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APO-Vario-Elmar-T 55-135mm {merged}


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As a proud new owner of the CL with a 18mm lens and shortly to acquire a 23mm, I am disappointed that acquiring a 55-135 is so difficult.

There  is definitely  a shortage of supply in the market place and it seems Leica can’t satisfy demand.

My current camera is a Sony 7R mk2 with a range of Zeiss primes but for travel they are heavy. The CL is a delight and most of the time with the 18mm

can fit in the pocket. My plan is to fit the 55-135 into the other pocket if I can find one to buy. 

Hopefully the competition from Sigma will wake Leica up into realising they have a great product.

 

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This is well-discussed in other threads. Some keen members have found lenses, new or used, by dint of persistent searching on web-sites. Sigma might help when they start producing compatible lenses. But the subject lens is highly popular, for good reasons. Keep up your searching and you will find one.

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You gotta call around and ask to be notified when one is available. Not know where you are located, they seem to be more available in Europe than the US. I got mine from ebay simply by checking every day or I believe you can do a search, save it and be notified when anything new shows up. FWIW

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🤸‍♂️Just brought one home. Ken Hansen has been looking for me to no avail.I believed that I'd called every Leica dealer in the US. This morning I saw that New York Photo and Video (only a 12 mile drive from my house) was a Leica dealer. I called and, amazingly, they had one. It's been in stock for months. Just lucky. 

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2 hours ago, Malcolmp said:

Thanks for all the helpful comments.

I acquired the lens this morning from the Manchester Leica Store.

Hopefully will arrive tomorrow and I can get out and try it.

 

I bought 23mm, 18-56mm and 35mm TL all second hand from them, plus lately a Leica TL2 (second hand). Every item comes and I unpackage as if they are genuinely new items, plus they give you their provenance. 

 

 

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As an owner of one of these lenses, and pondering owning the other , it fascinates me the forum talk that comes out as to why people have trouble acquiring them. My official Leica dealer maintains a steady supply of them, albeit they told me last Summer , at the factory they use some very old machine tools and vital parts broke on them that made items on both lenses-catastrophy ! But this statement conflicts with forum talk stating TL lenses are made in Japan !! No wonder Forums can cause retailers to suck air in through their teeth . 

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25 minutes ago, stevegaskin said:

Who is your local dealer Petercoll?

They are Leica Store Manchester, (not my ‘local’ dealer) , and further to the above, all but the 35mm and 60mm are made in Japan , but with Leica machinery and Leica engineers on hand in their manufacture. Another interesting fact is some of the people at the Portuguese factory have worked there longer than any staff in Germany. Leica store Manchester at present have all TL lenses available for sale.

Edited by Petercoll
Added (not my ‘local’ dealer)
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Not the 11-23.....

i have not found a Leica store that even has a demo model and certainly two weeks ago when I was in  Leica Mayfair they said they had not had one for months and didn’t have any delivery scheduled. 

Edited by NigelG
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2 hours ago, Petercoll said:

As an owner of one of these lenses, and pondering owning the other , it fascinates me the forum talk that comes out as to why people have trouble acquiring them. My official Leica dealer maintains a steady supply of them, albeit they told me last Summer , at the factory they use some very old machine tools and vital parts broke on them that made items on both lenses-catastrophy ! But this statement conflicts with forum talk stating TL lenses are made in Japan !! No wonder Forums can cause retailers to suck air in through their teeth . 

Strange - my TL lenses have written "made in Japan" on them...:rolleyes:

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10 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Strange - my TL lenses have written "made in Japan" on them...:rolleyes:

I wrote the post a little prematurely . It is interesting though albeit made in Japan, their equipment can be old enough to break down. I have my late Father’s R 50mm made in Canada ( manufactured there for tax reasons apparently). My information comes from Leica Store Manchester. They had the full range of TL lenses to sell today. My last purchase from them was a TL2 and 35 TL 1.4 , both second hand, but the colour palette of the TL2 is a little too vibrant for me so a CL will be replacing it shortly. Thanks for the correction.

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41 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Since I have them to hand in my current café........ 

The 60 is made in Germany, and my 11-23 is made in Japan. 

I am interested in a TL 60f2.8 Macro, did you say it is made in Germany?  Good to know...  How do you like your 60?  

I thought if I'd have two native CL lenses, it could be the 23mm/f2 and a 60mm/f2.8, to cover the 35mm & 90mm range... 

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60 is an excellent lens for Macro but also renders very nice bokeh so it also works great for portrait. On the other hand its not really much faster than the 55135 which offers a more   

flexible focal length range and renders good as well.

On the TL/TL2 the focus spee of the 60 can be a little slow, on the cl it seems snappier.

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It is quite fast. 

Slowest TL lens : APO-Macro-Elmarit-TL 60mm

Fastest TL lens : Elmarit-TL 18mm 

others TL lenses fall in between 😜

 

Every TL lenses are much faster with CL than with TL2. And of course way faster than T/TL

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  • jaapv changed the title to APO-Vario-Elmar-T 55-135mm {merged}

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