Does Anyone Remember the "Slip-grips"?

[leicar7]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

At the recent LHSA meeting in Wetzlar, the new president, John Hayden, had what I thought might be one of the more interesting suggestions for the R tele lens lineup - resurrect the slip-grip teles.

 

Most of us who used the SL and R cameras in the 1970s and 1980s probably had the 400/6.8 and a few owned the 560/6.8. These lenses, especially the 400/6.8, were universally favored for their light weight, very quick focus, and generally good performance. The 400/6.8 was actually quite portable. The 400/6.8 was designed for and widely used for sports and wildlife work, and David Douglas Duncan used it indoors to photograph politicians - even got a book out of it. The f/6.8 aperture was a bit deceiving, because the light transmittance was high enough that one could hand hold the 400/6.8 under many conditions with good results. Most of us shot these lenses wide open most of the time.

 

So, what do y'all think about John's idea for a slip-grip 400mm with updated optics? I'd very likely buy one. None of the modulars appeal to me: too large and heavy for anything but tripod use. A slip-grip 400 with the characterics of the old one would, I suspect, appeal to a much larger percentage of R users than does the modular system.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[andybarton]

As someone who bought a 560 f6.8 with this type of focussing arrangement only last week, I would say that it's an "interesting" concept.

 

Mine needs a bit of grease, as it's a little sticky, and you do need to have long arms to be able to hold and focus the thing at the same time, but given the travel of the element, I would imagine that it would be difficult to design a screw that would focus more quickly and easily than this "trombone" system.

[leicar7]

(Adapted from my comment on Andy's photographs on the "Nature and Wildlife" forum.)

 

For folks new to Leica R, the lens to which Andy refers is a vintage lens from the 1970s comprising an empty tube with camera mount to which can be attached either a small, light 400/6.8 lens head or the larger, longer 560/6.8 lens head. The glass in both lens heads was one group built from two cemented elements. That's it for optics. The aperture was stop down, but many of us shot most often at the full f/6.8 aperture. The 400/6.8 is useable handheld and was especially easy and quick to focus. Focusing was almost unique among lenses in that one moves the front of the lens head straight forward and backward in a fashion referred to as either "trombone" or, more commonly, "slip grip." These lenses were especially favored and highly regarded for years by Leica's early SL, SL2, and R users. The image results, while not up to today's stratospheric standards for long lenses, were very good; during the 1980s Kodak had a 20 ft x 30 ft back-lit image of impala in Kenya taken by Ernst Haas in Grand Central Station, New York for several years. Tell me it wasn't sharp enough! Most SL/SL2 users that I used to know had the 400 slip-grip. It was universally lauded, loved, and owned. Doug Herr uses it now. Many N users adapted the mount to work on their Fs, F2s, and F3s.

 

The 400/6.8 was created for use at an Olympics back than. For years, it was a sports photographer's dream to use. David Douglas Duncan used one hand held on an SL indoors with TriX to photograph politicians at a single event and published a famous book of those shots.

 

Given the handling characteristics and cost of the modular lenses, to say nothing of the probably very few sales, a few people are beginning to wonder if a new slip grip 400mm might be a good idea that would invigorate some sales at the long focal length end of R lenses. Such a lens with the handling characteristics of the slip-grip 400/6.8 would be very interesting to me. I don't do enough wild life work to justify investing in the modular lenses, and it was so portable that I carried it much more often than I do the 280/2.8 (first version), which has been my longest lens for now many years.

 

Many happy shots, Andy,

Tom Campbell