Leica S lens on Fuji GFX 50s

[Einst_Stein]

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I have the chance to compare Contax 645 lenses on GFX 100S and on S 007, S3. The resolution advantages of GFX 100S doesn’t matter to me,  but the color rendering strongly favors S 007 and S3.  The difference is huge, I tried different Fujifilm Film color pallet, as much as I like Velvia, Leica is much preferred. 

I believe S lenses would be similar. 

I also had used Leica M, R, and Contax Zeus’s lenses on Sony Axx, and compared with Sony’s native lenses, I don’t see any benefit of using non-native lenses, I guess in digital, the in camera interpretation played a critical role. I would believe it also applies to GFX. 

The best bet would be using native lenses on GFX, but if you already have S lenses and S 007 or S3, you might find it does not worth the trouble to adapt S lenses on GFX.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Einst_Stein

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[steve.chang]

1 hour ago, Sarnian said:

I tried the 30-90mm on my GFX100S (with the aperture pre-selected to f11). I mainly used it at 90mm as I don't have that focal length in Fuji lenses. The results were nice and sharp. 

When you have a chance, do you mind trying the 30mm end at infinity? Thank you.

[Sarnian]

21 hours ago, steve.chang said:

When you have a chance, do you mind trying the 30mm end at infinity? Thank you.

Will do (probably at the weekend now as it's dark when I get home from work). 

[ZHNL]

On 11/19/2023 at 1:52 PM, steve.chang said:

When you have a chance, do you mind trying the 30mm end at infinity? Thank you.

It need to be modified to be able to focus to infinity. The wider the lens, the harder it reaches infinity. I bought GFX100II after sold 100S a while ago and hope I will love FUJI experience but sold it within a few weeks. Its menu system is a disaster for me as I no longer shoot as much means I can’t remember all the setting and feature if I need those in field. no way I will enjoy to use it. 

I give up the idea on Fuji and will patiently wait for S MILC and continue use S006 in the meantime. 

[chrismuc]

I think, the availability of a smart AF-adapter to use Leica S lenses on the Fuji GFX 100 cameras would be well accepted among the Leica S community.
 

It would allow to use Leica S glass with a high resolution high DR sensor (in 1.33:1 aspect ratio offering users who actually prefer that ratio an alternative to the 1.5:1 ratio of the S cameras), an advanced PDAF system (quicker and more precise due to measuring the focus directly on the sensor), selectable AF points with eye detection all over the whole sensor, IBIS, tiltable back screen and high resolution EVF (also w/ tilt) a.s.o..

One of the major Chinese AF-adapter makers is working on such smart adapter since years (by reverse engineering), but I don’t know how close it is to market release. 
 

I would be in particular interested to use the Leica S 180 on my GFX because it would fill the gap between the GF 110 and the GF 250.
 

Btw: I use the Fringer Pro adapter for Canon EF lenses on my GFX 100 and it is incredible, how well that adapter works with Sigma Art lenses: AF precision and speed is equivalent to native GF lenses, IBIS works perfectly, and: the added aperture ring at the adapter allows to change the aperture on the lens, like I am used with my GF lenses, that is not even possible using EF lenses on Canon cameras. 

[ZHNL]

^^Make sense. ^^
if there is a smart adapter, it might worth the trouble to add GFX. 
Used price of s glass will jump 20%~40% instantly. 
it is all about the gain vs trade off. 

[irenedp]

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I ditched about a year ago a Fuji GFX 100. I couldn't care less about Fujis. They have a completely different orientation, public, and usefulness.

If Leica follows Fuji with the S4 it will be an error. They will just be one more in the clutter. The reason Hasselblad is doing well is because they have avoided Fuji's color and improved the quality of the lenses. 

[frame-it]

38 minutes ago, irenedp said:

The reason Hasselblad is doing well is because they have avoided Fuji's color

Funny

maybe the S4 should shoot 80MP JPG only, so photographers who love and like the Leica color straight outta camera, don't & cannot adjust a non-existent dng or other raw file

 

https://goodcamera.net/blog/2019/leica-vs-fuji-color-blind-test

 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by frame-it

[BernardC]

11 hours ago, chrismuc said:

It would allow to use Leica S glass with a high resolution high DR sensor (in 1.33:1 aspect ratio offering users who actually prefer that ratio an alternative to the 1.5:1 ratio of the S cameras), an advanced PDAF system (quicker and more precise due to measuring the focus directly on the sensor), selectable AF points with eye detection all over the whole sensor, IBIS, tiltable back screen and high resolution EVF (also w/ tilt) a.s.o..

The S3 (and 007,  006, S2) already use PDAF, just like every AF SLR has for the past 40 years. The real limit to focus speed isn't PDAF anyway, it's the way that the S lenses focus. They are optimized for manual focus feel, not for ultimate speed. The SL lenses are optimized for AF speed, but they provide poor MF performance because there is no mechanical connection between the focus ring and lens elements. That's a compromise that professional photographers wanted at the time, and arguably still to this day.

I would worry about frying my S lenses with a no-name third-party adapter. Someone here just mentioned that their Contax-to-Fuji adapter killed their Contax 645 lenses. That never happened with Leica's official Contax adapter, but presumably they put more effort into it.

The other problem I have is the idea of using AF with 100MP images. You're going to get something in focus, but what? Maybe it's just me, but the whole point of creating high-megapixel images is to use sharpness as a narrative tool. That aspect goes out the door once you let the camera pick where to focus. It has the attention span of a squirrel, so it's just going to grab onto something/anything in your image, and then pick something else the next time you trip the shutter. In my experience, Fuji's medium format cameras are especially guilty of this. I remember taking a series of head shots with AF and no two images had the same focus point. That's after telling the camera the general area that I wanted to focus on! At that point it's better to cut your losses and switch the manual focus.

 

[steve.chang]

On 11/20/2023 at 11:11 PM, ZHNL said:

It need to be modified to be able to focus to infinity. The wider the lens, the harder it reaches infinity. I bought GFX100II after sold 100S a while ago and hope I will love FUJI experience but sold it within a few weeks. Its menu system is a disaster for me as I no longer shoot as much means I can’t remember all the setting and feature if I need those in field. no way I will enjoy to use it. 

I give up the idea on Fuji and will patiently wait for S MILC and continue use S006 in the meantime. 

Thank you, Michael. I trust your experiences. The only two reasons I use the GFX are for the IBIS and Focus Magnification. The Fuji menu is indeed disastrous. I like my S 006 CCD Colors and am not a fan of Fuji colors. Happy Thanksgiving and happy photographing.

[Stuart Richardson]

4 hours ago, BernardC said:

ave is the idea of using AF with 100MP images. You're going to get something in focus, but what? Maybe it's just me, but the whole point of creating high-megapixel images is to use sharpness as a narrative tool. That aspect goes out the door once you let the camera pick where to focus. It has the attention span of a squirrel, so it's just going to grab onto something/anything in your image, and then pick something else the next time you trip the shutter. In my experience, Fuji's medium format cameras are especially guilty of this. I remember taking a series of head shots with AF and no two images had the same focus point. That's after telling the camera the general area that I wanted to focus on! At that point it's better to cut your losses and switch the manual focus.

 

I find this a bit strange...of course if you set the AF to wide field it is going to choose the focus point on its own, but if you use a spot or small AF area box it will focus on what you direct it to. At least in my experience with the SL, it will do so more quickly and more accurately than manual focus (apart from using a high magnification live view and slowly focusing). I found this in the S too...the AF system and focus confirmation light were more accurate than the focusing screen. Leica customer service said so themselves when I noted the discrepancy to them. With a mirrorless camera and contrast detect, the focus is being read directly from the image on the sensor, so it is not really possible to be more accurate than that...

[ynp]

5 hours ago, BernardC said:

5 hours ago, BernardC said:

The real limit to focus speed isn't PDAF anyway, it's the way that the S lenses focus. They are optimized for manual focus feel, not for ultimate speed

Indeed. The S lenses are great for manual focus even on the SL. Pure joy. 

[BernardC]

2 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I find this a bit strange...of course if you set the AF to wide field it is going to choose the focus point on its own, but if you use a spot or small AF area box it will focus on what you direct it to. At least in my experience with the SL, it will do so more quickly and more accurately than manual focus (apart from using a high magnification live view and slowly focusing). I found this in the S too...the AF system and focus confirmation light were more accurate than the focusing screen. Leica customer service said so themselves when I noted the discrepancy to them. With a mirrorless camera and contrast detect, the focus is being read directly from the image on the sensor, so it is not really possible to be more accurate than that...

My experience is that AF systems don't focus exactly on what you want, but rather somewhere close. As a quick example: do you want the eyeball to be sharpest, or the eyelashes?

It's not a big deal in most cases, but it can be if you intend to print large, as you would with a 100MP camera. I end-up double-checking everything, which defeats the purpose of AF. To me it's a case of diminishing returns; AF is great with sports cameras, or for snapshots, but it isn't very useful for large prints or high megapixels. I still need to use a magnifier to confirm that the focus plane is where I want.

That's just my own problem/workflow. My main point is that we shouldn't expect S lenses to focus any faster on a non-S body (GFX, or Leica's next medium format mirrorless). They aren't particularly fast on the SL either.

[irenedp]

14 hours ago, frame-it said:

Funny

maybe the S4 should shoot 80MP JPG only, so photographers who love and like the Leica color straight outta camera, don't & cannot adjust a non-existent dng or other raw file

 

https://goodcamera.net/blog/2019/leica-vs-fuji-color-blind-test

The comparison you are showing is between a Leica Q something and a Fuji XT3. I don’t think that either is a GFX 100 or a Hasselblad. Please find below one that is more relevant to the case  

Regarding Jpegs, I doubt that this would be the case with most purchasers of a hypothetical S4 but who knows…

I work with more than one camera in the same project, and matching color and tonality when they are very much apart can take a lot of time. That was the case with the GFX. I had a very nice opportunity to buy another system at a great price, but wasn’t particularly happy with the GFX and was looking for an alternative. 

 

 

14 hours ago, frame-it said:

 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by irenedp

[frame-it]

2 hours ago, irenedp said:

I don’t think that either is a GFX 100 or a Hasselblad. Please find below one that is more relevant to the case  

thanks for the link, i was looking for a Leica S vs fuji GFX comparison but couldn't find any WITH example photos.

Edited November 22, 2023 by frame-it

[Tirpitz666]

Just ordered one to try it out with my GFX 100S, the idea is to have it machined down by a couple of mm at one end, that way it should focus even past infinity with basically all lenses right? Don't care about having infinity at hard stop, even because I understand that any lens will be different in that regard.

 

How Fotodiox could have messed this up with so much working space is  beyond me, usually the producers of such cheap dumb adapters tend to make it shorter to be on the safe side..

[Einst_Stein]

Personal taste:

I got the best result on GFX camera if paired with GFX lens. If S lens  + S camera is the best, then GFX lens + GFX camera is the next. S lens + GFX camnera the worst. 

 

[Pieter12]

I always get a chuckle out of all the AF conversations. I use AF as a helper, to allow me to double check and fine tune if necessary. What did you guys ever do before AF? Not take photos?

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[Sarnian]

Update. Yes!!

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[helged]

3 hours ago, Sarnian said:

Update. Yes!!

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

This is interesting - at least for some of us that have and love the S-lenses (possibly for others as well)... Looking forward to additional info about the adapter!