Thoughts on the Summarits focal lengths

[hankg]

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I'm as skeptical about FF-Mx as others above are about a nice 12 or 14 mm f2.0 lens. That's where my money will go. These guys know how to do this. Does anyone think they'd have trouble selling a $3,500-plus lens like this?

 

Your prayers are answered. To soften the blow of the new 14/2.0 price tag Leica is giving a voucher for 50% off a new Bentley. The lens comes with a new periscope viewfinder so the viewfinder view is unobstructed by the lenses 12 lb. front element.

 

You saw it here first:)

 

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[wparsonsgisnet]

I have ordered *t*w*o* of these. Thanks for the heads-up, Hank.

 

Regards to all from

 

Bill Parsons

President, Always-Have-Two-Club

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Sign me up but lets also remember this . On the R side there is a 15 2.8 that will rock your world and yes it is expensive and somewhat big. But made to a M mount that size would go down a lot. So it can be done with quality just shoot the 15 2.8 R lens and see what i mean. i had one at one time and it is awesome . Actully Woody bolts that on his M8 with a R to M adapter. I think there is a open pocket for many folks for a lens in this area. A 2.8 is fine

[luigi bertolotti]

Sign me up but lets also remember this . On the R side there is a 15 2.8 that will rock your world and yes it is expensive and somewhat big. But made to a M mount that size would go down a lot. So it can be done with quality just shoot the 15 2.8 R lens and see what i mean. i had one at one time and it is awesome . Actully Woody bolts that on his M8 with a R to M adapter. I think there is a open pocket for many folks for a lens in this area. A 2.8 is fine

 

Wow, I'd like a lot a picture of an M8 with adapter and the 15 2,8 for R !! Who is Woody and would he be so kind to post one ? (And a pair of pictures taken with it too....)

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Second image is with a Leica 15 2.8 R

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/landscape-travel/36990-yosemite-workshop.html

[carstenw]

Actully Woody bolts that on his M8 with a R to M adapter. I think there is a open pocket for many folks for a lens in this area.

 

I think there is a bleeding wallet in this for many folks!

[Guest guy_mancuso]

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Yes much easier to stab yourself and maybe less painful:D

[jrc]

Here's a shot of my driveway with a Nikon 12-24 f4 set at 12 with a Gandy adapter. Notice the vignetting -- that goes away ~14. The problem is, the distance settings on the Gandy and on the Nikon may not be exactly the same, so you have to fool around a lot. There's also camera workflow -- take off the lens cap (duh), set the distance on the Nikon, then on the adapter. Lots of possibility for error. If you cut the vignetting horizontally, though, you do get that wide landscape look...I have about this much patience (holds thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch apart) so it's not for me, really; other people maybe interested. Anybody want to see a 400mm?

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[garyvot]

I think the exorbitant cost of a 15 2.8 M would stem from full-frame design and relatively small production quantities (compared to Canon/Nikon). We've seen how much the Zeiss is.

 

Such a lens specific to the 1.33x format would be less costly to produce, smaller in size and weight, and require a less exotic design. (It's basically the equivalent of building a 20mm lens for full frrame.)

 

I'm sure there'd be a current market for such a lens, but the fact Leica appears uninterested in producing "digital-specific" lenses is an indicator that a full-frame M is the ultimate goal...

[carstenw]

There are two reasons for Leica to want FF eventually, that I can think of off the top of my head: large pixels, and the FF Leica lenses are the best there are, whereas there are some very decent crop lenses out there. Leica has every interest in keeping the gap between their lenses and other lenses as large as possible. Okay, three reasons: all the current lenses are full frame.

[gwelland]

Given the budgets and size of the markets supporting Canon & Nikon, and considering how long it's taken them to create 'full frame' DSLR's, it seems unlikely that Leica are going to be able to quickly overcome the physics issues, production issues and in the case of the M, image processing software to make up for the image distribution of WA lenses on the sensor plane.

 

I think there's a better chance that they'll be able to do something to produce an affordable WA lens than a FF M digital this decade.

[marknorton]

John. very interesting that the 12-24 works respectably well on an M8. It's a DX (= crop for non-Nikonites) but seems to do well with the slightly larger frame on the M8. I'm looking forward to trying the 14 f2.8 and the 28 f1.4, though I expect both will be difficult to work with.

 

And yes, I'd like to see the 400 on it, though how you focus, I have no idea!

[jrc]

John. very interesting that the 12-24 works respectably well on an M8. It's a DX (= crop for non-Nikonites) but seems to do well with the slightly larger frame on the M8. I'm looking forward to trying the 14 f2.8 and the 28 f1.4, though I expect both will be difficult to work with.

 

And yes, I'd like to see the 400 on it, though how you focus, I have no idea!

 

[scratches head.] I'll figure it out tomorrow -- but basically, I figure I'll just throw both the lens and the adapter to infinity. This won't work for bird-feeder-type photos, and I think there you'd probably just have to experiment. But for longer distance work, I'm just gonna slam both of them to the last stop...though I'm not sure what infinity means to Leica (or Nikon.) It might be futher away than is evident.

 

You may find there's too much friction between the Nikon and the adapter. I don't know what to do about that -- I'm just careful, and try not to twist too hard. It doesn't always feels like it seats completely. The Leica side works fine.

 

When you get your adapter, you'll notice that there's not a lot of space between the 30-foot mark and infinity. How you're suppose to parse that out, I'm not sure.

 

JC

[nryn]

I don't know, Gary. I don't necessarily see Leica's reluctance to produce digital-only lenses as concrete proof that the full-frame M is in the works or even on the roadmap. It may simply mean that they don't want to segregate their lens offerings.

 

One of the major selling points of the M8 was that just about every lens ever made for the M would work on it and that working with the M8 is just about identical to working with every M before it. This is perceived as tapping into a rich and diverse history of optics and cameras. I don't think they want to start forking those offerings now.

 

Anyway, only one way we'll find out, and until then, it's a 1.33 crop for me...