CL+Sigma 100-400 O.I.S.

[jaapv]

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I wish I had the lens back in my hand to try my own advice out  but it is flying in circles between nice but clueless. people at the camera store and obtuse Sigma operatives.

[HeinzX]

Lilium martagon - CL and Sigma 100-400 - uncropped.The lens cannor fully replace a macro lens, but in some cases it can and even more, if the distance to the subject is too far for the L Macro 60 mm or you do not want to have our own shadow on the subject. Unfortunately it is not possilble to use the Canon 180 mm Macro on the CL because it does not work with the adapters from Novoflex and Sigma. Leica should enable the CL to do this by a firmware update if possible. The SL and the SL 2 can be used in ths way.

 

 

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Edited August 9, 2020 by HeinzX

[geoffreyg]

4 hours ago, jaapv said:

One thing, according to a mail I got  from Sigma, AF lock will not work on the CL, so attempting to use half-press  may lead to unsharp results, i.e. the camera will refocus when recomposing. Multipoint focus and AFS might be the best setting.

AF lock seemed to work just fine with single point focus. 

Edited August 9, 2020 by geoffreyg

[jaapv]

That is not what Sigma says.. I would love to see them proven wrong. 

[geoffreyg]

Sent it back, but that was my recollection. Assume we’re talking about same thing: focus lock, hold ½ shutter and recompose without focus changing. 

Edited August 10, 2020 by geoffreyg

[bags27]

27 minutes ago, geoffreyg said:

Sent it back, but that was my recollection. Assume we’re talking about same thing: focus lock, hold ½ shutter and recompose without focus changing. 

I was able to do that.

[Boojay]

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12 hours ago, jaapv said:

That is not what Sigma says.. I would love to see them proven wrong. 

I am pretty sure they are referring to the AFL button (above the OS button) on the lens Jaapv, as in all cases when using the lens AF lock via the camera works just fine. 

[Boojay]

On 8/9/2020 at 1:23 PM, tritentrue said:

Same here with the CL, especially when I use the extender. No problems and excellent sharpness when I switch to manual focus, which would seem to exonerate OIS . . . 

Rob, different subject but just wondering if you tried the Panasonic extenders with the Sigma 100-400.  Seem to remember you had both the 1.4 and the x2. 

I saw a post on another forum saying that the Pan extenders worked with the Sigma tele.  Found it kind of surprising as usually with extenders, different manufacturers don't mix well.  

I have the 1.4 Pan extender (use with 70-200 f/4).  Anyway, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give it a whirl on the CL.  Seems to work just the same as the Sigma with one caveat so far, that is that the exif doesn't report correctly, or more to the point, CL doesn't see the stopping down of the lens from f/6.3 to f/9 with Pan extender mounted.  On the few shots I have tried so far, all else seems exactly the same - including image quality, af seems to lock on just as quickly.  

I will continue to just use the sigma extender, makes most sense, but be interested to know if you had tried and what your thoughts were.

 

 

[tritentrue]

Funny you should ask that, Jayne . . . 

Just yesterday I mounted the Sigma 1.4X on the Panasonic 70-200mm f/4 out of curiosity.  It works, but I didn't look to see what aperture was reported on the camera.

And now, after reading your post, I just tried the Panasonic 1.4X on the Sigma lens, with the same result you got:  f/5.0-6.3 with the teleconverter in use.

Having seen that quirky result in spite of the L-mount alliance's declaration of uniform standards, I am not feeling lucky enough to switch teleconverters in the field.  My enthusiasm for using the Lumix teleconverters waned a couple of weeks ago.  And the anomaly with the Sigma lens on the CL has me thinking of using it only on the SL.

Now I'm eyeing an R 180mm APO for use with the 2X APO extender on the CL.  For me it seems like an ongoing cycle of trying to adopt whatever the latest autofocus options are, only to retreat to the trusty manual focus R telephotos until the cycle starts again.  This Sigma lens has come as close as any lens has to interrupting the cycle.

Apologies if my thoughts turned out to be a bit long-winded . . . 🙃

[Boojay]

4 hours ago, tritentrue said:

Funny you should ask that, Jayne . . . 

Just yesterday I mounted the Sigma 1.4X on the Panasonic 70-200mm f/4 out of curiosity.  It works, but I didn't look to see what aperture was reported on the camera.

And now, after reading your post, I just tried the Panasonic 1.4X on the Sigma lens, with the same result you got:  f/5.0-6.3 with the teleconverter in use.

Having seen that quirky result in spite of the L-mount alliance's declaration of uniform standards, I am not feeling lucky enough to switch teleconverters in the field.  My enthusiasm for using the Lumix teleconverters waned a couple of weeks ago.  And the anomaly with the Sigma lens on the CL has me thinking of using it only on the SL.

Now I'm eyeing an R 180mm APO for use with the 2X APO extender on the CL.  For me it seems like an ongoing cycle of trying to adopt whatever the latest autofocus options are, only to retreat to the trusty manual focus R telephotos until the cycle starts again.  This Sigma lens has come as close as any lens has to interrupting the cycle.

Apologies if my thoughts turned out to be a bit long-winded . . . 🙃

Not long winded in any way, just so interesting to hear your thoughts and experiences.  

I think I am happy enough with results from the 100-400 on the CL, and glad to have an extender for the odd occasion.   I need to use it a whole lot more than I have on the SL2 before drawing any conclusions. 

I was just not expecting the Pan extender to work at all, maybe I wouldn't have bothered getting the sigma extender had I known, but I'll probably  just sell the Pan extender as I originally intended anyway.

You seem so comfortable with manual focus, and the R lenses are such great performers in the right hands (those being yours not mine😊),  it's good to have the Sigma in the mix anyway.  Now I'm wondering if anyone has tried either of these extenders on the Leica SL 90-280???  

 

 

 

 

[michali]

On 8/10/2020 at 8:38 PM, Boojay said:

...... Now I'm wondering if anyone has tried either of these extenders on the Leica SL 90-280???  

 

Jayne, the Panasonic extenders don't work on the SL 90-280mm, I can therefore assume that the Sigma extenders won't work either.

I found the SL 90-280mm too short for birding while out on safari. Hence the reason I purchased the outstanding Canon 400mm f4 USM ll which I use (plus extenders) with the Sigma MC-21 adapter on the SL2 and with a dumb adapter on the CL.

I've been following yours and Rob's discussions on the Sigma 100-400mm with great interest.  It would be great to have a super-tele in native L mount with decent IQ, I look forward to seeing more of your images with this lens on the SL2.

[Boojay]

55 minutes ago, michali said:

Jayne, the Panasonic extenders don't work on the SL 90-280mm, I can therefore assume that the Sigma extenders won't work either.

I found the SL 90-280mm too short for birding while out on safari. Hence the reason I purchased the outstanding Canon 400mm f4 USM ll which I use (plus extenders) with the Sigma MC-21 adapter on the SL2 and with a dumb adapter on the CL.

I've been following yours and Rob's discussions on the Sigma 100-400mm with great interest.  It would be great to have a super-tele in native L mount with decent IQ, I look forward to seeing more of your images with this lens on the SL2.

Thanks for the info Michali, seems such a shame that Leica have never introduced an extender.  The images you have posted here using the mentioned kit are pretty amazing, not sure we can try to compare with the cheap and cheerful Sigma but for many (like me) it will fit the bill and do a good enough job.  I need to get it off the CL and onto the SL2 to test further.

 

[Michael Markey]

On 8/11/2020 at 8:29 PM, michali said:

Hence the reason I purchased the outstanding Canon 400mm f4 USM ll which I use (plus extenders) with the Sigma MC-21 adapter on the SL2 and with a dumb adapter on the CL.

 

One of my favourite lenses .

I have the MRK 1 version .

In fact I`ve sold one copy years gone by and have now replaced it .

Not considered to be as good as the MRK 2 but I like it  .... interesting that it might be possible to use it on my CL.

[bags27]

In a moment of Covid-boredom I bought Topaz DeNoise and Sharpen, but really haven't bothered with them much. I decided today to do a severe (from 24 to 4 mps) crop of a photo taken with the 100-400 and run it through both programs. I am quite impressed with the results.

Here's the photo taken with the usual sharpening and noise suppression coming out of Camera Raw:

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Edited August 14, 2020 by bags27

[bags27]

with both Topaz programs. It takes a whole lot of computing power (and time) to run these. Unless you have a lot of memory, better close all other programs first.

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Edited August 14, 2020 by bags27

[bags27]

2 more cropped from 24 to under 3 mps. Differences are more subtle but, I think, more critical. I experimented by moving the slider all the way to 100%. No messing with fine tuning of pixel size and radius, worrying about over contrast, etc. just blast it and the AI keeps it from all the excesses; edges are excellent (though as I edit this, perhaps just a tad overly-sharp; maybe back off the 100?); bokeh maintained, at least to my eye.

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Topaz:

Edited August 14, 2020 by bags27

[michali]

21 hours ago, Michael Markey said:

One of my favourite lenses .

I have the MRK 1 version .

In fact I`ve sold one copy years gone by and have now replaced it .

Not considered to be as good as the MRK 2 but I like it  .... interesting that it might be possible to use it on my CL.

Michael - you can use it on the CL  with a dumb adapter. I converted my Novoflex adapter (which was about as useful as a paper weight, when compared to the MC-21 adapter on the SL2) by placing masking tape over the electrical contacts.  Operation is in full manual mode & wide open. Results are good.

See below-

 

[jaapv]

Finally in - and working Sigma solved a firmware mismatch - no idea what they did. Probably just reloaded it. I haven't got my TS111 tripod ring yet, so I adapted a TS31 with a few. layers of adhesive velvet. Works well enough.

 

 

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[Michael Markey]

12 hours ago, michali said:

Michael - you can use it on the CL  with a dumb adapter. I converted my Novoflex adapter (which was about as useful as a paper weight, when compared to the MC-21 adapter on the SL2) by placing masking tape over the electrical contacts.  Operation is in full manual mode & wide open. Results are good.

See below-

 

Thank you ..... on my agenda to try .

 

Edited August 14, 2020 by Michael Markey

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[LeicaS2]

Just got a 100-400 from Lensrental. 
The advice I got here was invaluable.

Rules:

1.Make sure your CL is running 3.2 firmware.

2. Set the electronic shutter to “Always On”.

3. Make sure you have set Image Stabilization on the lens itself regardless of what your camera menu screen says is happening.

4. If focusing at infinity, you can start with AF set on the lens, but once in approximate focus switch to MF on the lens. MF is grayed out on the camera menu screen setting so ignore it.

Any other rules?

Jack