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a personal CL review ...


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I posted this elsewhere last evening, but thought others here might enjoy it and might respond with some interesting comments. As always, there's no intent on my part to push any buttons, but I'm sure we'll disagree on something! :)

 

The Leica CL ... my first impressions:
 
Made it up to Leica Store San Francisco on Tuesday and had a good long look at the CL there. I asked and was given the opportunity to reset it, fit my lenses, and make test exposures with my card.
 
My primary desire for this camera is to use it for copy work, table-top plus other niche uses like long telephoto work, etc. I intend it to be my TTL viewing body for the value of that in precision focusing and digitizing negatives. I'm not too concerned with AF or many of the other convenience features of the CL; what motivates me is that Leica supports all my R and M lenses on it, and it will work with all of my existing accessories. That said, I do expect that any camera I own will get used for some general purpose photography as well—I'll just be using my existing manual M and R lenses via the adapters rather than buying new lenses for the camera. 
 
Picking up the body for the first time, the CL is light and small yet feels solid. The controls all move with the smoothness I expect from Leica gear, and the sense of precision in their click-settings is there. The camera is nicely spare and lean on number of buttons, etc. It looks like a "mini" Leica M. 
 
After resetting the body, then setting the file output types to JPEG+raw, I fitted my Color Skopar 28mm to the M Adapter L, and set the lens profile for the Leica 28mm Summaron-M. This was always one of my favorites when shooting with the Ricoh GXR, although I got it somewhat late in that game, and is that sweet "wide-normal" with an FoV equivalent of about 42mm on the APS-C format. A few moments fussing about to figure how to set the ISO and EV compensation, then brought the camera to my eye. 
 
While not the "state of the art" of the SL, the EVF on the CL is very nice. I turned on focus peaking, it worked as expected. I stepped up the magnification and it worked as expected. No problems. One press on the center button on the four way pad and all info is there, another press and it's a clean view. Nice. 
 
Down to f/5.6, I had no difficulty seeing the 28mm lens go in and out of focus as I turned the focusing ring. Below that, I found magnification became necessary for precision. I didn't have the time to try to evaluate how accurate the distance scale was on this camera with the mount adapter, but I expect it to be slightly off (allowing one to focus slightly past infinity) if it's like all the other bodies I've tried this adapter on. 
 
I tend to forget just how good a lens this little 28mm really is. It's simply terrific, and the Summaron-M 28mm f/5.6 lens profile seems to suit it perfectly on APS-C. 
 
Next I fitted the Tri-Elmar-M 16-18-21mm f/4 ASPH, the WATE. I took four or five exposures at each of the primary focal length settings, both at 6-8' distance and from a close up position. If the Super-Vario-Elmar-T 11-23mm f/3.5-4.5 ASPH is actually a better performer than this one, it's probably beyond my ability to see the difference: The WATE produces just awesome image quality... And that's hand held, without the benefit of a tripod to really make it sing. It's just an amazing lens, IMO, and I'm very happy I sprang for the big bucks to get it. Of course, the 11-33mm zoom has a wider range, but with the WATE if I want wider still I can always just switch to the M body. I'd lose the framing/focusing precision of the CL, particularly in the extended close-up range, but since I don't normally use an ultrawide for extreme close-up work or copy work where such things matter most, I don't think that's much of a loss for me. 
 
Finally I did a series of exposures with the Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm and the APO-Macro-Elmarit-TL 60mm: my standard reference shot, a number of close ups, some tests shooting a tape measure to check the magnification indication on the barrel of the R lens, a couple of portraits of the sales person who was helping me. Both of these lenses are a bit bulky, but they both balance beautifully on the camera IMO ... not too large, not too heavy, not too light. The TL lens obviously has AF and focuses very quickly and surely. The R lens also focuses quickly but manually. Neither is any problem to focus with extreme accuracy even at f/8, without so much as either peaking or magnification turned on. 
 
Notice I haven't said much about the CL's controls? There's a reason for that: the little beastie was fitted with firmware v2, I'd quickly set up the dials and buttons based on my reading the manual before I got here, and everything about it worked exactly as it was designed to ... and very nicely for me. The only ergonomic niggle, for me, is that like with most small digital cameras, there's not enough space to fit my mitts comfortably on the naked body (of course, that doesn't matter at all for copystand and tripod use). I tried the grip and it made a big "Meh." sound in my head. I tried the half case and that does the job of thickening and making the camera just a hair taller, with a bit more room for my thumbs, etc. So for walking around picture taking, I'll need the half case (or Protector, as Leica likes to call it). I'm pleased that they put a magnetically closed trap door in the bottom so you can access the SD card and swap the battery without taking it off. 
 
I thanked the salesperson for her time, told her I'd be in touch, and left for home. Once there, I moved all the DNG + JPEG files into Lightroom v6.14. Everything opened right up and looks great right at the DNG defaults. The 28 and the WATE both shine beautifully on this body; all of the Color Skopar 28's typical color shifting at the edges are outside of the sensor area, it seems, and the Summaron-M 28 lens profile cleans up a tiny bit of barrel distortion in this part of the lens's FoV.
 
The truly interesting comparison, to me, is the Macro-Elmarit-R 60 vs the APO Macro-Elmarit-TL 60: With the R-lens being cropped to APS-C, I imagined that it might look a bit shuttered or confined since Leica has always put a lot of effort into tuning their lenses for the 35mm film format. Well, nothing to fear with this one. It is hard to see any difference whatever between the TL and R lenses, and both are just superb performers on this body. From 1:2 to a half-length portrait, the images couldn't be too much more similar without saying that they're the same optics just in a different lens mount, although I know that's not the case. 
 
Of course, I don't touch on AF or many of the cameras' other features yet. They're all niceties that I expect are of value to someone, but my primary notion was to examine the quality of the viewfinder, the control layout, and the imaging performance with my intended lenses. I think I'm going to be well satisfied with the Leica CL as both an adjunct for my niche needs and as a peer sibling to my M-D. 
 
End game: 
 
After studying the manual carefully and then evaluating, handling the Leica CL in person, I've decided to obtain one. I should have it by the weekend.
 
 
... One more short trip on the Hamster Wheel of Progress. :D
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I've been having fun testing lenses with the Leica CL. As hoped, every Leica lens I put on it works beautifully!

 

But I ran into a problem... NO, not with the camera or the lenses. I couldn't find two of my R lenses! That motivated me to finally get to all the heaps of stuff that have been in boxes in my office since I had the new wood flooring installed around October of last year. 

 

After sorting through nine big boxes of stuff, and tossing five of them straight into the dumpster, I found the box that had both my Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 V1 and Macro-Elmar-R 100mm f/4 with Focusing Bellows-R inside. The CL looks rather amusing with the Elmarit-R 19mm v1 fitted... it has such a big front element!

 

29588216378_7a46d656dd_o.jpg

 

But it sure makes a lovely photograph: 

 

29588216168_3c44b7e644_o.jpg

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A crop camera with full-frame lenses always gives great images...when using full frame lenses. No colour edges, no distortion, no smearing in the corners. Just the very best from the centre of the lenses, at all ranges...wide to tele.

 

Glad you are enjoying your camera.

 

 

..

Edited by david strachan
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A crop camera with full-frame lenses always gives great images...when using full frame lenses. No colour edges, no distortion, no smearing in the corners. Just the very best from the centre of the lenses, at all ranges...wide to tele.

 

Thank you for the well wishes...

 

But honestly I can't say I agree with your statement. Many of my Leica R and M lenses do/did not perform so well on the Micro-FourThirds cameras or on the Sony NEX models that I tried them on, amongst others. Leica's done their homework in this regard because these same lenses have performed very well on the M, the SL, and now the CL bodies in my direct experience... better than they've performed on almost every other make of camera I've used them on regardless of sensor format. This is the reason I stick with Leica bodies for my Leica lenses.

 

The Ricoh GXR with M-mount camera unit was the big exception: it performed as well with all of my lenses as the Leica bodies do, and better with some of the Voigtländer lenses that don't do quite so well on the Leica M and SL. 

Edited by ramarren
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Thanks for review. I’ll be interested in how CL works on scanning 56mm negatives.

Cheers,Dan

 

 

I'm going to do a test of scanning 6x6 shortly. I can't get as low as a 1:3.5 magnification with the BEOON.

 

I'll use a tripod for testing but I need a copy stand to do it sensibly. My old copy stand was falling apart so I put it in the dumpster and ordered a new one. 

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I've spent a goodly bit of time today experimenting and working with my various M and R lenses on the CL body.

 

  • I'm liking the CL body more and more as I get more familiar with it. It works very nicely with all my lenses, allowing them to image the way they ought to.
  • Despite their larger size and heavier weight, I prefer using the R lenses over the M lenses on this body. AND they seem to produce better results for me.

 

From a handling perspective on an eye-level TTL camera, the R lenses simply make more sense: The lens itself presents a healthy bit of real estate for gripping the camera assembly, the controls are all in very easy to find by touch, predictable locations, and my right hand doesn't have to be so concerned with a secure grip—I can stabilize the camera lightly with it, work the controls, and release the shutter more smoothly. Case in point: I have both Summicron-M 50mm and Summilux-R 50mm lenses. Both make superb photos, but it's easier to hold the camera still, focus and frame, and work both aperture and shutter with the R lens. Same for the M-Rokkor 90mm and Summicron-R 90mm, as well as the WATE and Elmarit-R 19mm. 

 

That means I have three out of my four basic lens needs all set up with R lenses ... the only lens I don't have a paired R lens for now is the Color Skopar 28mm. I guess I have to get an Elmarit-R 28mm f/2.8 ... :)

 

It's interesting that I find these ergonomic distinctions so high profile, but such it is. My 'little' CL will mostly wear my 'big' R lenses... 

Edited by ramarren
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Have to laugh at myself! I was looking for something in the closet and had to move my little box of Nikon F gear out of the way. It's mostly my pretty 1961 F plain prism and its Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 pre-AI in the box, along with assorted Nikon bitties for it, that I keep for nostalgia's sake. But I noticed a lump in an unusual little bag. So I pulled that out and, yup, it was my long forgotten other Nikkor lens for the F ... a lovely example of a Pre-AI Nikkor 28mm f/2 that's been fitted with an AI aperture ring. 

 

I put that on my F->M lens mount adapter and fitted that onto the CL with the M Adapter L. Oh yeah: the nice big SLR lens makes it so much easier to handle the camera, and dang! .. f/2 to f/2.8 makes it a even easier to nail perfect focus than with the Color Skopar 28/3.5! 

 

This is a great performing lens too, even without any lens profile, so a worthy addition to my CL use kit. I'll likely pick up an Elmarit-R 28/2.8 anyway so that I can work with just the one lens mount/mount adapter, and so that the aperture and focus ring on all my usual lenses work in the same direction for ease and convenience. 

 

A fun re-discovery. :)

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One of my primary goals in acquiring the CL body was to have a high quality, 24 MPixel TTL body to facilitate negative copy work instead of working with film scanners, particularly for 6x6cm and Minox 8x11mm format films. So I also acquired a good copy stand (finally! after fifty some years of working with the kludgiest junk!) and look to put my Leica R macro equipment to work. 

 
Here's a photo of today's hastily thrown together test scan setup: 
 
28688773807_ffa0f0a252_h.jpg
 
It's lacking some of the usual niceties, like proper masking of the individual negative and having the light panel be securely taped down for consistency. In order to prevent newton rings, I capture the film emulsion side up (the surface of the light panel is ANR, the glass is not) and then flip it during the image processing. 
 
So ... Here are three initial test scans taken with the Leica CL body and Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm lens using my well-worn (and not cleaned or edited) strip of 120 format B&W. (Clicking each image here will net a full resolution 4000x4000 pixel rendering.)
 
28688266057_1ac07220d1_o.jpg
 
28688265957_a076e1b6bb_o.jpg
 
28688265997_7ff3f8563f_o.jpg
 
There's much more to be had with "good" negatives... these are too thin, really, but they were easy to hand for checking the scanning setup and image reversal processing in the simple case just to get an idea of what kind of quality I can expect. The Leica CL's 24 MPixel resolution and Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm lens seems to do this job pretty well. 
 
I'm pleased. I did some checks and, with a Summicron-R 50mm f/2 lens, I can image down to tighter than a Minox negative right to the edges of the 24 Mpixel frame with no light drop-off or other problems. That's better than I could do with the SL, due to the CL's smaller format. :D
Edited by ramarren
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the idea of having a bottle of yellow tail merlot, even if just using it for a container, with the same room as a Leica is such enormous cultural dissonance as to hurl this universe into its negative counterpart....

 

otherwise, this looks fantastic!

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The question of whether there's enough resolution for very fine grained films came up again, so I decided to go to the the opposite end of my negative capture spectrum and test for system resolution capabilities. Using the CL fitted with Leica Focusing Bellows-R and Summicron-R 50mm f/2 lens, I set up for Minox film capture at about 1.75:1 magnification:

 
28709200957_16d4586ee3_c.jpg
 
You can barely see it in the photo, but I have a little negative holder that was designed for a medium format film scanner to fit into the 120 film carrier, so I can use the same film channel to scan Minox negatives as I do with 120 film. 
 
The photo shown below is a B&W self-portrait made in 1998 at Paris DeGaulle airport with a Minox C on APX 25 film processed in HC-110 developer. Remember that the original negative is 8x11 mm in size.. :)
 
(Click image to obtain a full resolution rendering.)
 
43549527202_5d9527b836_o.jpg
 
This CL macro setup certainly shows it can image cleanly very fine grained APX25 film at 1.75:1 magnification. So what say, "hmm, what will it do with fine-grained 35mm film imaged at 1:1 magnification? Will I still see the grain?" The logic behind that question is that if I can see the grain structure clearly, there's no more detail to be had in the image than that. 
 
So I switched back to the Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm lens and fitted it with the Macro Adapter-R extension tube, enabling me to set it up for 1:1 magnification, and rephotographed the Minox film strip held exactly the same way as above: 
 
29727178918_15ed246321_o.jpg
 
That's good! I can still see APX25 grain structure at a 1:1 capture. 
 
The final test is to consider that capture magnification for 6x6cm negatives is lower, down to about 1:3.75 magnification. Reset the lens configuration without the extension tube, reset the focus ... snap!
 
41789654730_680d6ec8a5_o.jpg
 
I can still see the grain structure in the 100% image with this capture, although it's beginning to get a bit more difficult to make out. My feeling is that, for my purposes, this is enough resolution for anything I'm likely to do with my photographs. So I'm now fully satisfied that the CL's APS-C sensor with the right macro copy gear is capable of returning a good, high resolution, 24 MPixel image from any film I'm going to throw at it, 120 format down to Minox subminiature format, and a 24 MPixel image of 4000x6000 pixels dimension is going to enable me to make lovely 13x20 inch prints at 300ppi output resolution, and 16x24 prints at 240ppi output resolution. 
 
IF I were intent on imaging at the same resolution for larger film formats, and or looking to make even larger prints than that, I'd be looking for something with a larger pixel count sensor. To double linear resolution and get the same magnification capability as this setup provides, I'd need something on the order of a 96 MPixel resolution sensor (double the pixels in both linear dimensions). That would enable me to record negatives up to about four times the area of a 6x9cm negative with the same ability to capture the grain structure, presuming I have a lens and copy setup good enough to achieve those numbers optically. 
 
Fun fun fun! 
Edited by ramarren
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"Many of my Leica R and M lenses do/did not perform so well on the Micro-FourThirds cameras or on the Sony NEX models that I tried them on, amongst others."

 

 

That's why I bought a Nex 6 instead of the 7 which was said to misbehave with some rangefinder lenses, especially the ultra wides.  I find the 6 to have no issues in that respect.  (I've read that the A6xxx series is improved but given that I really can't stand EVF's I haven't bothered to upgrade).  Btw I've been using a 55/3.5 Micro-Nikkor in the same way as you to scan.  Win8 has no driver for my trusty Canoscan 4000US, and tbh I don't find the scans from my V700 any better than using a digicam setup. 

 


Edited by bocaburger
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"Many of my Leica R and M lenses do/did not perform so well on the Micro-FourThirds cameras or on the Sony NEX models that I tried them on, amongst others."

 

 

That's why I bought a Nex 6 instead of the 7 which was said to misbehave with some rangefinder lenses, especially the ultra wides.  I find the 6 to have no issues in that respect.  (I've read that the A6xxx series is improved but given that I really can't stand EVF's I haven't bothered to upgrade).  Btw I've been using a 55/3.5 Micro-Nikkor in the same way as you to scan.  Win8 has no driver for my trusty Canoscan 4000US, and tbh I don't find the scans from my V700 any better than using a digicam setup. 

 

 

I tested the NEX 6 when I was shooting with the Ricoh GXR. The NEX 6 had various issues with half of my lenses, the GXR had none.

 

The A7 didn't work well with any of my M mount lenses, worked reasonably well with the R lenses down to 24mm (with some issues); the Leica M-P typ 240 and SL typ 601 was a better performer with any of my M and R lenses other than the Color Skopar 21 and 28mm. 

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I tested the NEX 6 when I was shooting with the Ricoh GXR. The NEX 6 had various issues with half of my lenses, the GXR had none.

 

The A7 didn't work well with any of my M mount lenses, worked reasonably well with the R lenses down to 24mm (with some issues); the Leica M-P typ 240 and SL typ 601 was a better performer with any of my M and R lenses other than the Color Skopar 21 and 28mm. 

No doubt, as the GXR's M module was specifically designed to integrate with that purpose, it was more than simply a lens mount adapter IIRC.   I doubt Sony designed their cameras with M lenses as a top priority.  I'm also sure Leica designed the CL with M lenses as a high priority, hence why it performs well with them.  If the EVF was as good as I had hoped it would be (meaning, fools me into thinking it's not an EVF) I would have 2 of them and my M240's would be gone by now. 

Edited by bocaburger
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No doubt, as the GXR's M module was specifically designed to integrate with that purpose, it was more than simply a lens mount adapter IIRC.   I doubt Sony designed their cameras with M lenses as a top priority.  I'm also sure Leica designed the CL with M lenses as a high priority, hence why it performs well with them.  If the EVF was as good as I had hoped it would be (meaning, fools me into thinking it's not an EVF) I would have 2 of them and my M240's would be gone by now. 

 

 

Indeed: The Ricoh A12 Camera Mount is a complete sensor/lens mount/shutter assembly, optimized for use with M-mount lenses, that slides into the Ricoh GXR body for its control and power interface. It makes the GXR into a dedicated M-mount camera, essentially. So I expected it to outperform any lens adaptation ... never said otherwise. :) The only cameras that outperform it when used with Leica M lenses are the Leica cameras (M, SL, TL, TL2, and CL), which have been optimized for compatibility both in hardware and with the lens profiles. 

 

This is why I stick with Leica bodies. I value my little cache of Leica lenses much more than any others. :-)

 

The CL EVF is a very good performer, nearly as good if not quite as the SL EVF. But no EVF is ever going to "fool me" into thinking it's anything other than an EVF. Like every other display and viewfinder system, EVFs have their plusses and minuses. The biggest failing of the EVF on the CL, for me, is that (like many others) it doesn't amp up brightness enough in bright, sunlit conditions to work its way against the ambient light and my sunglasses. When I'm actually shooting in such conditions other than casually, I don't wear my sunglasses and I wear a wide-brimmed hat to shade my face and the camera so I can see the EVF image clearly for focusing. SLR reflex viewfinders excel in such conditions because their brightness is dependent upon the ambient conditions, which means that they are at their worst when the EVF is singing its best: in dimmer light circumstances.

 

Optical tunnel viewfinders are mostly insensitive to these concerns because the only thing that gets  altered from bright sun to dim light are the brightness of the frame lines, and they're not a focusing field—they just have a simple focusing aid for which accuracy is independent of contrast and illumination. The rest is purely the ambient light. But they're nowhere near as precise or accurate to frame with.

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