Hi folks - I am new here and just purchased a couple of Zeiss lenses (ZF.2 21mm & 100mm).
I am going to add one more lens (a 50mm or a 35mm) and was wondering if there are any Leica lenses made or adapted for the Nikon mount?
This might seem obvious or seem like a silly question, but I am genuinely interested to know if I can use one on a Nikon camera.
Although Leica do not offer any Leica lenses made for Nikon, majority of Leica R lenses are adaptable to Nikon mount.
Leitax offers excellent replacement mount for use for Nikon mount: http://leitax.com/leica-lens-for-nikon-cameras.html
which are quite expensive, but it is worth every single penny IMO
But there are ALOT cheaper $20-ish ebay adapters around, but I'd stay away from those if possible, as they could cause problem with reaching infinity focus
Thanks for the link. So it seems basically any Leica R lens can be used with one of these adapters on a Nikon F mount. Thats great to hear.
Does anyone here have personal experience with using a Lieca R on a D700/D800/D4/D3 etc?
Any considerations or issues one should be aware of?
Any samples/pictures with such a combination?
I converted a beautiful 3-cam Summicron-R 50 that I bought off a well-established forum member here (Grenache) with a Leitax mount, and used it with great success on my D7000 and D600.
I absolutely loved this lens. It truly was my favourite glass that I tried. The quality of the rendering, richness, colors, bokeh, whatever. It just has magic. Very unfortunately, I have to sell it as I have downsized to m4/3rds.
Here are some samples for you. Two on the D7k, two on the D600.
It lose quite a lot of character of R lens. Those m4/3 prime will beat even Leica modern M with 2~3X sensor density on 1/4 of FF sensor. and I can safely say you will not get similar shot as your nice portraits shown here with m4/3.
To OP:
Keep in mind, you can pretty much convert any Leica R lens to your Nikon save for some extreme ones (check Leitax website), but you will not have coupling between lens and body. That means, you will shoot in stop down mode, what you will see is working aperture you choose. This can be a problem for stop down shooting sometimes. Also, you will not have EXIF data to show correct aperture. All WO, though it is still better than Canon without option even enter focal length and max aperture.
If I were you, I will not save dime on converter, Leitax is great. It fix my aperture problem of Leica R with cheap F mount I bought. Before, the aperture is very soft and uneven, with virtually no f16, now with Leitax, it perform beautifully.
Hope this help. If you don't mind focus ring turning direction and enjoy high quality manual glass. ZF.2 is hard to fault given its performance on pretty much every focal length it released so far. Especially consider R lux and APO lens used price is really high to swallow. Most focal length, ZF.2 offer close to even (better here worse there) performance with cheaper price BN. Only miss longer than 135mm and APO stuff.
Thanks a lot for your very helpful response.
I think ZF.2 lenses, as you said, offer close enough performance that will certainly fulfil my needs. I think I'll stay with ZF.2 for my next lens as well.
Perhaps I'll get a Leica M* body in the future someday ...
LightShow wrote:
By this time next year(If there is a next year) there should be a FF mirrorless camera available... I hope.
As expensive as it will be, the Leica M is to be scheduled for release in the first Quarter of 2013. I handled the Prototype in October at Photo Plus in NYC. Beautiful, but very expensive camera.
I am very curious how good it will be for non-M lenses. I guess M lens handling will be the same as it ever was, but with no possibility of communicating any aperture info from lens to camera, and no way to have the camera stop the lens down when shooting, any other lens will have to be operated in stop-down mode, meaning that exposure simulation will be the only way to see anything on the LCD in many scenarios. The usability of this relies heavily on noise performance, not a traditional digital Leica M strength.
Yes, of course, CMOS vs. CCD, new manufacturer and all that. Still, I am a bit edgy about this aspect. I really want this camera to do well. I probably wouldn't buy one for a while anyway, but it would surely be good for both Leica and the industry if it would do well.
carstenw wrote:
Yes, of course, CMOS vs. CCD, new manufacturer and all that. Still, I am a bit edgy about this aspect. I really want this camera to do well. I probably wouldn't buy one for a while anyway, but it would surely be good for both Leica and the industry if it would do well.
Though we could not see any results (firmware was still not complete), the separate EVF finder did a reasonably good job and with the R to M adapter with the Multifunction (or for that matter standard) grip my Leica R f 2.8 Macro Apo Elmarit and f3.4 Apo Telyt lenses everything balanced and handled quite well.
carstenw wrote:
I am very curious how good it will be for non-M lenses. I guess M lens handling will be the same as it ever was, but with no possibility of communicating any aperture info from lens to camera, and no way to have the camera stop the lens down when shooting, any other lens will have to be operated in stop-down mode, meaning that exposure simulation will be the only way to see anything on the LCD in many scenarios. The usability of this relies heavily on noise performance, not a traditional digital Leica M strength.
But this is pretty much the same as using Alt glass on any other mirror-less camera on the market as well. So, it open a possibility for using Leica long lens on FF 'LEICA' body
ISO Performance, we don't know, but useability wise, it should be OK!
zhangyue wrote:
But this is pretty much the same as using Alt glass on any other mirror-less camera on the market as well. So, it open a possibility for using Leica long lens on FF 'LEICA' body
ISO Performance, we don't know, but useability wise, it should be OK!
Plus all of the Leica R macro lenses and zooms and closer focusing capabilities of any of the R wide angle and all R lenses.
carstenw wrote:
I am very curious how good it will be for non-M lenses. I guess M lens handling will be the same as it ever was, but with no possibility of communicating any aperture info from lens to camera, and no way to have the camera stop the lens down when shooting, any other lens will have to be operated in stop-down mode, meaning that exposure simulation will be the only way to see anything on the LCD in many scenarios. The usability of this relies heavily on noise performance, not a traditional digital Leica M strength.
that's the way i've been shooting for years... i'm sure it'll work decently.
I can't imagine the noise being any worse than it was on the E-P2, and the VF-2 was perfectly usable (if not spectacular) there. Maybe there will be some third-party intervention on Leica's behalf, though, and you'll end up with something a bit better.
