helged Posted October 23, 2023 Share #1 Posted October 23, 2023 Advertisement (gone after registration) Hi folks! Just wondering, anyone knowing why Leica has had a tendency for making 180mm and 280mm FF/medium format lenses; not 200mm and 300mm lenses? Examples of the former that I have some experience with are SL90-280, R280f4APO and S180 (medium format); all brilliant... Yes, I see that there are some older Leica 200 and 300mm lenses around, but it appears that 180 and 280mm are among the Leica 'favourite' focal lengths... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 23, 2023 Posted October 23, 2023 Hi helged, Take a look here Why (predominantly) 180 and 280mm?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Simone_DF Posted October 23, 2023 Share #2 Posted October 23, 2023 I think that's because they can make them slightly smaller and lighter. Nikon (and Tamron too) has released a 70-180 f/2.8 which has a 67mm filter and 795g. Basically it's the same weight and filter size as a Leica APO, but longer. Look at the SL with an APO lens, the Nikon 70-180 and the SL with the Panasonic 70-200 f/2.8. The Panasonic is 1570g, twice the weight of the Nikon. Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/383375-why-predominantly-180-and-280mm/?do=findComment&comment=4881051'>More sharing options...
Patrick NL Posted October 23, 2023 Share #3 Posted October 23, 2023 This Nikkor is a Tamron build and rebranded. Nikon's own lens is a 70-200... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted October 23, 2023 Share #4 Posted October 23, 2023 2 hours ago, helged said: Hi folks! Just wondering, anyone knowing why Leica has had a tendency for making 180mm and 280mm FF/medium format lenses; not 200mm and 300mm lenses? Examples of the former that I have some experience with are SL90-280, R280f4APO and S180 (medium format); all brilliant... Yes, I see that there are some older Leica 200 and 300mm lenses around, but it appears that 180 and 280mm are among the Leica 'favourite' focal lengths... As a guess I would suspect that this is for historic reasons. In the past some longer, larger format lenses were used for smaller formats and it may well be that Leica liked these focal lengths from earlier days and has retained them in order to retain continuity and differentiate themselves from other makers. I think that other makers used to make some lenses of similar focal length (Nikon made a 180mm I think, and one was available for Alpa cameras, and I'm sure that there are other examples too). 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted October 23, 2023 Share #5 Posted October 23, 2023 (edited) If you search for 180mm lens on ebay you will find that there are a lot of examples including quite a number of medium format lenses, so its a commonly used focal length in both 35mm and medium format. 280mm is far less used and most hits I got were Leica or the 140-280 Schenider medium format lens, so its a bit of an odd one. Edited October 23, 2023 by pgk 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
masjah Posted October 23, 2023 Share #6 Posted October 23, 2023 Some at least of the numbers are nice round multiples of conventionally used f stop numbers, so it might in some way be related historically to having convenient numbers for the diameter of the lens elements (or more exactly the entrance pupil or whatever). Probably nonsensical speculation, but just a possibility. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Geschlecht Posted October 24, 2023 Share #7 Posted October 24, 2023 (edited) Advertisement (gone after registration) Hello Everybody, A "normal" focal length for a format of 24mm X 36mm is 43.26+mm. Which could be rounded to 45mm. Leitz chose to use a longer focal length of around 50mm (For whatever reason.) as their "normal" lens. A twice normal focal length lens (Using the rounded number.) would be 90mm. 45 X 2 = 90 This gives an image of 1/2 of the angle of coverage (Both in width & in height.) of a 45mm lens. Which would mean that the 90mm image would be 1/4 the area of the image from a 45mm lens. 1/2 X 1/2 = 1/4. A 180mm lens gives an area of coverage that is 1/2 the angle of coverage of a 90mm lens. Which means 1/4 the area of coverage of a 90mm lens. A 135mm lens gives an angle of coverage of 2/3 of the coverage of a 90mm lens. A 135mm lens creates an image which is 1.5X the image size of a 90mm lens. The system beginning at 200mm & above is based on the 200mm lens multiplied by the square root of 2. Which = 1.414+ This is rounded to = 1.4 200mm X 1.4 = 280mm A 280mm lens covers 1/2 of the area that a 200mm lens does. 280mm X 1.4 = 400mm A 400mm lens covers 1/2 of the area that a 280mm lens does. And, on to 560mm & 800mm. Each covering 1/2 of the area of the next smaller lens size. Just like stopping down a lens - 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8 Each smaller stop lets in 1/2 of the light of the next larger stop because it is closing the iris 1/2 of the square meters/square feet that it was before. Best Regards, Michael Edited October 24, 2023 by Michael Geschlecht 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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