TL / CL lens roadmap

[nicci78]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Sigma has confirmed the release mid 2019 of the three APS-C DC DN Contemporary already available for Sony E-mount and m4/3. 

They will be eligible to mount exchange program, if you want to switch from m4/3 or E-mount to L-mount  

The lenses are : 16mm f/1,4 (24mm) + 30mm f/1,4 (45mm) + 56mm f/1,4 (85mm) 

They are all three excellent lenses. 

 

 

Edited January 21, 2019 by nicci78

[wlaidlaw]

2 hours ago, nicci78 said:

Sigma has confirmed the release mid 2019 of the three APS-C DC DN Contemporary already available for Sony E-mount and m4/3. 

They will be eligible to mount exchange program, if you want to switch from m4/3 or E-mount to L-mount  

The lenses are : 16mm f/1,4 (24mm) + 30mm f/1,4 (45mm) + 56mm f/1,4 (85mm) 

They are all three excellent lenses. 

 

 

I am sure they will be good but probably too big for what I am looking for, which is a considerably wider clone of the tiny 18mm TL Pancake lens (27mm EFOV). 18 to 16mm is really not a big enough step to warrant buying another lens, especially as I already have the excellent but rather bulky 11-23. The other thing I worry about is the longevity of Sigma lenses with ASPH elements. These use a glass core and the aspheric surfaces are optical grade plastic bonded on to the glass. I remember discussing this with one of the Lens design team in Solms, some years ago and he said Leica had looked at this process with interest but concluded the longevity of the elements would not meet Leica standards. 

Wilson

[JayBird]

1 hour ago, wlaidlaw said:

I am sure they will be good but probably too big for what I am looking for, which is a considerably wider clone of the tiny 18mm TL Pancake lens (27mm EFOV). 18 to 16mm is really not a big enough step to warrant buying another lens, especially as I already have the excellent but rather bulky 11-23. The other thing I worry about is the longevity of Sigma lenses with ASPH elements. These use a glass core and the aspheric surfaces are optical grade plastic bonded on to the glass. I remember discussing this with one of the Lens design team in Solms, some years ago and he said Leica had looked at this process with interest but concluded the longevity of the elements would not meet Leica standards. 

Wilson

The quality and longevity issue is what scares me about 3rd party manufacturers. A 16 mm lens does not really interest me. It does not give me enough additional FOV to warrant the expense. I would rather spend money on the 11-23 vario and have a slower lens but better build quality.

[scott kirkpatrick]

10 hours ago, ynp said:

The first three lenses on the top look like the APS lenses in L-Mount. If Leica make a firmware to correct the distortion and f the 16mm, than I will be happy to get the Sigma. 

Leica doesn't have to do anything.  The lens designers at Sigma have to put a set of distortion model coefficients into the DNG metadata.  Then the rendering engines, like ACR or C1 do the rest.  This correction is only done after the demosaicing of the Bayer filtered data has provided RGB information at each pixel position in the image.

Well, thinking about it some more, Sigma has to provide the coefficients and Leica has to put them into the DNG, since the camera writes the file.  I shot an "experience" about a year ago where the 16/1.4 from Fuji was invaluable (think of it as a street fair in density and light level).  Has anyone got a link to Sigma's Photokina presentation (the You Tube video linked in above as a screenshot)?  Or to a writeup of what they hope to offer in 2019 for the L-mount?

Edited January 22, 2019 by scott kirkpatrick

[wlaidlaw]

2 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Leica doesn't have to do anything.  The lens designers at Sigma have to put a set of distortion model coefficients into the DNG metadata.  Then the rendering engines, like ACR or C1 do the rest.  This correction is only done after the demosaicing of the Bayer filtered data has provided RGB information at each pixel position in the image.

Well, thinking about it some more, Sigma has to provide the coefficients and Leica has to put them into the DNG, since the camera writes the file.  I shot an "experience" about a year ago where the 16/1.4 from Fuji was invaluable (think of it as a street fair in density and light level).  Has anyone got a link to Sigma's Photokina presentation (the You Tube video linked in above as a screenshot)?  Or to a writeup of what they hope to offer in 2019 for the L-mount?

Scott there is a Youtube video of the presentation but it is filmed by some idiot who does not know how to lock focus with his phone and is unwatchable with the focus hunting the whole time. I put a sarcastic comment that if he feels it is appropriate to post a badly taken clip from a selfie device not a camera (especially at a photographic show aimed at professionals), he must expect bad comments. He apparently was not aware you could lock focus on a phone. I could not find a decent picture of the lens roadmap. 

Wilson

[nicci78]

Sigma will release in mid 2019 all APS-C Contemporary lenses and all 24x36 Art lenses already available in E-Mount into L-mount. 

No more, no less. 

[ynp]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

1 hour ago, nicci78 said:

Sigma will release in mid 2019 all APS-C Contemporary lenses 

And the Zooms in l-mount too?

[nicci78]

Please read the sentence until the end : all APS-C contemporary lenses available in E-mount. Sorry no zooms though.

They are called Sigma C DC DN. Only 3 fast f/1.4 primes for now : 16 + 30 + 56mm

[ramarren]

On 1/21/2019 at 9:42 PM, scott kirkpatrick said:

Leica doesn't have to do anything.  The lens designers at Sigma have to put a set of distortion model coefficients into the DNG metadata.  Then the rendering engines, like ACR or C1 do the rest.  This correction is only done after the demosaicing of the Bayer filtered data has provided RGB information at each pixel position in the image.

Well, thinking about it some more, Sigma has to provide the coefficients and Leica has to put them into the DNG, since the camera writes the file.  I shot an "experience" about a year ago where the 16/1.4 from Fuji was invaluable (think of it as a street fair in density and light level).  Has anyone got a link to Sigma's Photokina presentation (the You Tube video linked in above as a screenshot)?  Or to a writeup of what they hope to offer in 2019 for the L-mount?

Your first sentence was correct. Presuming that these lenses are like the current TL and SL lenses, and like all the microFourThirds lenses, the lens mount and control protocol includes reading the on-lens ROM for both EXIF data and lens correction parameters. These are embedded into the RAW file metadata the same way for all lenses (including the lens profiles manually selected for uncoded M and non-ROM R lenses), so Leica doesn't have to do anything that they're not already doing. 

Personally, I have no interest in Sigma lenses. I buy Leica equipment primarily on the strength of wanting to use  Leica lenses, with few exceptions, so would rather have a couple of good Leica lenses then a bunch of someone else's lenses. Of course, it's nice to see other options available and some might be excellent performers. Sigma, in particular, has always had a poor reputation for build quality and consistency of performance, one of the worst in the industry. They've made efforts to improve on that in recent years, but I don't really consider them as a premium lens house.

[scott kirkpatrick]

My Olympus 75/1.8 is generally thought to have been made by Sigma.  It's an outstanding lens, and has held up well for the past 4-5 years.  The 24/1.4 that Sigma currently makes in E-mount is priced fairly low and would fill a hole in the CL lens lineup, even if it turns out that it has to be stopped down  a bit for best results.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Here's a comparison I wanted to try on my CL.  The first shot, two nights ago, was taken with the Fuji XT2 100-400 IS lens at 400. Both rendered at 100% but cropped to just the moon.

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!

XT2F0559 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr exposed one stop below "sunny 16"

and, exposed differently, (note I had fewer pixels covering the moon) with the CL and SL 90-280@280, two days later:

C1120103 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr exposed 2 stops below "sunny 16"

Both put plenty of pixels behind the moon, and if I had the light in which to include some foreground, I doubt that I would have used more than 200 mm-eff.

If the moon comes around again next month, I'll have to drag out the R 280/4 and put a 2X APO extender on it and see how that compares.  Sky conditions (thin clouds) keep this from showing any reason to prefer the longer focal lengths.

Edited January 24, 2019 by scott kirkpatrick
installing 100% versions and cropping

[scott kirkpatrick]

OK, one more comparison.  This time I used an R 180/2.8 APO Elmarit with the APO 2X extender.  Even with the R to L adapter and the 2X extender, this felt light and inconspicuous compared to the two previous long telephotos. But I was using it seated, no tripod or monopod or anything on which to rest my elbows, focusing manually with 6X magnification. The focus on this lens is delicate, and probably can only be done critically on a tripod.  Here's my best from this evening's moon (now 4 days past full):

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!

C1120112 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr