Is the S1/S1R a good backup camera for SL

[thighslapper]

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5 hours ago, caissa said:

Two more videos about the S1 and S1R.

Is this the perfect camera (Lumix S) ?   Mainly talk (and quite nervously).  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F3jv_6Ahyb8

.... yes ...... Ted appears to be able to talk without having to breathe ...... listening to him can be quite exhausting ...

[ivohula]

If the S1 or SR! are to be good back-up cameras for me, they must work well with M lenses as my SL uses mostly m lenses.  This is the crucial question for me and, I suspect, for many of you. I will wait with great expectations to see what the reports say about M lens use on the Panasonic.  I have not heard anyone do a S1 review and use M lenses on the S1 or SR1. Please let me know if I am wrong. I do not listen to all the german reviews.

I wonder if the "Alliance" will have the software in the Panasonic to correct for M lenses on the camera.

Ivo Hula

[Chaemono]

vor 25 Minuten schrieb ivohula:

I wonder if the "Alliance" will have the software in the Panasonic to correct for M lenses on the camera.

Ivo Hula

The "Alliance" is very powerful and the powers of the Force extend far beyond merely having the software, also in the Panasonic, to correct for M lenses, I think.

[V23]

On 2/21/2019 at 5:57 PM, Chaemono said:

That’s sounds tough. Maybe the alliance wasn’t such a good idea after all. 

Bit of a strong word discarded, what I meant is the SL will be used as a backup and if and when it fails it will not be probably economical to have it repaired. Meantime I love my SL and a 24-90 lens as well as its performance with M mount lenses via Leica’s M to L adapter.

[thighslapper]

13 hours ago, ivohula said:

If the S1 or SR! are to be good back-up cameras for me, they must work well with M lenses as my SL uses mostly m lenses.  This is the crucial question for me and, I suspect, for many of you. I will wait with great expectations to see what the reports say about M lens use on the Panasonic.  I have not heard anyone do a S1 review and use M lenses on the S1 or SR1. Please let me know if I am wrong. I do not listen to all the german reviews.

I wonder if the "Alliance" will have the software in the Panasonic to correct for M lenses on the camera.

Ivo Hula

Panasonic mention 'aspherical microlenses' to increase light gathering ....... but that is a different approach to Leica which used a custom designed sensor with very shallow wells to avoid the marked drop-off at the periphery that the wider M lenses are prone to. There is also the 'Italian Flag' colour cast issue due to this and the inherent asymmetry of the Bayer grid to contend with .... although this is mainly a firmware, lens specific, correction. 

I cannot see Panasonic making any sensor concessions to allow M lenses to work well ....... and unless Leica offers them the firmware corrections for all of the M & R lens back catalogue .... and Panasonic adds it to their firmware ..... 100% compatibility will not be available.

No doubt anything above  50mm and most of the R series will work just as well as on the SL/CL/M, but I have my doubts about anything 35mm and below performing as well as on a native Leica body. The question will be 'how well', and whether any issues are acceptable. 

Edited March 5, 2019 by thighslapper

[Stuart Richardson]

I am VERY interested to see how the Panasonic's work with adapted lenses. When this was first announced, I was very excited that there might be a top class video/stills camera that could take my M and S lenses. Now Leica is on record saying the S Adapter L is not considered part of the L mount alliance, and they assume it will not work on the Panasonic, and the question of the M lenses is up in the air. As impressive as the cameras themselves are, the shine is a bit off them for me, as I do not really want to buy a bunch of SL lenses to use them...the point for me at least was to be able to make use of the lenses I already have. At this point, the best option is likely the SL2 (a year away? more?) or the S3 (6 months away and likely exceptionally expensive compared with Fuji/Hasselblad/Panasonic etc). 

[caissa]

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I do not worry about the M lenses. I use only the WATE wide-angle and 28mm and up. These lenses have until now worked well on many different sensors. And I would be very surprised if the S1R would be the only (negative) exception. Panasonic has probably no need to compromise their sensor to make it work with them.

The Sony sensors with their “thick glass” have been the worst for adapting M wide-angle lenses. But even they work ok with the above mentioned lenses. Go to a forum where they discuss using the Techart adapter to find more experiences.

So if you are a little careful with selecting M lenses, you will not get a problem. By the way the problem is mostly at infinity, which is usually not very important for my photos.

Additionally I have the impression that more often than Leica M lenses some cheap (and older versions) alternatives from CV or Zeiss for M mount have this problem.

And yes, probably the SL2 will be the best solution. But maybe it still has mandatory LENR and it is certainly not the most economic solution. 😎. But if you worry about S lenses then the cost is certainly no problem.

Edited March 5, 2019 by caissa

[caissa]

I wonder if a Techart adapter for L-mount is in the making. Now that L is getting more popular, the chances might get better.  🤔🤞

For the Z cameras they offer a adapter ring for the existing Techart device.  https://leicarumors.com/2019/01/22/new-techart-lens-adapter-ring-will-allow-you-to-autofocus-leica-m-lenses-on-nikon-z-cameras.aspx/

Here the rumors:  https://leicarumors.com/2016/08/09/techart-pro-leica-m-lens-to-leica-sl-mount-autofocus-adaptor-is-being-developed.aspx/.    Should be completed in the meantime ...

Edited March 5, 2019 by caissa

[ynp]

5 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I am VERY interested to see how the Panasonic's work with adapted lenses. When this was first announced, I was very excited that there might be a top class video/stills camera that could take my M and S lenses. Now Leica is on record saying the S Adapter L is not considered part of the L mount alliance, and they assume it will not work on the Panasonic, and the question of the M lenses is up in the air. As impressive as the cameras themselves are, the shine is a bit off them for me, as I do not really want to buy a bunch of SL lenses to use them...the point for me at least was to be able to make use of the lenses I already have. At this point, the best option is likely the SL2 (a year away? more?) or the S3 (6 months away and likely exceptionally expensive compared with Fuji/Hasselblad/Panasonic etc). 

I am of the same opinion. The future SL2 now looks more interesting, there is no doubts that my S-L adapter will work and I will be able to use my S lenses. I am not sure that I want to spend my money on the S3. 

[Stuart Richardson]

3 hours ago, caissa said:

I do not worry about the M lenses. I use only the WATE wide-angle and 28mm and up. These lenses have until now worked well on many different sensors. And I would be very surprised if the S1R would be the only (negative) exception. Panasonic has probably no need to compromise their sensor to make it work with them.

And yes, probably the SL2 will be the best solution. But maybe it still has mandatory LENR and it is certainly not the most economic solution. 😎. But if you worry about S lenses then the cost is certainly no problem.

Well, unfortunately my experience has not been quite so good as yours. The Leica M lenses I use most are the 35mm and 50mm Summilux ASPH, and both were quite bad on the Sony cameras. By bad I mean sharp in the center, but with poor edge and corner performance even when stopped down past 5.6. The 75mm Summicron was also not great. The only lens that seemed to perform very well was the 135mm Tele-Elmar. I have not tried the Nikon or Canon mirrorless. I am pretty demanding of lens performance as I tend to print rather large, and I found that, at least with the Sony's, it was better for me to stick with the native lenses.

As for the S lenses, I made a big investment in them in 2011 or 2012, and since then I have used the same camera, so the math did work reasonably well for me. That said, they are worth a small fraction of what they cost because the S system has been so slow in adapting to the market. Cost of a Panasonic or even a SL2 might not be such a big deal, especially if I sell some equipment, but dropping 20,000 plus dollars on an S3 (if that is what it will cost) is most certainly not a "no problem" kind of purchase. Again, the Panasonics seemed like they could be the silver bullet, working nearly natively with M, L and S lenses, but as I said before, unfortunately it does not seem like that is quite as true as I had hoped. We will see when they start getting into people's hands! 

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Stuart Richardson

[caissa]

I was referring to the cost of a SL2, which is certainly negligible compared to a S3. (But high compared to a S1R.) If you need highest resolution then the new SL lenses are better resolving than many M lenses and affordable compared to the S lenses (even to some M lenses like the Apo50). I actually prefer the SL 16-35 regarding IQ to all M wide-angles. And it is not so big, mainly because it is of constant length. (Smaller than the 6 primes it potentially replaces).

Reid reviews have made tests with M lenses on SL and M, and I assume they are going to test them also on the S1R. Currently it is still open how good they will work in the end.

[thighslapper]

14 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

Again, the Panasonics seemed like they could be the silver bullet, working nearly natively with M, L and S lenses, but as I said before, unfortunately it does not seem like that is quite as true as I had hoped. We will see when they start getting into people's hands! 

Assuming dealers get adequate stock, someone here will be able to tell you 2 weeks from now. 

[jonoslack]

On 3/4/2019 at 7:13 PM, ivohula said:

If the S1 or SR! are to be good back-up cameras for me, they must work well with M lenses as my SL uses mostly m lenses.  This is the crucial question for me and, I suspect, for many of you. I will wait with great expectations to see what the reports say about M lens use on the Panasonic.  I have not heard anyone do a S1 review and use M lenses on the S1 or SR1. Please let me know if I am wrong. I do not listen to all the german reviews.

I wonder if the "Alliance" will have the software in the Panasonic to correct for M lenses on the camera.

Ivo Hula

 

16 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

Well, unfortunately my experience has not been quite so good as yours. The Leica M lenses I use most are the 35mm and 50mm Summilux ASPH, and both were quite bad on the Sony cameras. By bad I mean sharp in the center, but with poor edge and corner performance even when stopped down past 5.6. The 75mm Summicron was also not great. The only lens that seemed to perform very well was the 135mm Tele-Elmar. I have not tried the Nikon or Canon mirrorless. I am pretty demanding of lens performance as I tend to print rather large, and I found that, at least with the Sony's, it was better for me to stick with the native lenses.

Hi There 

First of all, I quite agree with Stuart - even the longer focal length M lenses show smearing over quite a large proportion of the frame - especially for landscape (the rear element is closer to the sensor near infinity - and the angle of incidence greater). Most people test them at a couple of metres and think they're fine. The WATE actually does quite well (as do the wide angle Summilux lenses 21/24/28) but the 50 APO summicron for instance is quite bad and the 28 Summicron almost unusable. 

This really is down to the thickness of the coverglass and not much else (which is why the Kolari mod [adding thinner coverglass] works so well on the Sony A7 cameras) . There is an incentive for Sony / Fuji / Panasonic to have thicker coverglass - better for IR filtration and dust on the sensor doesn't show up so easily in images - and they don't care about M lenses . . . 

I've been trying to establish whether this is part of the L mount specification, and I don't think it is. I'm pretty sure that the coverglass on the S1 and S1r are thicker than that on the SL, and on that basis I would imagine that M lenses will not work so well on it. (also, they won't have vignetting correction, and they're very unlikely to read the 6 bit code in M lenses [I don't know this for a fact].

I'm trying to get hold of an S1 to test out these theories, but I haven't managed yet. What I expect to find is that the SL and TL lenses work really well immediately (right down to crop mode and linear focusing) but that M lenses won't do so well. 

[Stuart Richardson]

Thanks Jono! Of course, you are quite right to bring up the landscape issue. That is not something I thought of, but it is clearly at play in my work. And if of course makes it understandable how people who are doing portraiture or candids might not notice any issue (closer in and generally not so demanding on the edges and corners), while someone doing landscapes might be pulling their hair out. 

For all the talk of adapters, I am still happy to know that, should I desire to go down that road, I can still mount superb L mount Leica lenses on a top class video slr, which the S1 seems like it will be. I look even more forward to what Leica will give us with the SL2. 

[jonoslack]

10 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

Thanks Jono! Of course, you are quite right to bring up the landscape issue. That is not something I thought of, but it is clearly at play in my work. And if of course makes it understandable how people who are doing portraiture or candids might not notice any issue (closer in and generally not so demanding on the edges and corners), while someone doing landscapes might be pulling their hair out. 

For all the talk of adapters, I am still happy to know that, should I desire to go down that road, I can still mount superb L mount Leica lenses on a top class video slr, which the S1 seems like it will be. I look even more forward to what Leica will give us with the SL2. 

Hi Stuart

I hope you're flourishing - amazing how few people have thought about the infinity point.

I haven't done much serious testing with the Sony cameras, but I did some careful testing with the Fuji X-T2 and M lenses (with the official Fuji adapter). As you said - they would have been fine for portraiture / street / candids where the centre is the normal point. . . . but I was gobsmacked at how awful the images were away from the centre - really quite unusable with the 50 'lux and the smearing often reaching as much as 30% in from the side to the centre. I did the tests against a big hedge at about 20 metres. I didn't make a big deal of it at the time (if people are happy who am I to make them unhappy!). 

But I agree - the whole L mount thing is completely brilliant - it means there will be lots of lens options (especially for those occasionally used but useful lenses). 

[BernardC]

1 hour ago, jonoslack said:

I've been trying to establish whether this is part of the L mount specification, and I don't think it is.

It's inconceivable to think that the cover glass thickness is not part of the specification. Other than the mount register distance, it's the key optical specification. Can you imagine if Panasonic used one cover glass thickness (like the 4mm that is part of the 4/3 mount specification), and Leica used another, and Sigma a third? Nobody's lenses would work with other brand's bodies! Why have an "Alliance" at all if that's the case?

Leica know what they are doing. They did not somehow forget about that piece of glass in the optical path, right in front of the sensor! It affects all lenses, not just wide ones, and it will affect them more and more as sensor technology advances.

[jonoslack]

39 minutes ago, BernardC said:

It's inconceivable to think that the cover glass thickness is not part of the specification. Other than the mount register distance, it's the key optical specification. Can you imagine if Panasonic used one cover glass thickness (like the 4mm that is part of the 4/3 mount specification), and Leica used another, and Sigma a third? Nobody's lenses would work with other brand's bodies! Why have an "Alliance" at all if that's the case?

Leica know what they are doing. They did not somehow forget about that piece of glass in the optical path, right in front of the sensor! It affects all lenses, not just wide ones, and it will affect them more and more as sensor technology advances.

Actually Bernard - I'm 99% certain that they are using different thicknesses on the different cameras  - why wouldn't anyone's lenses work with the other brand's bodies?

The important issue is the distance between the mount and the sensor itself. Explain to me why it's the key optical specification?

Worth mentioning that different M models have different thickness of cover glass as well (some are 0.8mm some are 1mm).

The Kolari mod for Sony cameras involves a new and much thinner coverglass - that doesn't stop normal lenses working

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by jonoslack

[BernardC]

14 minutes ago, jonoslack said:

Explain to me why it's the key optical specification?

 

Because it's an optical element in the image path. It's taken into consideration when designing lenses, in the same way that lenses with built-in rear filter slots need a clear filter.

Even though it's flat, it's not at 90 degrees to light rays anywhere but in the center of the image, and it contributes roughly 1/3 of it's thickness to the back-focus distance (depending on the refractive index of the flat). Remember too that the thickness of glass that light goes through differs between center and corner.

If Leica let alliance partners choose their own  cover glass thickness, it would mean that effective backfocus would be different on each brand, some lenses wouldn't focus to infinity on some cameras, parfocal zooms would become varifocal, no lens could be optimally sharp in the center and edge on more than one brand... In other words, it would be a nightmare.

People can already see the effects of mis-matched cover thickness on a 24MP sensor. Imagine what it's like on a 47MP sensor, or a future 100MP sensor! As bad as it would be (and it would be bad), this issue would be amplified a hundred times in the Internet echo chamber.

There is absolutely no way that Leica (an optics company if there ever was one), Sigma (ditto), and Panasonic (who know all about this issue from the 4/3 consortium) negotiated a deal without anyone from the three companies realizing this. The whole concept of sharing a lens mount is moot if they don't share optical properties.

I guess we'll find-out very shortly if I am right. If Panasonic lenses aren't sharp on the SL, and Leica lenses aren't sharp on the S1/S1r, then it's probably because Panasonic specified a different sensor glass thickness, and the whole "L-Mount Alliance" will have been a short and soon-forgotten distraction.

[Nordvik]

https://wordpress.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/the-glass-in-the-path-sensor-stacks-and-adapted-lenses/

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/sensor-stack-thickness-when-does-it-matter/

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/07/sensor-stack-thickness-part-iii-the-summary/

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2015/01/a-thinner-sensor-stack/

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[jonoslack]

20 minutes ago, BernardC said:

I guess we'll find-out very shortly if I am right. If Panasonic lenses aren't sharp on the SL, and Leica lenses aren't sharp on the S1/S1r, then it's probably because Panasonic specified a different sensor glass thickness, and the whole "L-Mount Alliance" will have been a short and soon-forgotten distraction.

Thank you Nordvik for the links

This is measurements done by Lens Rentals of the differing cover glass thickness in different cameras from manufacturers

None of them is consistent, I rest my point.

 

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