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35-70/4 vs 28-90/2.8-4...any opinions?

james.liam

By james.liam
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spydrxx

spydrxx

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It was a looong time ago, I had the 35-70/4 on my R8. I didn't find it spectacular and sold it. My recollection from those years ago was that Doug Herr and others thought very highly of the 90/2.9-4, but it was much more expensive and harder to find.

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farnz

farnz

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The 28-90/2.8-4.5 Vario-Elmarit-R asph is often regarded as the best zoom lens made for the R line and even Puts maintains that it outperforms Leica R primes at the same focal length.  The 35-70/4 is also an excellent lens and more compact and less expensive than the 28-90 but of course offers less reach at both ends of the focal length range although offering the macro setting.

Pete.

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Keith (M)

Keith (M)

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46 minutes ago, farnz said:

The 28-90/2.8-4.5 Vario-Elmarit-R asph is often regarded as the best zoom lens made for the R line and even Puts maintains that it outperforms Leica R primes at the same focal length.  The 35-70/4 is also an excellent lens and more compact and less expensive than the 28-90 but of course offers less reach at both ends of the focal length range although offering the macro setting.

Pete.

I think you will find that that accolade belongs to the 21-35mm, Pete.  Erwin Puts dedicates four pages of his Leica Compendium to it.  As regards the 35-70mm f4, this is a Solms design, built in Japan as opposed to the earlier 35-70mm f3.5 Minolta design.  As regards the OP's question, what are the needs and purposes? Big difference between 28-90 and 35-70mm.

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Leicaiste

Leicaiste

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1 hour ago, earleygallery said:

The 35-70 (Kyocera lens) is a better overall performer than the (Sigma) 28-90 but whether you’d notice any difference is another thing and of course you have a wider range with the 28-90, but a constant aperture with the 35-70.

 

The 28-90 was made by Leica. 

It was the 28-70 which was made by Sigma. 

Edited by Leicaiste
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farnz

farnz

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6 minutes ago, Keith (M) said:

I think you will find that that accolade belongs to the 21-35mm, Pete.  Erwin Puts dedicates four pages of his Leica Compendium to it.  As regards the 35-70mm f4, this is a Solms design, built in Japan as opposed to the earlier 35-70mm f3.5 Minolta design.  As regards the OP's question, what are the needs and purposes? Big difference between 28-90 and 35-70mm.

I agree that the 21-35 is also an excellent lens (purely going by pictures and others' reports since I haven't owned one) although it doesn't have the accolade all to itself.  I mentioned it here because the OP is interested in the 35-70/4 and 28-90 but didn't mention the 21-35.  "Which" is the 'best' zoom is of course entirely subjective and I have no desire to start an argument - perhaps suffice to say that both are excellent lenses.

Pete.  

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Leicaiste

Leicaiste

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3 hours ago, james.liam said:

Considering one or the other. Image quality is paramount. Using it on an R8

The 28-90 is the best one and the most useful. 
 

The only problem on a R8/R9 is the widest aperture of f4,5 at 90mm which make it a bit difficult to focus. The viewfinder was darkening with the aperture. 
 

Problem that doesn’t exist on the digital SL/SL2. 

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james.liam

james.liam

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I considered the 21-35 but it's hard to find. The 28-70, I was told, is nothing exceptional. 

The 28-90 interested me because of the range but is also uncommon; is is a Sigma lens or Leica? The dim view through an OVF for @ 90 is unappealing.

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Leicaiste

Leicaiste

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10 minutes ago, james.liam said:

 

The 28-90 interested me because of the range but is also uncommon; is is a Sigma lens or Leica? The dim view through an OVF for @ 90 is unappealing.

The 28-90 is 100% a Leica lens. The only R Trans standard Vario being so together with the 35-70/2,8. 

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masjah

masjah

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The 28-90 is a Leica lens both in design and manufacture (and I think the very last new lens design for the R system). Personally I did not find the aperture a problem at the long end of the focal length range. It is a very fine performer, and my travel lens of choice. It's not cheap though.

The 21-35 wide angle zoom is also excellent, and a recent design; it is not hard to find  - Red Dot have three at the moment.

  

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atournas

atournas

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The 28-90 is an outstanding lens, performing like a prime one even at 28mm. I used to have it for years, on R7 and R6.2, and it was stupid---stupid!--- of me to sell it. I guess the expected profit blinded me, for I had bought it in mint condition for 1200 euros (!) from someone who apparently did not know about Leica lenses and eventually sold it for 2800 euros. I really miss it.

Edited by atournas
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JonPB

JonPB

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I'm going to rant a little bit here because I'm in the holiday spirit. Much of the following is probably unsubstantiated nonsense. You have been warned. And: happy new year!

I haven't used the 28-90. My impression, though, is that it was meant to replace the 35-70/4 as the general-purpose R lens. It isn't better in every single way, but generally better enough to be preferred despite the wider range.

I have used the 35-70/4 and 28-70/3.5-4.5 (later, Kyocera version). The 35-70/4 is one of my never-sell lenses. It does not compare well with modern optics in terms of resolution or contrast, but does better than most any 1980's prime which is good enough for my purposes. On film, I'm not sure one wants a much better lens than this unless using unusually high resolution film; even if the 28-90 is higher contrast, I'm not sure I'd want that as it would start pushing something in most every scene into a non-linear shoulder of film's dynamic range, making it harder to manipulate as a print or digital file. The thing about the 35-70/4 , even on digital, is that it fails beautifully: I've never seen it do anything offensive. It also has a bit of the glow of the 21mm and 24mm Elmarit-M Asph. lenses. I can't think of another lens that I trust as much as the 35-70/4 to deliver the goods when I don't know what I'll be hunting when I mount the lens on the camera. (Reading that, it is a hell of a statement, so let me qualify: this is among manual lenses. The automatic lenses I've used, including "professional" tools, strike me as fragile in comparison but that's an untested, superficial judgment. But, yes, if I didn't know what I'd encounter, I'd prefer my 35-70/4 over my 35/1.4 FLE.)

The 28-70/3.5-4.5, since it was mentioned, is not worth considering if you're after image quality. The handling is nearly identical to the 35-70/4, which is to say excellent. The shell is the same as the 35-70/4, meaning that it might adapt well for cine work, variable aperture to the contrary. But this is the best I can say for it: I'm happy to keep mine around for shooting in conditions when I might well destroy the lens trying to get a shot that might not be worthwhile in the first place. It isn't a bad lens and is better than its reputation -- the largest problem is lateral chromatic aberration, which is easy to fix even with scanned film; next up, barrel distortion makes anything below 35mm unwise in any architectural scene  -- but with the 35-70/4 as "cheap" as it is, you'd have to want something very specific to choose this instead of an, e.g., Minolta or Pentax equivalent.

The 21-35, by the way, does appear excellent, but it also presents a large number of issues on digital with steep ray angles. It did well on my M9, better than my Sony A7II, but testing it extensively would require precise scale focusing, and that's prohibitively difficult for me. (I've often considered buying a pre-M rangefinder, e.g. FODIS, to allow me to use that combination effectively.) I look forward to someday using this lens on an SL, and it was superb on my R7 (although comparisons there are much harder to make).

Hope your R8 is keeping you good company. My R7 ran away to a family member a few years ago and hasn't called or sent a postcard since.

Cheers,

Jon

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jaapv

jaapv

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On 12/14/2019 at 10:03 PM, farnz said:

Yes the 28-90 easily outperforms the 28-70 - I wondered if you were thinking of the 28-70.

Pete.

You are right, a bit ;) , but I had the 28-70 in the past and found that the lens is not half as bad as the blogs and forums make out.

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