Leica Q performance with Telephoto or Telescope adapter

[phaxman]

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I am always thinking about new ways to use my Q ...

 

The other day, I was mousing around the Leica Rumors site, and I accidentally came across an article written on Feb. 27 of 2017 about adding a Konica Minolta ACT-100 1.5x telephoto converter lens to the Leica Q.

 

It caught my attention for several reasons - first, of course, it would be great to have some additional focal length flexibility on the Q (rather than just cropping!), second, because that particular teleconverter has a 49mm screw thread, which allows it to be directly attached to the front of the Q lens, third, because it has some serious glass - it weighs 1 lb. 2 oz, the front lens is 3 1/4 in. in diameter, and according to Konica Minolta it has 5 elements in 3 groups!

 

Plus, I was able to purchase one in absolutely pristine condition on eBay for about $45.00!

 

So when I got the lens, I tested it, and it screwed on perfectly - confirming a standard 49mm thread!  But when I turned on the camera, even with the giant objective lens, there was major vignetting - I had to set the camera to 50mm crop just to get rid of the very dark edges.

 

And worse, when I tried some photos, there was only a small sweet spot in the center third of the 50mm crop which had good optical quality - beyond that everything was smeared.  I have attached a resized 50-mm crop of a landscape, plus the same landscape through the A-100.

 

It may be harder to tell where the quality starts to deteriorate in these drastically-resized photos, but it is easy to see that there is still vignetting in the A-100 photo, and a closer inspection will show the smearing outside the sweet spot.

 

Regretfully, I have to conclude that for an additional lens which weighs almost as much as the entire Q, the usable area of the enlarged image is just too small (sad face), but my next step is going to be attaching the Q to my real telescope, to see how that works

 

Stay tuned - and let me know if you have any better results using other teleconverters!

 

Sincerely,

 

Richard

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[gbealnz]

Richard,

You have too much time on your hands, LOL.

 

I sort of guessed the results, before I read them. After seeing some of the stunning close up shots in the Q Macro thread I thought I'd try my never-fail Elpros, via adapters (43mm to 49mm, circuitously). Epic fail, serious vignetting, but with a wide 28mm, what did I expect.

 

So, the ACT-100 failed, so back to the drawing board. It must be possible,m Fuji did similar with the X-100 cameras if I recall correctly.

 

As an aside afocal imaging, your next project might also be doomed, for the same reasons. Many many years ago, I used my first digital camera, a Digilux 4.3  (Google that one, LOL) for afocal imaging behind my Zeiss Telementor refractor. It was made worse by the fact the Digilux had a telescoping lens system, which retracted completely when turned off. I got round this by hard mounting the camera separate to the scope and eyepiece, tricky for sure, but aided by the fact the telescope focused by moving the objective lens elements internally, so no change at the eyepiece end. Results were really only possible by using the built in camera zoom, to the telephoto end.

 

Try it but prepare to be disappointed. Or hope I am wrong. If I can find them, I will dig out some old lunar and solar shots, with the Telementor and Digilux.

 

Gary

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