Would you buy a Leica SL 300mm 2:8

[Simone_DF]

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21 hours ago, Jeffry Abt said:

Simone,

Care to say why?

It'd be too big, too heavy, too expensive for me. Besides, I rarely shot beyond 90mm, and for those cases the Panasonic 70-200 F4 + the 1.4x teleconverter is more than enough. I understand other people have different needs and are ready to sell a kidney for such a lens 🙂

[MediaFotografie]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Slender:

Sweet looking combo. Hiow is the power management?

thanks! No problems with power management with this Sigma lens (even without handgrip), really a good combo

 

[Jeffry Abt]

A 300mm f 4 would not be fast enough in my view—2:8 at least. The Leica 90-280mm zoom is not fast in the long end. The Floating ISO setting in the menu is an almost admission that it is too slow.
By the way I think SL2 is a fine camera. Delighted with it.

Edited January 20 by Jeffry Abt

[Stuart Richardson]

I would probably say no, unless it was reasonably priced and compact, which does not seem likely with Leica. I miss lenses like the 135mm Tele-Elmar M, which is small, extremely sharp and very usable. I would love just an AF version of the 135mm APO Telyt lens in SL mount...at the moment I use the wonderful 120mm APO for the S on the SL, but it is a big heavy lens, by comparison.

As for a 280-300mm f2.8 or f4, I could be tempted, but honestly I am leaning towards the 90-280mm zoom. I am not really a zoom guy by any definition, but for long telephotos, I can see the case for them, as you are often using these lenses when you cannot control the distance to your subject for whatever reason. This means that you either have to move, crop or zoom to properly compose the image. With shorter focal length lenses this is much easier to do, but with long telephotos I have found myself "stuck" much more often, and zooming with your feet might involve quite a hike, or more often, the longest focal length is just too close and you cannot back up enough or otherwise frame the shot with the longer length...you have a 300mm, but you really need a 220mm etc. So personally, I think this focal range is better suited to a zoom that will allow you to compose via the zoom, versus a fixed focal length. I can certainly see the merit of a prime focal length for people doing sports, events or wildlife photography, however.

By the way, I think one of the main reasons the older telephoto lenses were fast was less about people actually shooting wide open (which they of course could), but also because the faster aperture made the focusing screen a lot brighter and the shallower depth of field made it easier to quickly snap things into focus. With modern AF, this is no longer such a consideration in most cases. I think most photographers would rather have a sharp 300mm f4 that weighs 3kg than a sharp 300mm f2.8 that weighs 6kg...

 

Edited January 20 by Stuart Richardson

[dkCambridgeshire]

On 1/19/2022 at 3:12 PM, Jeffry Abt said:

Would you buy a Leica SL 300mm 2:8 Lens? I would.

Another armchair camera / lens designer wishful thinking proposition and very unlikely to be offered by Leica ... Leica rely on Sigma / Panasonic 'L' mount tele-zooms for anything in excess of 280mm ... potential Leica 300/2.8 sales unlikely to justify R&D costs. There is a market for Leica lens exotica up to 100mm ... but beyond 100mm the potential demand is too low. And a Leica 300/2.8 would also require matching 1.4x and 2x APO extenders ... more R&D costs.  

Edited January 20 by dkCambridgeshire

[Jeffry Abt]

31 minutes ago, dkCambridgeshire said:

Another armchair camera / lens designer wishful thinking proposition and very unlikely to be offered by Leica

I admit “wishful thinking”  But why would such a lens “require”extenders. …and how did you know that I was sitting in my armchair?😊

Edited January 20 by Jeffry Abt

[robb]

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The 90-280 f4 takes care of this focal length for me.

i would rather pick up a 400 or longer lens.  400 f4 or 500 f4, maybe 600 5.6…  but no real need for a 300 with their 90-280 already.

Robb

[Daniel C.1975]

I dare say that a 2.8 300 is not really in the target market of the SL lineup. There are more specialized brands with a way more sophisticated AF-System to use this kind of lenses. 

So, no, I would not buy such a lens. As for me it would be too seldom used for the assumed north of 8k price tag. 

I am with Rob here: A reasonable priced 400 f4 or f5.6, or an 500 f5.6 would be the better choice. But also unlikely to happen from Leica. Sigma and Panasonic will take care of this, plus in a, for the occasional use, more suitable price range. If long lenses for e.g. birding or sports would be my main focus, I wouldn't buy a Leica. Very simple.

 

Daniel

 

 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[Gavin Cato]

Side note, the 90-280 is absolutely stunning.

On orig topic, I've had canon 300 2.8's before and loved them, but my fave was really the canon 200/1.8 and 200/2 - That's where my interest lies.

If Leica made a fast 200 odd mm prime I'd be very tempted.

 

 

[Stuart Richardson]

6 hours ago, Gavin Cato said:

Side note, the 90-280 is absolutely stunning.

On orig topic, I've had canon 300 2.8's before and loved them, but my fave was really the canon 200/1.8 and 200/2 - That's where my interest lies.

If Leica made a fast 200 odd mm prime I'd be very tempted.

 

 

If you don't need AF, you have a great choice in the 180mm APO Elmarit R. That lens is extremely sharp and modern, and would not struggle at all on the SL2. I currently use the 180mm APO Elmar S...AF is slow, but reasonably accurate, and the lens is excellent. The biggest issue is that you need the expensive adapter. Of course, you could just get the EOS adapter and use the lenses you mention...

[Conrad69]

If Leica wants to distinguish itself, it should offer what the others don't have. Just like the 90-280/2.8-4 is the perfect average of a mainstream 70-200/2.8 and 100-400/4-5.6. The longer version of that would be something like a 135-500/2.8-4 with matched/built-in 1.4 TC. On the tele primes front, a 180/2.3 (wink to Angenieux) would be the ideal "average" of a 135/2 and a 200/2.8, while potentially being significantly smaller than a 200/2.0.

[Chun Chang]

On 1/22/2022 at 11:52 AM, Conrad69 said:

If Leica wants to distinguish itself, it should offer what the others don't have. Just like the 90-280/2.8-4 is the perfect average of a mainstream 70-200/2.8 and 100-400/4-5.6. The longer version of that would be something like a 135-500/2.8-4 with matched/built-in 1.4 TC. On the tele primes front, a 180/2.3 (wink to Angenieux) would be the ideal "average" of a 135/2 and a 200/2.8, while potentially being significantly smaller than a 200/2.0.

A 200/2.8 prime would be interesting for indoor sports and low light tele work.  The nearest is the Lumix 70-200/2.8

[RBB]

On 1/19/2022 at 4:12 PM, Jeffry Abt said:

Would you buy a Leica SL 300mm 2:8 Lens? I would.

properly not, the 90-280 is very good, very good.

[rtai]

My only tele is a 280/4 Apo Telyt R with the R/L adapter. It’s a nice lens but having autofocus would be so much nicer so the 90-280 zoom is on my list but I’ll need to sell the 280 first. A native mount 300/2.8 would be barely portable so probably not.

[caissa]

As said before a simple 2.8/280 from Leica is not very tempting and probably far too expensive.

There are nowadays better alternatives. Nikon has just offered a mirrorless 2.8/400 which weighs less than 3 kg (2950 g) and a 1.4 extender is already built-in.  This I would much prefer. It would really be great if Sigma could offer a similar AF lens for L-mount. I would prefer this very much over any old-fashioned offering without extender from Leica.

Let’s hope that Sigma also sees this as an attractive option. But usually they are very eager to offer the best combination for their customers. Hopefully their business is good enough, so that they can afford to offer such a demanding lens...

Edited January 25 by caissa

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[rtai]

I am willing to pay crazy money for Leica gear as long as I use it. If my photography requires a 300mm all the time then hell yeah.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[sarav]

Not a 300mm, but a 560mm, maybe 5.6, would be the first in the to-buy list