SL2 with M lenses, the pros and cons?

[eev776]

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Being an owner of 5 major M lenses I'm planning to purchase SL2.

What would be the pros and cons of using M lenses on SL2 body, share your experiences.

[MarkP]

You don't have to buy new lenses, but you do need the Leica M-L adapter.
No autofocus
Focusing off the sensor with focus assist increases focus accuracy with fast lenses wide open.
Very small, compact and low weight c/w SL lenses.
Overall excellent image quality with no degradation on the 47MP sensor. However, the far edges and corners smear a bit with wide angle M lenses

 

What do you mean by 'major' M lenses? 
I didn't know there were 'minor' ones 😉

Edited May 7, 2020 by MarkP

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[Fedro]

it works like a charm

[eev776]

23 hours ago, MarkP said:

You don't have to buy new lenses, but you do need the Leica M-L adapter.
No autofocus
Focusing off the sensor with focus assist increases focus accuracy with fast lenses wide open.
Very small, compact and low weight c/w SL lenses.
Overall excellent image quality with no degradation on the 47MP sensor. However, the far edges and corners smear a bit with wide angle M lenses

 

What do you mean by 'major' M lenses? 
I didn't know there were 'minor' ones 😉

I currently use, my M lenses with Leica CL with same adapter, works perfectly, very compact, can take it anytime with me.

I like opportunity to get 47MP sensor and full frame and get rid of my SONY a7RII.

*by major I mean bunch of Summilux and Summicrons, plus I have some cool R lenses like APO-Telyt 180mm, that will work perfectly with SL2.

[eev776]

21 hours ago, Fedro said:

it works like a charm

I wonder about it, because people tent to believe that SL2 is made for SL autofocus lenses. 

M is may favorite lenses they bring character and make you slow down and think.

[Fedro]

1 minute ago, eev776 said:

I wonder about it, because people tent to believe that SL2 is made for SL autofocus lenses. 

M is may favorite lenses they bring character and make you slow down and think.

there is an interesting conversation in the M Lenses area around next generation M lenses that covers partially how they work on the SL, have a look.

for all its limitations I prefer using the SL with the 75 Lux, SL lenses can look a little too perfect, but then again it depends on what you do with them

[SiggiGun]

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M lenses work fine on the SL2. Small and less have than SL lenses. So, I am using M Lenses on the SL2 when traveling (with MATE) or for special use Noctilux 75LUX etc.

[eev776]

Sounds like everyone is very happy, that's good!

[tom0511]

smaller than SL lenses, can be found used.

I regards of using them on the SL instead of an M-body: Better focus accurancy, specially for longer lenses. Also you get IBIS.

 

[Photoworks]

I think most people are using M lenses on SL camera in addition to SL lenses.

You don't have much of a choice when there are not some many alternatives on the market.

I enjoy using the Noctilux 0.95 and the 35 1.4 FLE on the SL2. This are two lenses that can not be replicated at this time with AF lenses.

The only issue I can find if you close down the F stop, It is hard to see when the real focus is. I tent to open and close F stop to focus, or shoot wide open.

I find the lens that challenges me most is the 90 mm Summicron-M Apo. Focusing with this lens is hard on M camera and on SL2. I think I will replace it with an AF SL 90mm lens

[Jeff S]

I use the SL lenses on the SL2.  In particular, the SL Summicrons are better performers, weather sealed (unlike the M lenses), use AF in addition to manual with focus aids, and balance well on the body.  I keep my M lenses (28/35/50) on my M bodies (M10, Monochrom v.1), where they work without issue using RF.  

Jeff

[scott kirkpatrick]

I agree, except that the M24, 21 and 18s are convenient and a lot lighter than the SL zooms that they overlap.  Larger apertures, too.  So if for some reason, 24 MPx is not enough, I go there.  But I use the SL's 35 and 50 primes now in preference to shooting those focal lengths with an M.

[bags27]

With wider M glass, there can be some smearing, though it would not stop me.

 

[ru2far2c]

I solely use M lenses with my SL I do not own any SL mount glass and am very happy with this setup.

[Jon Warwick]

I recently got the SL2, and use it with a M 75mm Summarit 2.4, which balances really well. Focusing is wonderfully accurate on the SL2 by being able to scroll around the frame when zoomed in.  I don’t see any smearing issues at the edges, but that is probably not surprising given it is typically more an issue with wide angle M lenses towards infinity. 
 

The key aspect I like about this M lens working well on the SL2 is maintaining the same lens ecosystem with my M7, and in the event I ever add to the M line via a Monochrom.

Regardless I do intend to get an SL Summicron at some stage, likely the 50mm ....those lenses balance even more perfectly, are optically superior (super high resolution but not fakely sharp) and I think the speed and high accuracy of autofocus will benefit things like portraits (in terms of being less posed and more spontaneous).

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by Jon Warwick

[eev776]

11 hours ago, Photoworks said:

I think most people are using M lenses on SL camera in addition to SL lenses.

You don't have much of a choice when there are not some many alternatives on the market.

I enjoy using the Noctilux 0.95 and the 35 1.4 FLE on the SL2. This are two lenses that can not be replicated at this time with AF lenses.

The only issue I can find if you close down the F stop, It is hard to see when the real focus is. I tent to open and close F stop to focus, or shoot wide open.

I find the lens that challenges me most is the 90 mm Summicron-M Apo. Focusing with this lens is hard on M camera and on SL2. I think I will replace it with an AF SL 90mm lens

I use APO-Summicron-M 90mm on my CL works pretty good. Love this lens, fantastic object separation, sharp.

[frame-it]

17 hours ago, Photoworks said:

I find the lens that challenges me most is the 90 mm Summicron-M Apo. Focusing with this lens is hard on M camera and on SL2.

really ?

[Stuart Richardson]

I have found that the smearing is certainly better on the SL2 than on non Leica cameras, such as the Panasonic S series or even worse, the Sony mirrorless cameras. That said, it is not fully mitigated. In most cases and most longer lenses, you will not notice it too badly. The 35mm Summilux FLE does pretty well, though it is a wider, but the smearing is quite noticeable wide open, and improves fairly rapidly. I have not tried the 50mm Summilux ASPH, as my one native SL lens is the 50mm Summicron, which is completely outstanding. I do not see harshness, only very high microcontrast. There are few if any veils between you and the image. This mean that your overall image workflow might need to pull back a bit on contrast or vibrance, and especially clarity. It's not the lens's fault that it is doing a better job at accurately projecting light on the sensor. If you use Lightroom, Adobe's default sharpening tends to be directed at cameras and lenses that are not as sharp as Leica's tend to be, so best to increase the masking substantially and lower the detail and radius sliders, and then choose a sharpness percentage from there.

The other M lens I tried on the SL2 (I have tested a bunch on the SL) was the 25mm Biogon ZM. That lens has tended to struggle on digital as it is fairly symmetrical. It showed quite pronounced smearing at 2.8 which did not really mitigate until f8 or f11. I think the general advice regarding M lenses on digital bodies still applies. They are best on M bodies and film. If you are not very concerned with edge to edge sharpness at wider apertures, then the wide angle lenses can be ok, but should be tested. If sharpness and image quality is the main concern, then you are likely to be happier with a native lens. It can also be hard to tell how much of the softness and weakness in the corners and edges is from the thickness of the cover glass, and how much is just inherent in the lens design, many of which are quite old and were made with film or lower resolution digital in mind. 47mp is a pretty tough test for any lens, let alone one that was designed in the 90s or early 2000s for slides and maybe a 10-18mp camera.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Stuart Richardson

[Stuart Richardson]

I am not sure if this will be helpful, but it is my general experience with a few of the lenses I have tried and how they fare on bodies with thicker cover glass. Please note, I am generally really picky, so some might be happy with a lens I have issues with, or it could just be my copy of the lens:

15mm Voigtlander Version 1 : Very badly. Lots of smearing and color vignetting

18mm Distagon ZM : Pretty poorly on adapted bodies. Usable on the M9, M10. Have not tried on the SL2. My guess is ok from 8 or 11. 

25mm Biogon ZM: Badly on adapted bodies, but usable for things like APS-C video. As described above for the SL2. Superb lens on film. Quite good on the M's Simply not designed for digital, but a really great lens optically.

28mm Summicron: Badly on the Sony. I sold it after that, so I cannot be sure, but my feeling is that it is has larger problems than the most recent M lenses. Brilliant on the M9 and M8 and of course film.

28mm Elmarit V3: Mine was better than the Summicron on the M9 and Sony. It is more retrofocal. Showing its age, however, on high resolution bodies. I have not tested with the SL2, but it did not seem to do as well on the M10 or S1, which I found a bit odd, as it is not that much higher in resolution than the M9.

35mm Summilux FLE: What I would consider the first M lens that is good on cameras with a bit thicker cover glass. It is still affected as compared to use on an M body, but I found it usable on the SL2 and S1 (especially when stopped down). It has some weird field curvature at times (so if you focus on infinity, the edges will be sharper closer to you than at infinity), but overall it is a great lens that handles well and takes pictures that you can't really complain about.

50mm Summilux ASPH. Oddly, this lens has more troubles than the 35mm FLE, despite being longer. I did not find it very good on the S1, and it was quite bad on the Sony cameras. This is why I bought the 50mm Summicron SL for the l mount, and I am very happy I did. I have not tried on the SL2, but I suspect the issue is the same. It is not that you cannot use it, it is just that its performance is substantially degraded. Use it on film or an M camera and you will see how much better it is in reality than it appears on these adapted bodies.

75mm Summicron ASPH. Like its close relative, the 50mm ASPH, its performance is somewhat degraded on adapted bodies for whatever reason. It is stunning on the M cameras, and while quite good and definitely usable on the adapated cameras, it is nowhere near its peak performance. 

75mm Summilux Strangely, it is optically better on adapted digital than the more modern Summicron. It functions like it does on M bodies...lots of aberrations and glow wide open, it improves rapidly after 2.5 and becomes very sharp at 4, 5.6 and above. Still a fantastic and versatile lens.

90mm APO Summicron. Very very good. I noticed high detail edged to edge wide open on the SL2, though there was some spherical aberration (so it looked slightly fuzzy/double image wide open, though the detail was sharp). It improved rapidly. Other than that caveat, this is a top class lens and performs admirably.

135mm Tele-Elmar M (E46 version). Still the best bargain I ever had. I got this lens in rough condition for 250 dollars in the early 2000s before the digital M's. It is still an extraordinarily good performer. It has no issues with any of the digital bodies and performed as well or better than most native lenses. It was my sharpest lens on the Sony A series cameras, and it is great on any camera. Pretty remarkable for a design as old as it is. Wide open it has a bit of spherical aberration and maybe some CA, but from 5.6 on it is basically perfect (from my recollection).

P.S. The reason I am so critical about this is that I live in Iceland and our landscapes are basically very wide open and far apart, so if you point a lens at a mountain and photograph, it becomes very obvious when the lenses have problems edge to edge. All the detail is at a very similar distance to the camera (300m, a kilometer, 30km? Usually a long way), so edge to edge sharpness issues are very obvious. If you live in forested land or in cities, this stuff is not so obvious. I also work as a printer so I often make large prints of my work in the course of my job as well as my artistic practice. Anyway, all this is relative, and someone doing portraits or street work might never notice any of these issues, in which case the M lenses become a superb choice given their small size, weight, high speed and center sharpness.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Stuart Richardson

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[chris_tribble]

Does anyone have experience of infinity focusing issues on the SL2?  I had a series of problems with the SL1 and lenses like the 28 Summicron Asph where it focused past infinity.  Same with the 50 summilux Asph.  If this wasn't an issue with the SL2 I might be tempted as it would make the 135 A-T a much more useful lens - also the 90 Macro with the adapter.  It works OK on the M10, but it's still a drag using the EVF.  An SL2 for when i needed longer lenses or high resolution (if it's ok with the WATE or the 28 cron) + the M10s for every day would be interesting.  I'd then stick with the M10's for a good long time as I still haven't found a reason for moving on from them - and I'm not sure how tempting an M11 would be...