly small inconveniences seem huge obstacles.

 

Possible solution: Adapt a foreign 16-35 (or 17-35 or 24-35) or use a Q (which looks really promising), or invest big in a Summilux-M 28.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[Guest VVJ]

I am using the Leica Q at the moment.

 

I usually travel with both using the Q for unintrusive shooting, the quite useful macro mode and as backup in general.

 

With regards to this thread, whereas I don't think very highly of DL I have to admit that the fanboy attitude of some people in this thread and the attitude towards Sony in general has irritated me just as much...

 

I do understand that not everybody is waiting for new SL lenses but some people are and IMO the pace at which Leica brings these lenses to the market is a problem and the fact that they currently cannot even deliver deliver the 50mm SL is also a problem...