Maybe some of you can help. Is it physically possible to adapt Leica M lenses on EOS RF mount? If so, are there any adapters and does anyone have experience with lenses <= 35mm?
And before I get critiqued, yes I did use the search function on this forum with zero hit.
Yes it is possible and there are a few adaptors available, Novoflex and metabones both make one. Once my R5 arrives I will be ordering one of the adapters (not sure which one yet) and trying some of my M lenses, but I can't speak to how well any of them work at this stage.
Something to double-post in the Alt gear forum. You are likely okay when adapting M-mount lenses 50 mm and longer onto a Canon MLC but might run in trouble with wider lenses. The sensor stack on Canon MLCs is much thicker than the lenses are optimized for on Leica M-mount cameras. This leads to color vignetting and some unsharpness in the corners of the frame with wider lenses. I have observed the same issue when adapting ultrawide M-lenses on the Sony A7R.
Very easy to adapt Leica M mount and LTM (thread) mount lenses to Canon R system. I've been doing it on both the RP and R. Love the diminutive size and portability of those combinations. Plus it's very easy to focus manual lenses using the cameras' image magnification.
I bought a variety of cheap adapters including Fotodiox. Some fit well, some are a bit snug and some a bit loose. But they all work and none are so bad that they have any noticeable effect on image quality, at least none I've noticed so far. The cheap ones are generally so inexpensive you could buy several and cherry pick the best for less than you'd pay for a single high end adapter.
Here are two of the first test shots I took with the RP just driving through the French Quarter here in New Orleans and snapping shots out of the driver's window. One lens is a 1950's vintage 35mm Summaron and the other a modern 21mm Super Elmar. I was expecting problems with the 21 but it is pretty useable. These were hand held and the lenses were only stopped down one or two stops from wide open. I'm sure there's a bit of smearing near the edges but for most normal shooting like this I don't find it too objectionable.
The big advantage is that my camera bag, loaded with 21mm, 35mm, 50mm and 90mm lenses plus the RP and/or R bodies, is no bigger than my girlfriend's purse.
brusby wrote:
Very easy to adapt Leica M mount and LTM (thread) mount lenses to Canon R system. I've been doing it on both the RP and R. Love the diminutive size and portability of those combinations. Plus it's very easy to focus manual lenses using the cameras' image magnification.
I bought a variety of cheap adapters including Fotodiox. Some fit well, some are a bit snug and some a bit loose. But they all work and none are so bad that they have any noticeable effect on image quality, at least none I've noticed so far. The cheap ones are generally so inexpensive you could buy several and cherry pick the best for less than you'd pay for a single high end adapter.
Here are two of the first test shots I took with the RP just driving through the French Quarter here in New Orleans and snapping shots out of the driver's window. One lens is a 1950's vintage 35mm Summaron and the other a modern 21mm Super Elmar. I was expecting problems with the 21 but it is pretty useable. These were hand held and the lenses were only stopped down one or two stops from wide open. I'm sure there's a bit of smearing near the edges but for most normal shooting like this I don't find it too objectionable.
The big advantage is that my camera bag, loaded with 21mm, 35mm, 50mm and 90mm lenses plus the RP and/or R bodies, is no bigger than my girlfriend's purse.
There were no color fringing or vignetting issues, so I didn't have to do anything in post except the normal setting of global level and saturation plus a little local dodging and burning.
It surprised me after hearing all the horror stories about Leica M mount wide angle lenses on mirrorless cameras. So I was fully expecting both color fringing issues and peripheral unsharpness. But as you can see neither seems to be a problem at least with these two lenses on this body.
I believe I focused on or near the first door, so the middle of the frame is very sharp and the edges of the frame nearest the camera are pretty much in focus and seem sharp. Away from the camera things get a bit blurry but I'm pretty certain that's just cause they are out of the plane of focus.
It's going to depend on each lens and also on the sensor. The higher resolution and therefore smaller pixels of the R5 may result in more noticeable edge color shift. This was what I noticed when comparing the Sony a7S, a7 and a7R back many years ago. Very little color shift with the 12MP a7S, but much more so with the a7R. But it's also not just pixel size, but pixel well depth. With Sony's BSI sensors color shift has been mostly a non-factor. Don't think Canon is using BSI, nor have they said much about pixel design, IIRC.
It's also going to depend on each photographer's technical expectations and typical subject matter.
rscheffler wrote:
It's going to depend on each lens and also on the sensor. The higher resolution and therefore smaller pixels of the R5 may result in more noticeable edge color shift. This was what I noticed when comparing the Sony a7S, a7 and a7R back many years ago. Very little color shift with the 12MP a7S, but much more so with the a7R. But it's also not just pixel size, but pixel well depth. With Sony's BSI sensors color shift has been mostly a non-factor. Don't think Canon is using BSI, nor have they said much about pixel design, IIRC.
It's also going to depend on each photographer's technical expectations and typical subject matter. ...Show more →
Sorry to revive such an old thread but I was hoping that the R5 would perform better than the R due to the slightly thinner sensor. I've only take a couple of test shots with a Voigtlander 50MM 1.2 and 21MM 1.4, but both had soft and purple corners on the R.
Anyone know if the R5 is better or worse than the R, by chance?
I borrowed an R5 from CPS and did a basic tilted horizon infinity focus series of test photos with most of my M mount lenses. Most of the 50mm and wider lenses were not as sharp off-center at wider apertures as they are on my M240. But I didn't notice any edge color shift (purple corners) with the R5, which was good to see.
I'm a bit reluctant to share the results because the inexpensive Urth adapter I bought for this test allows most of the lenses to reach infinity focus before the actual infinity hard stop. With floating element lenses such as the 50 Lux ASPH, 28 Lux, 21 Lux, a too-short adapter length, as with this Urth adapter, will somewhat degrade image quality because the floating element is in the wrong position for the actual focusing distance. Therefore it's possible that results with some of my lenses could be even better with an adapter that allows exact infinity focus adjustment. I believe some of the 'macro' adapters that have a built-in helicoid for more extension to allow closer focusing, also allow precise adjustment of infinity focus.
rscheffler wrote:
I borrowed an R5 from CPS and did a basic tilted horizon infinity focus series of test photos with most of my M mount lenses. Most of the 50mm and wider lenses were not as sharp off-center at wider apertures as they are on my M240. But I didn't notice any edge color shift (purple corners) with the R5, which was good to see.
I'm a bit reluctant to share the results because the inexpensive Urth adapter I bought for this test allows most of the lenses to reach infinity focus before the actual infinity hard stop. With floating element lenses such as the 50 Lux ASPH, 28 Lux, 21 Lux, a too-short adapter length, as with this Urth adapter, will somewhat degrade image quality because the floating element is in the wrong position for the actual focusing distance. Therefore it's possible that results with some of my lenses could be even better with an adapter that allows exact infinity focus adjustment. I believe some of the 'macro' adapters that have a built-in helicoid for more extension to allow closer focusing, also allow precise adjustment of infinity focus....Show more →
Thanks for the detailed response. I didn't realize that the early infinity focus can degrade IQ. Is that true even for non-floating element lenses?
I haven’t used a lot of M mount lenses, but I have a couple. I use the Voigtlander 21mm f/3.5 which works great on the R5. My 7Artisans 28mm f/1.4 showed strong color shift in the corners on my R6 and RP, but has no issues on the R5 at all.
wonee310 wrote:
Sorry to revive such an old thread but I was hoping that the R5 would perform better than the R due to the slightly thinner sensor. I've only take a couple of test shots with a Voigtlander 50MM 1.2 and 21MM 1.4, but both had soft and purple corners on the R.
Anyone know if the R5 is better or worse than the R, by chance?
wonee310 wrote:
Thanks for the detailed response. I didn't realize that the early infinity focus can degrade IQ. Is that true even for non-floating element lenses?
No. Unit focusing lenses aren't affected because all of the elements move together when focusing and remain in the correct relative position to each other (because they're fixed) for any given subject distance. It's just floating designs where the position of the focusing ring is required to match the actual focusing distance so that the position of the floating group relative to the rest of the lens is correct for a given subject distance.
TBH, I'm not sure how dramatic an effect this had on my R5 results and my FLE M lenses. But none of those lenses looked very good in the outer zone wider than f/5.6.
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