Telephoto shooting

[George Stoichev]

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I have Leica M6 and live it.I use Summicron 50mm, but I realized that I’m attracted by Telephoto lens. A friend of mine gave me to try his Nikon FE2 with 200mm prime lens and I falL in love with the new possibility to catch portraits of people far from me. The. Nikon is very noisy and the lens are not what I like.

I know that Leica M rangefinders are limited to 135mm lens and if somebody need more has to use visoflex, which is not an option for me.

My question to all Telephoto lovers and lovers of Leica M (analog) cameras, how you satisfy your need to use Telephoto lens? For me 135mm is too short?

[jaeger]

Yeah , the compression of teles are nice.  
 

I personally don’t use anything longer than 50mm on RF cameras.  my Fuji & Nikon “efficiently” take good care if all portrait, tele & zoom.  
 

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by jaeger

[Kl@usW.]

For me buying an external viewfinder for the 135 brought  this FL back into my bag--it´s a completely different experience than shooting with  the ridiculous frame for 90 or 135 mm in the 0,72  viewfinder,  The often maligned focusing is no problem if you wear the correct glasses ( or don´t need to ). Give it a try---the "long" Fls are cheap out there, even an LTM Elmar or Hektor with an adapter will change your view. 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Kl@usW.

[George Stoichev]

The external viewfinder is not a problem, the problem is that 135mm is too short

[George Stoichev]

10 minutes ago, Kl@usW. said:

For me buying an external viewfinder for the 135 brought  this FL back into my bag--it´s a completely different experience than shooting with  the ridiculous frame for 90 or 135 mm in the 0,72  viewfinder,  The often maligned focusing is no problem if you wear the correct glasses ( or don´t need to ). Give it a try---the "long" Fls are cheap out there, even an LTM Elmar or Hektor with an adapter will change your view. 

I can’t find in Leic austria site what viewfinder I need for 135mm

[wda]

135mm would meet your need. You can treat the focusing patch, plus a little, as a good approximation of the field of view. If you find that you use a 135mm lens a lot, look out for an auxiliary viewfinder. 

[TomB_tx]

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I've used 90 & 135 lenses on my M4 & M6 without focusing or framing issues, and enjoy them for action, as you can see what is outside the frame. in fact, the 90 Tele Elmarit was teh first Leica lens I bought when I got my M4 in 1968. All the Leica 90s are good, and the 135 Tele-Elmars of any vintage are very good, and both can be reasonably priced on the used market. Don't worry about viewfinders, etc. until you try them as-is and fidn how they work for you.

I've also used a Leica 200mm on the old Visoflex III mirror housing with good results, but it is rather ungainly.

[Jeff S]

My M shooting has always been limited to 28-90mm, RF only.  The rest has been addressed by complementary systems, currently the SL2. Film days included various other systems/brands. Horses …

Jeff

[250swb]

Follow the lead of your friend and buy a Nikon. They make excellent lenses (in all focal lengths) and if you are 50 meters away your subject won't hear the shutter anyway. However making portraits of people without them knowing, well............

The other option would be to buy a digital M body (M240, M10, etc) with an LCD and use Live View. With an appropriate M-to-whatever adapter you will be able to mount almost any tele lens and focus it.

[a.noctilux]

I do agree that Leica M is not suitable for long lens use.

But ...

During decades, we (with my wife) used along Leica M AND R .

To give it short answer, but since many years we use only M system.

At first I used long Telyt-V with Visoflex III (6.8/400 and 560mm).

Then came Tele-Elmar 4/135mm period, nice for M periodic use with magnifier x1.25 or x1.4.

NOW, since many years, discovering the Elmarit 2.8/135mm (one of these) this is the lens we use the most with it's x1.5 optical attached and mostly

the 90mm frame (x1.5 roughtly "135"  framing accurate enough and easy focussing).

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by a.noctilux

[George Stoichev]

5 hours ago, a.noctilux said:

I do agree that Leica M is not suitable for long lens use.

But ...

During decades, we (with my wife) used along Leica M AND R .

To give it short answer, but since many years we use only M system.

At first I used long Telyt-V with Visoflex III (6.8/400 and 560mm).

Then came Tele-Elmar 4/135mm period, nice for M periodic use with magnifier x1.25 or x1.4.

NOW, since many years, discovering the Elmarit 2.8/135mm (one of these) this is the lens we use the most with it's x1.5 optical attached and mostly

the 90mm frame (x1.5 roughtly "135"  framing accurate enough and easy focussing).

 

Is this google of this model is suitable with M6?

[Jean-Michel]

Hi,

I have this lens (by the way, I think that all of these were made in Midland, Canada). It is an OK lens, quite heavy, but also quite useable. The ‘goggles’ enlarge the view so that the 135 field is shown In the 90 mm frame, the size of the rangefinder patch is similarly enlarged, making for an easier focusing. The lens works on all M cameras, and even on my SL2 with the M adapter. The optical quality of the lens is fine but does not match that of any of the other M lenses. I used so infrequently with my M cameras that I thought of selling it, but the generally low price for this lens meant that keeping it made more sense. I did use it with an EVF on the M-P on occasion. I now occasionally use it with my SL-2, even if the contraption looks a bit comical. I did use an old Canon FD 70-210 mm zoom with the M-P and EVF with good results. But, really, anything over 90 mm with an M is not for regular use. 
 

Note that the goggle view pretty much eliminates the outside of the frame view, so it is very different from the seeing outside of the frame of most of the other M lenses. 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Jean-Michel
Addition re viewer

[Kl@usW.]

Am 10.6.2022 um 22:50 schrieb George Stoichev:

I can’t find in Leic austria site what viewfinder I need for 135mm

There's is no current production of a 135 external finder since the M-bodies have a frame in their finder window. The search for:   "shooc leitz"  will get you to the 135 mm finders built for LTM  on the known auction site.  There are other finders for other focal lengths, but this is my recommendation for 135 mm. The "Universalsucher" VIOOH will be offered too, but it is a quite clumsy and less attractive option. Imho. 

A remark in general, all my personal opinion: The Leica, first the film and later the digital were constructed around the focal lengths of 50 and 35 mm. Here the construction shines--it is fast, elegant and allows for an intuitive, fluent style of snapping. The later additions for wide, tele and macro were constructed around  this core competence of the system. And it shows that these attempts to make the snap-shot camera fit for other fields were after-thoughts: these additions alway looked and more often than not  were complicated, clumsy and often less practical than the competitors options. Leitz-Leica, after the initial success of their snap-shot camera became a very, in my view too traditional company often clinging for too long to the old concepts... I'm talking of SLR for long lenses, TLR metering, AF and so on... They made the same mistakes as many other leading competitors in photographic and and other fields by thinking they were invincible and by this lost the pole position. 

Don't get me wrong: I love my Leicas ( and I have too many of them) but if you are looking for an effective, goal-oriented tool for anything longer than 90 mm or shorter than 21 you should look for a different solution ( As I can say from my own experience: Leica, Canon, Nikon and Hasselblad and their lenses don't bite each other lying on the shelf... ) 

K. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Kl@usW.