Using Leica Lenses With the Sony Alpha 7, Alpha 7R

When Sony announced the full-frame Alpha 7 and 7R, it touted them as the first full-frame mirrorless cameras on the market. That's not entirely true, as the Leica M (Typ 240)($4,799.99 at Amazon) fits the bill as well. Sony has amended its PR claims to position them as the first full-frame mirrorless with autofocus, which is accurate.

But the Leica M sells for close to $7,000, and has been on backorder since its announcement more than a year ago. It's a premium camera with a full-frame 24-megapixel image sensor, no optical low-pass filter, support for Live View and an add-on EVF, and an optical finder with a mechanically coupled rangefinder. It can mount Leica M rangefinder lenses, but also supports pretty much any 35mm SLR lens (or medium format lens, if you want to get crazy) via a mechanical adapter.

The new Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras have an even shorter distance between the lens mount and image sensor than the Leica M, so they can mount rangefinder lenses as well as SLR lenses via adapters. This is old news to many NEX owners, who had previously used M-mount lenses on APS-C cameras. But the Alpha 7 and 7R are full-frame, so there's no crop factor; the 50mm Summilux-M f/1.4 ASPH.($4,495.00 at Leica) captures the same field of view on these digital cameras as it does on film.

In the past, Leica shooters who wanted a full-frame digital platform for M-mount lenses have been left with one choice: Leica cameras. If you love an optical finder, that's still your option, but if you're a happy to use an EVF, you can save a few thousand dollars by opting for one of the Sony cameras.

I've got a lot of experience shooting with Leica cameras and lenses. I started with the M8 and a 35mm Summilux ASPH., supplemented that with a Panasonic G2 and later a Sony Alpha NEX-5N( at Amazon), before moving to the full-frame Leica M. I've got some personal interest in the new Sony cameras: If I discovered that I'd be happy with one of them as my primary digital camera, I could certainly reduce the amount of money I have tied up in photo equipment.

I spent the better part of last week shooting with the Alpha 7 and 7R and was able to give them a workout with a number of Leica lenses, plus a Pentax lens that has a special place in my heart. There are some key differences in using either Alpha with M-mount lenses when compared with an rangefinder camera. The most obvious is the viewfinder. With a Leica M camera you look through a bright optical finder with a fixed field of view. Bright frame lines show you the approximate field of view of the attached lens, and you focus by lining up a double image in the center of the viewfinder. Because you're looking through a fixed optical finder, there's no way to gauge how shallow your depth of field will be for a particular shot; you'll have to rely on experience and the depth of field scale that's printed on the lens barrel.

With the Alpha you've got an EVF. It's an OLED design with a 2,500k-dot resolution. It's pretty much the same as the EVF built into the Sony Alpha NEX-7( at Amazon), but Sony states that optics have been improved to improve the user experience. I wasn't able to perform a side-by-side comparison, but the EVF looked great to my eye. Because you're looking through the lens, framing is precise and you get a real-time preview of the depth of field as your adjust the aperture ring.

Continue Reading: Peaking and Magnification>

Peaking and Magnification

I used it extensively over the course of a few days without noticing any eye strain. The image displayed is quite sharp, but when you're focusing an f/1.4 lens on a full-frame camera, a little extra help is required to nail focus. The Alphas provide it in a couple of ways. The first is focus peaking, which highlights in-focus areas of your frame in red, yellow, or white. It works best with modern lenses that tend to show higher contrast.

Peaking is helpful, but when working with really narrow depth of field it can fall short, even when its sensitivity is turned down. This is where the second focusing aid, magnification, comes in. Tapping the C1 button on the top plate brings up an orange box in the EVF (or on the tilting rear display, if you are using that for framing). You can move it around using the rear directional pad to the area of the frame on which you want to focus, and then tap it again to magnify the box to occupy the entirety of the EVF or rear LCD. Here you can really, really hit focus.

But it's a slow process, even when you've got a lot of practice. Stopping down your lens a bit will allow you to get in-focus results via peaking alone, but magnification is key when shooting wide open. I've found that I can focus much more quickly and accurately with the rangefinder in a camera like the Leica M or M Monochrom( at Amazon). The rangefinder might not get me images as sharply in focus as with the Alpha's EVF when confirmed with magnification, but I get consistently better results with the optical finder than I do with peaking alone.

The Leica M also supports Live View—via the rear LCD or an add-on EVF. Its LCD EVF isn't as sharp as the Sony models, however. It does support peaking and focus magnification, although the M is is limited to magnifying only the center portion of the frame. You'll be able to frame precisely and preview depth of field in real time using this focusing method, but the EVF is not the equal of Sony's. It's an LCD design with an 1,440k-dot resolution. There's some hope for improvement; the Leica EVF is the same unit as the Olympus VF-2. If Leica opts at some future date to market its own version of the excellent Olympus VF-4( at Amazon), that bigger, sharper finder will go a long way to improve through-the lens focusing. But it's not clear if the M's image processor is powerful enough to output the high-res feed that's required to drive the VF-4, and the only way we'll find out is if Leica brings its own version to market.

Like the Alpha cameras, the M can use 35mm SLR lenses via simple adapters. This gives you access to a vast array of manual focus glass. Some lenses from orphaned 35mm systems, like FD mount that Canon used in its manual focus SLRs, can be found at incredibly attractive prices on the used market. And adapters, which are essentially extension tubes that produce the correct distance between the lens mount and image sensor, are equally affordable, generally selling for around $20.

When looking for a platform for non-rangefinder lenses, either Sony camera is clearly the better option. I shot a fair number of images using the 7R and the Pentax 31mm f/1.8($1,096.99 at Amazon) lens. It's one of my favorites, and APS-C Pentax D-SLRs simply can't take advantage of its wide-angle field of view. It's larger than the Leica Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 ASPH., but it's a better performer with a wider aperture and the ability to focus a bit closer.Speaking of close focus, that's one thing that rangefinder lenses have typically not done. Most modern Leica glass focuses to 0.7 meters, although some Voigtlander and Zeiss lenses will work to 0.5-meter. The optical viewfinder in the Leica M is limited to 0.7-meter focus, however, so to work closer you'll need to switch to Live View.

Continue Reading: Close Focus and Ultra-Wide Angles>

Close Focus and Ultra-Wide Angles

There's an innovative adapter to mount M lenses to NEX cameras, the Hawk's Factory Macro Tube Helicoid adapter. It's pricey (around $180) and only available to purchase from Hong Kong via eBay, but it's well built and it lets you focus closer with a rangefinder lens. Twisting the adapter moves the lens a bit further from the focal plane, which sacrifices the ability to focus to infinity, but lets you move in a bit closer to your subject. Just how close you get depends on the focal length of the lens—wide-angles show a more dramatic effect than standard-angle and telephoto lenses. But it's an incredibly useful tool for anyone who uses M-mount lenses with an E-mount camera.

If you want to achieve a similar effect using the Leica M you'll have to invest in an extension tube. It's not as practical, as you have to remove the tube when going from macro to standard focusing distances. And Leica doesn't currently have one in production; the 10mm OUFRO tube can be found on the secondary market, but it's selling for a premium price. There's a third-party reproduction available; early versions were too snug to fit the M Typ 240 due to chrome plating, but that issue has been rectified with later production runs.

Ultra-wide-angle lenses can also be an issue. Some lenses of this type can display a color shift in the corners when mounted on digital cameras. I had one of these, the thread mount version of the Voigtlander Super-Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5, on hand and ran a quick comparison shot with the Leica M, Alpha 7, and Alpha 7R. Both the M and the 7R showed magenta color in the corners where there should be none, but the 24-megapixel Alpha 7 didn't exhibit shift. The Leica M has an internal correction database for wide-angles like this lens, but as it's not a Leica lens, the Voigtlander isn't covered. The behavior of of the 7 and 7R matches the behavior of the APS-C NEX-5N and NEX-7, respectively. The NEX-5N handled wide-angle lenses like this without issues, but the NEX-7 showed color shift in the corners. Both of those cameras had offset micro lenses on the sensor to help improve light gathering at the edges of the frame, just like the 7 and 7R does. Many speculated that the higher pixel density of the NEX-7 caused the color shift, and it appears as if the same thing is happening with the 36-megapixel Alpha 7R.

If you're not married to rangefinder focusing, the Alpha 7 and 7R are solid, affordable alternatives to a high-end Leica body. If you are an infrequent ultra-wide angle shooter, I recommend the higher-resolution 7R to get the most out of the German glass. If you do love the idea of the optical finder, you may want to consider one of the Alphas as a backup body, or as a supplementary body to an M8 or M9( at Amazon). M Monochrom owners who want to have the option to shoot in color should also consider one of these bodies as an addition to the gear bag. I still don't think that the EVF can replace the optical rangefinder for the way that I work, but not every photographer works in the same way. I can tell you that the image quality that I was getting with adapted lenses and the full-frame Alpha bodies was impressive. When the cameras come into the lab for testing I'll perform some serious side-by-side resolution testing, but my eyes are telling me that the results are quite good indeed.