Sharp manual 3rd party primes for L Mount

[Stefano1]

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My first post as a happy new member of this Leica Forum!

 I would like to pick the knowledgeable members of this forum on which 3rd party L mount manual lenses would they recommend. 12mm to 28mm, 50mm and 75-90mm.  f2 or less and when stopped down to f2.8 or f3,  are sharp across the field entire field of view. 

I am a deep sky Astrophotographer and Landscape Astrophotographer and I intend to push the Leica TL2 with 3rd party lenses to see how well it performs under my Bortle 2 Arizona dark skies.

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[jaapv]

https://l-mount.com/en/lenses

And on adapters just about any lens with manual aperture that exists...

[Stuart Richardson]

The Voigtlander 50mm APO Lanthar and 35mm APO Lanthar are probably the cheapest manual focus super sharp primes that I am aware of. Few lenses give you so much sharpness for such a low price, certainly in the normal range. They can probably also provide your best bet for the other focal lengths as well. If you are willing to add AF, Sigma has a whole slew of very sharp lenses for L mount.

[RM8]

Pardon my ignorance. What are the main challenges for a lens/camera to be used in Landscape Photoastronomy

[tommonego@gmail.com]

Are you are looking for wide fast lenses? The TL has an APS-C sensor so any lens would have a 1.5 which limits choices. While I think the 11-23 TL is one of the best wide angle lenses I have used, it is not a prime and is slow. Sigma makes a 14mm f1.8, 16mm f1.4, and a 20mm f2, though I have no experience with them Sigma has been making quite good lenses. Voigtlander has 10, 12 and 15mm lenses but they are slow, they do have a couple of fast 21mm lenses, they do vignette on full frame wide open but maybe OK on APS-C, these are Leica M mount so you would need an adapter. Panasonic has an 18mm f1.8 in L mount, or look into Lowa lenses. 

Edited June 17, 2024 by tommonego@gmail.com