LBJ2 wrote:
Thanks for the tip! I just downloaded the PDF and went straight to the Peter Karbe interview (p.60 in the English version). I always learn something whenever I read or listen to Peter Karbe interviews and this article is no exception. Very interesting so far.
"One last question, Peter: In the future, might we see a
135mm SL Apo-Elmarit? I mean, the Vario-Elmarit-SL 70-200mm f/
2,8 is sensational, but it’s a bit bulky and not exactly lightweight.
Wouldn’t an apochromatic 135mm telephoto be a great addition
to the SL lens catalog?
Karbe: We’re already working on it." 🤩🥳
I was wondering how long my comment might take to hit the rumor mill. Not long
Something to keep in mind is that a potential 135mm APO-Elmarit-SL would likely be f/2.8, which would set it apart from the current APO-SL prime lineup, all of which are Summicron lenses at f/2. In that case, it would be comparable to the Zeiss Batis 135/2.8 APO Sonnar.
135mm 2.8 sounds realistic. A 2.0 with the known optical performance will probably be larger than the current Apo series, which has been consistent so far. 🤔
1bwana1 wrote:
For the same reason that Porsche, Ferrari, Penthouse Condos on Central Park, and all things that are expensive and exclusive are not as popular as things built for and priced for the middle class. The other brands are performance orientated, and provide excellent image quality that is good enough.
For sure Leica is not for the vast majority of people. Leica products are of extremely high quality and priced that way too. Leica provides aa unique shooting experience that appeals to some. I am one of those. I am a particular fan of the APO-SL lenses, and the M shooting experience. But even for me, it is not the system I choose to shoot in all circumstances. ...Show more →
But M lenses are popular, and in a lot of cases even (much) more expensive...
I guess my question remains, if these lenses are truly that good, why even only within the world of Leica shooters have they not been adopted by more people?
Welcome to 2025, the brave new world in which all top-tier lens mangufacturers produce clinically-perfect optical designs, that produce images that look identical to everyone but 27 devoted pixel-peepers with loupes pressed against their 80" monitors.
In these challenging times when brands don't matter anymore, the only two lens characteristics that separate brilliance from trash are:
* Weight
* Presence of an aperture ring
Therefore, here's the algorithm to comapre two lenses:
1. Don't bothor mounting them to a camera. As I explained above, it's absolutely pointless.
2. Put them on scale
3. If one lens is heavier than the other by more than 50g, toss it in the trash.
4. If both lenses are within 50g of each other, pick one which doesn't have the aperture ring and -- you've guessed it -- toss it in the trash.
5. Look the lens you're still holding in your hands. That's your winner.
SlowDriver wrote:
But M lenses are popular, and in a lot of cases even (much) more expensive...
I guess my question remains, if these lenses are truly that good, why even only within the world of Leica shooters have they not been adopted by more people?
The M system is also not popular when compared against Sony which was your original point of reference. Popularity is not based on quality, there are many more impactful criteria involved as I have said. Ask the same question in regard to Hasselblad and Phase One.
Nothing unique going on here. It is the same in many industries.
old-gregg wrote:
Welcome to 2025, the brave new world in which all top-tier lens mangufacturers produce clinically-perfect optical designs, that produce images that look identical to everyone but 27 devoted pixel-peepers with loupes pressed against their 80" monitors.
In these challenging times when brands don't matter anymore, the only two lens characteristics that separate brilliance from trash are:
* Weight
* Presence of an aperture ring
Therefore, here's the algorithm to comapre two lenses:
1. Don't bothor mounting them to a camera. As I explained above, it's absolutely pointless.
2. Put them on scale
3. If one lens is heavier than the other by more than 50g, toss it in the trash.
4. If both lenses are within 50g of each other, pick one which doesn't have the aperture ring and -- you've guessed it -- toss it in the trash.
5. Look the lens you're still holding in your hands. That's your winner.
If it were really just that simple there would only need to be one brand, on one lens in each FL within that brand. But your quote is a very good distillation of your personal criteria.
Jul 29, 2025 at 02:43 AM
Steve Spencer Online • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
1bwana1 wrote:
If it were really just that simple there would only need to be one brand, on one lens in each FL within that brand. But your quote is a very good distillation of your personal criteria.
Is reality ever as simple as satire makes it? I trust you get his point, however.
1bwana1 wrote:
If it were really just that simple there would only need to be one brand, on one lens in each FL within that brand. But your quote is a very good distillation of your personal criteria.
LBJ2 wrote:
Thanks for the tip! I just downloaded the PDF and went straight to the Peter Karbe interview (p.60 in the English version). I always learn something whenever I read or listen to Peter Karbe interviews and this article is no exception. Very interesting so far.
"One last question, Peter: In the future, might we see a
135mm SL Apo-Elmarit? I mean, the Vario-Elmarit-SL 70-200mm f/
2,8 is sensational, but it’s a bit bulky and not exactly lightweight.
Wouldn’t an apochromatic 135mm telephoto be a great addition
to the SL lens catalog?
Karbe: We’re already working on it." 🤩🥳
Looks like it was a case of mishearing? I got a "correction" email (perhaps you did too) saying:
"This is about a deviation we have found in our Interview to Peter Karbe
concerning the question about a future 135mm APO lens. We have corrected
this mistake and than that part of the interview reads as follows:
Karbe: That would be nice (laughs)
[“That would be nice” in German is: “das ware schön”, but Peter sounds,
with accent from Wetzlar, something like: “das schon wir”, and that
translates something like “that we already”, so we misunderstand that
and in that instant of time we think Leica prepares a 135mm SL lens. In
short: We can not confirm there will be a 135mm lens in the short
future]"
jigesh wrote:
Looks like it was a case of mishearing? I got a "correction" email (perhaps you did too) saying:
"This is about a deviation we have found in our Interview to Peter Karbe
concerning the question about a future 135mm APO lens. We have corrected
this mistake and than that part of the interview reads as follows:
Karbe: That would be nice (laughs)
[“That would be nice” in German is: “das ware schön”, but Peter sounds,
with accent from Wetzlar, something like: “das schon wir”, and that
translates something like “that we already”, so we misunderstand that
and in that instant of time we think Leica prepares a 135mm SL lens. In
short: We can not confirm there will be a 135mm lens in the short
future]"...Show more →
LBJ2 wrote:
Based upon what I see on-line/YouTube with the new Zeiss ML Otus 50, Leica's SL APO tech seems like they might have the upper-hand by some margin with regards to modern APO design and results. ** Albeit large price difference might have something to do with the different APO results between these two systems.
My impression from Zeiss/Cosina literature around the ML Otus lenses is that they have deliberately not been as highly corrected as the previous generation Otus designs. Maybe it's a conscious performance choice, or it's a consequence of being half the price of the previous Otus designs. You can definitely find LoCA/fringing evidence in the sample images that have been posted, for example by Juha here on FM. But it's not obnoxious LoCA that is often the case, rather somewhere between 'ignored' and fully corrected, and by the looks of it, the ML Otus 50 is closer to the latter. My impression about its overall 'look' is that it's clean but slightly imperfect in order to create some character.
SlowDriver wrote:
Interesting discussions. I own both the Summicron-SL APO 35mm f2 and the Sony 35mm GM f1.4. The Leica is the better lens in my opinion but the Sony is faster, lighter, smaller, cheaper and auto focuses faster. The Sony has 187 reviews on B&H whereas the Leica has 6... If this supposedly is the best lens ever made (by Leica) why is it not more popular?
I'm guessing several reasons. Price is an obvious one. System popularity is another. Because it's confined to the L mount, which basically means having to use a Panasonic-derived body. If you value AF performance (subject detection/tracking/speed) in highly dynamic situations, it appears even after finally having started to include PDAF, Panasonic remains behind the mainstream alternatives.
From my POV, I'm not interested in adding yet another lens mount to my equipment collection. If these SL lenses were available in the mainstream mounts, it would be tempting to add to my existing system. I just don't expect Leica will entertain that option. Plus at least with Nikon and Canon, they would have to approve such lenses to be released for their mounts and there's no guarantee that would happen, especially for lenses that would outperform their in-house options (though at considerably higher price points).
jigesh wrote:
Looks like it was a case of mishearing? I got a "correction" email (perhaps you did too) saying:
"This is about a deviation we have found in our Interview to Peter Karbe
concerning the question about a future 135mm APO lens. We have corrected
this mistake and than that part of the interview reads as follows:
Karbe: That would be nice (laughs)
[“That would be nice” in German is: “das ware schön”, but Peter sounds,
with accent from Wetzlar, something like: “das schon wir”, and that
translates something like “that we already”, so we misunderstand that
and in that instant of time we think Leica prepares a 135mm SL lens. In
short: We can not confirm there will be a 135mm lens in the short
future]"...Show more →
😢
Thank you for letting me know. I just checked my in-box and there it is "Club Wetzlar Info: Correction in Peter Karbe Interview...Please delete the old file. We sincerely apologize for this transcription mistake."
Well at least it was fun news for about a minute.
**Whoever sent my previous comment to LeicaRumors Admin, should probably let him know about the update too.
LBJ2 wrote:
In one of your previous comments on this thread you wrote "The [SL] Apo Summicrons are monsters" Just for fun, here is another perspective and yes, the Sony GM is a 1.4 lens and the other is an F2 lens. So you might say the SL APO 35/2 is a large F2 lens, but again we all know why:
I would be interested to see the two lenses side by side comparing the front element size.
The Leica SL APO primes are very similar in size to the recent Canon f/1.4 VCM releases and it has got me thinking that the SL primes might be over-specced and then 'pulled back' to f/2 to avoid much of the optical 'nasties' that a compact f/1.4 would struggle with.
rscheffler wrote:
I would be interested to see the two lenses side by side comparing the front element size.
The Leica SL APO primes are very similar in size to the recent Canon f/1.4 VCM releases and it has got me thinking that the SL primes might be over-specced and then 'pulled back' to f/2 to avoid much of the optical 'nasties' that a compact f/1.4 would struggle with.
Sure. Will post shortly. Both GM 35 and all SL APO Primes = 67mm filter thread.
In response to your 1.4 design idea, prior to the SL APO F2 primes, I think Leica "went all out" on the SL Summilux 50 F1.4 design. But customer reaction to its resulting very large size is in part what prompted the smaller F2 APO prime series.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Something to keep in mind is that a potential 135mm APO-Elmarit-SL would likely be f/2.8, which would set it apart from the current APO-SL prime lineup, all of which are Summicron lenses at f/2. In that case, it would be comparable to the Zeiss Batis 135/2.8 APO Sonnar.
Hi Fred,
If the rumored SL 135mm turns out to be an f/2.8 APO, I’d have zero interest in it.
But if Leica somehow manages to make it an f/2 APO and keeps the size consistent with the rest of the SL APO lineup… well, that would basically be alien technology!
By the way, I know you've used some of the Leica SL lenses before. I'm really curious—have you ever considered doing a full review of the SL series? I couldn't find any on the site. Is it just a matter of limited time, or perhaps because the SL system is more niche?
I know there are a few reviews out there, but I’ve always found your articles to be deeper and more comprehensive.
Thanks again for all the great content you’ve shared over the years!
zeitlos wrote:
I am German. And this makes absolutely no sense to me: “ something like: “das schon wir”, and that
translates something like “that we already”,”
Can anyone post the full statement?
What jgesh posted above is pretty much the entirety of "the statement" I received via email.
You wrote: "I am German. And this makes absolutely no sense to me: “ something like: “das schon wir”, and that
translates something like “that we already”:
Not literally, but perhaps the best translation = "mistakes were made" 😜
Looks like this is a Spanish publication so maybe dealing with three languages Spanish, German, English might come out a bit awkward sometimes. Been there myself.
