Leica M Lenses on Other Cameras-Experiences?

[lct]

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[3D-Kraft.com]

I am using Leica, Viogtlander and Zeiss M-Mount lenses adapted to Sony A7-Series cameras since 2013. As already stated, focal lengths > 35mm will work well. WA and UWA cause edge smearing due to the thicker filter stack, as already mentioned and some also cause color-shift towards borders / edges. There is one positive exception: The "WATE" (Wide Angle Tri Elmar 16-18-21 mm).

Meanwhile, most of the M-lenses were sold, as there are significantly better choices from Sony, Sigma and others supporting Auto-Focus, better contrast / sharpness due to more modern designs, glasses and coatings on the higher priced samples. I expect a similar situation on Nikon Z.

Only a few M-mount lenses still stay in my cabinet due to their special character / rendering, like the Noctilux 75/1.25.

[Warton]

2 hours ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

I am using Leica, Viogtlander and Zeiss M-Mount lenses adapted to Sony A7-Series cameras since 2013. As already stated, focal lengths > 35mm will work well. WA and UWA cause edge smearing due to the thicker filter stack, as already mentioned and some also cause color-shift towards borders / edges. There is one positive exception: The "WATE" (Wide Angle Tri Elmar 16-18-21 mm).

Meanwhile, most of the M-lenses were sold, as there are significantly better choices from Sony, Sigma and others supporting Auto-Focus, better contrast / sharpness due to more modern designs, glasses and coatings on the higher priced samples. I expect a similar situation on Nikon Z.

Only a few M-mount lenses still stay in my cabinet due to their special character / rendering, like the Noctilux 75/1.25.

I just took out my summicron 28mm v2 and put it on Nikon zf with a dummy adapter. Weather is relatively good here, so I shot at f5.6, ISO100, shutter 1/250. I see sharp image corner to corner. Don’t know what is edge smearing you were talk about.

[Budfox]

Noctilux 50/0.95 is brilliant on the Zf (using Urth adapter). You need to set focal length manually in order for image stabilisation to kick in.

Edited April 15, 2024 by Budfox

[bocaburger]

Ik this thread is 10 mo's old but my empirical data is a follows:  Leica PRE-Asph Elmarit 21/2.8 e60 (final version Canada w pressbutton hood); Elmarit 28/2.8 iv (1993 e46), and 35mm Summicron iv "Bokeh King" all give equal corner performance @ infinity on my stock a7rii as on my M240...and that's comparing the 24mp M240 files to 42mp a7rii files! To clarify, wide open they are all soft in the corners at infinity on both cameras, sharpening up nicely by f/5.6 and tack-sharp at f/11.  Tbh I can't recall ever having shot any of these lenses wide open where corner sharpness at infinity at 100% magnification was crucial to the image.  In the case of the Sony, IBIS and high-ISO performance pretty much obviates the need to open it up wide for infinity shots.  Of course everyone's shooting needs vary.  Hope this bit of data helps some. 

[agfa100]

I started out with using my M lenses on a Ricoh GXR, then went to a Sony a7s and now I have a Sony a-9 and a Sigma fp. As long as I leave my 21 at home from 35 up they work fine for me the 28 is so so. M lenses on a Sony A-9 with the silent shutter and no blackout is a real joy plus the high iso is a real gem.

[paulleica]

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Newer Voigtländer and Leica lenses work very well on Fuji-X cameras. I cannot understand the criticism formulated in this thread. Fuji offers a special M adapter for a reason.

[pegelli]

23 minutes ago, paulleica said:

Newer Voigtländer and Leica lenses work very well on Fuji-X cameras. I cannot understand the criticism formulated in this thread. Fuji offers a special M adapter for a reason.

The OP was asking about experience on full frame, it's logical that APS-C (and MFT) camera's fare better since the worst outer areas/corners are not seen by the smaller sensor.

B.t.w. for my Summaron 35/2.8 the corners between my M240 and 246M are not different (or just as bad/smeared) as on my Sony A7ii. So to say you need a digital M for optimal performance seems to be a a myth for that lens, it really makes no difference.

I also have experience with a loaner Elmarit 28/2.8 ASPH on my A7ii and am happy to report it's sharp corner-to-corner. So the rule of thumb that smaller tan 35 mm is usually a problem also seems to have its exceptions.

Edited February 12 by pegelli

[mdarnton]

I bought a Nikon Z5 for my Leica lenses. It's working fine. The only odd one is the 21/4 Voigtlander which has reverse field curvature on that camera. . . which works great with most photos with a close central subject and far background.

[mikozia]

Here is my Noctilux-M 50/1.0 used on the tiny Lumix GM5:

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[bocaburger]

On 2/11/2025 at 7:58 PM, agfa100 said:

I started out with using my M lenses on a Ricoh GXR, then went to a Sony a7s and now I have a Sony a-9 and a Sigma fp. As long as I leave my 21 at home from 35 up they work fine for me the 28 is so so. M lenses on a Sony A-9 with the silent shutter and no blackout is a real joy plus the high iso is a real gem.

I found that my 21 Elmarit PRE-Asph e60 works equally well on my a7rii as on my M240.  When this lens was first released it was designed as more retrofocus than the Super-Angulon it replaced, in other words its rear element sits farther forward from the focal plane.  It was done because the SA's protruding rear element blocked the meter on the M6.  Fortutitously the change results in less steep angles of light rays, which is what causes corner "smearing".  OTOH my Voigtlander 21 f/4 has corner smearing on the a7rii so I find it sub-par.  That said I find it sub-par on the M240 as well (at least in color) due to Italian Flag--which ironically is absent on the a7rii thanks to the backlit sensor. 

As a side-note I used a 20mm f/4 AI-Nikkor (which was one of Galen Rowell's favorite lenses) for ages on Canon FF DSLR's and find it performs splendidly on the a7rii as well as the M240 (albeit it's not rangefinder coupled but for me that's a non-issue as I have always zone-focused it).

One thing I do wonder about is the amount of attention paid to corner performance on non-Leica bodies of these wide-angles at wide apertures focused at infinity.  Under what circumstance do people actually shoot them that way?  First, with IBIS and the high-ISO performance of even an old body like the a7rii it's hard to imagine under what daylight conditions one would not be able to use a high enough shutter speed to get a sharp handheld image of a distant landscape with the lens stopped down to f8 or f11.  At least I've never encountered such a situation.  1/30 (1x the focal length) at f/11 at ISO 100 is already 2 stops under Sunny Sixteen.   IBIS adds (conservatively) another 3 stops, and ISO 3200 (WAY below where the a7rii needs NR in post) adds another 5 stops for a total of TEN stops below Sunny Sixteen.  Furthermore the DOF of lenses 35 and under is so great that even being conservative and adding 1-2 stops to the DOF scale still permits sharp infinity when the lens is focused at a closer point--which has the effect of moving the rear element farther from the focal plane and therefore reducing the steepness of the angle of incidence of corner light rays upon the sensor. 

[BernardC]

39 minutes ago, bocaburger said:

I found that my 21 Elmarit PRE-Asph e60 works equally well on my a7rii as on my M240.

Strange, I find the opposite. That lens is unacceptably smeared in the corners on a Sigma fp (which has a Sony sensor with thinner cover glass), but it's sharp to the edge of the frame on various Leica bodies.

[bocaburger]

3 hours ago, BernardC said:

Strange, I find the opposite. That lens is unacceptably smeared in the corners on a Sigma fp (which has a Sony sensor with thinner cover glass), but it's sharp to the edge of the frame on various Leica bodies.

I've come to the conclusion that there is likely some sample variability between individual lenses (and cameras) that could account for much of the seemingly conflicting observations.  Lenses like the Elmarit e60 were made when production processes were controlled with somewhat less consistency than today.  Add to that the varied history of what each lens has been through in several decades of use.  When the Elmarit-ASPH came out I bought a "mint" one and tested it against the PRE-Asph as rigorously as one could do back then (examining Velvia slides with a loupe LOL!) and was underwhelmed by the fact the newer, much more costly lens did not "blow the PRE-Asph out of the water" as the "gurus" and form chatter asserted.  So I returned the ASPH and have kept the PRE- to this day.  Mabybe I got a dud ASPH, or maybe my PRE-Asph suffered some lucky confluence of factors that makes it an outlier of superior performance?  I have no way of knowing.  Perhaps also my a7rii (bought used and well-worn) likewise suffered a lucky confluence of factors.  I have not used any native E-mount lenses on it so I don't know either.  I'm pretty sure it's not had the Kolari thin-filter mod as the ootc jpeg colors are beautiful.    The corners are soft with this lens until f/5.6 on the M240 and a7rii.  As they have always been on film and the M9.  Better on the M8 and much better on the NEX-6 as one would imagine being 1.3 and 1.5 crop sensors respectively.  But at f8 and f/11 where I shoot the Elmarit on any shot I need sharp corners at infinity I don't see a significant difference between the a7rii and M240--and that's without downrezzing the Sony 42mp files to comparable with the 24mp files of the M240.  That said my typical kit with the a7rii is the 20/4 Nikkor, 35 Summicron-M v4, and 70-210/4 Vario-Elmar-R.  The 35 Cron iv performs superbly on the a7rii (despite I've read reports of others that theirs were unacceptible).  So much so that I frequently use it in conjunction with Clear Zoom as the world's only palm-sized 35-70 f/2 zoom.  At 70mm it's still a 21mp file.   

All that aside, my preferred camera for 90% of my travel photography is still the M240 with the 21, 35 and "thin" 90 T-E.  55 years with the M it's like an extension of my eyes and hands.  I never really warmed up to an SLR and mirrorless EVF's even less so. 

[lct]

19 hours ago, bocaburger said:

[...] I'm pretty sure it's not had the Kolari thin-filter mod as the ootc jpeg colors are beautiful [...]

Possibly the Kolari mod, at least in part. Mine produces some magenta cast generally but i have no experience with the Elmarit 21/2.8. Only Elmarit 21/2.8 asph, S-A 21/3.4 and SEM 21/3.4 besides non Leica lenses. Here S-A 21/3.4 on Kolari mod a7r2, ooc jpeg and converted raw. FWIW.

[IkarusJohn]

I’m sure @ktmrider2 has long made his decision by now, but for this Ducati rider 🙂 , I’ve tried Sonys and other cameras adapted with M lenses, and given up.  The M lenses I have all work well with my M cameras and my SL.

[bocaburger]

Actually I have the M-mount Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 V3 which was designed to be more telecentric than the earlier versions and solved the color cast issue on M digital bodies.  Apparently it also performed well enough on Sony FF bodies that Voigtlander eventually issued the identical optical design in native E-mount.  I hadn't given it much thought until this thread but I feel like it would be an excellent wide-angle complement to my kit of 35 Summicron V4 and 70-210 f/4 Vario-Elmar-R with the a7rii.  It would give me a much wider field of view than 20-21, and using the Clear Image Zoom feature it would cover 21 and 28 as well and still give me a file size quite close to that of my M240.  The only issue is it's slow at f/4.5 but at those focal lengths I rarely ever shoot wider than f/5.6 anyway and the Sony's high-ISO performance vs that of the M240 more than compensates.

Basically I bring this kit on trips where I expect to need the reach of the 70-210 a lot.  The IBIS in the a7rii means I don't need to carry and set up a tripod.  But being that it's a bulky heavy lens want to be able to cover the shorter focal lengths without increasing the overall weight of the kit.  So the Sony's handy in-camera crop-zoom feature coupled with its high-rez sensor lets me get the job done with just a couple tiny M-mount lenses.   On trips where 21-90 will cover it well (in fact I probably use the 35 for 90%) I will always prefer an M. 

Edited February 15 by bocaburger

[lct]

The tiny CV 15/4.5 v2 works well on BSI sensors, at least on the M11. I haven't tried it on the Kolari mod a7r2, but I see no reason why the v3 would be less performant.

[bocaburger]

5 hours ago, lct said:

The tiny CV 15/4.5 v2 works well on BSI sensors, at least on the M11. I haven't tried it on the Kolari mod a7r2, but I see no reason why the v3 would be less performant.

Interesting!  The reason I bought V3 is bc of color cast on M240.  I have V1 (used extensively on M8 and Nex-6), will have to try it on my stock a7rii and have a look at the corners. 

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[lct]

I would not expect sharp corners with the CV 15/4.5 v1 if your a7r2 is a stock one, due to the thickness of the sensor stack, but i did not try it in person so i may be totally wrong.