If you aren't aware of it, the 'cron does much much better for bokeh when stopped down to f2.2 than wide open. Try it. It becomes very nice, all brightlines and harshness go away etc.
>>I would agree completely with the above. The 50 Crons strengths are resolution, with excellent (strong) color saturation with low(ish) cotrast.
In the samples below, all 3 50/1.4 lenses have 'better' bokeh than the Cron at F2.
Here is a 13-shot stitch made with the Leica 180/2 to see if it would get similarly good results to my Nikon. I would have wished for a little more space around the tree, but there was too much junk around. The shots are very sharp, with generally very attractive boke, but in the trees there are some donuts in the highlights, i.e. slightly over-corrected spherical aberration.
mpmendenhall wrote:
APO-Telyt-R 280/4 + APO-Extender-R 1.4x = 400/5.6
today's evening walkaround, trying to learn how to "see" compositions at this focal length
love #3 not sure about the front bokeh in the last one, but it's better than what i'd get from my 350mm.
Freaky, eBay.UK knows me not.
Makes since in away, though, it'd be nice if my acct. specs, especially feedback score was registered there as well.
Wow, and then, if there was a way to view in English, eBay Germany, and eBay Japan, that would certainly make me stay broke.
I guess it's bad enough as it is, my family thinks I'm nuts to buy all these lenses.
"And..., how many lenses can you use at one time...?"
Hi to all Leica fans, I´am new on this great forum, hope I´ll upload soon some of my photos taken with my 180/2.8 and 60/2.8 on K10D / in 1-2months D700/. I´d like to ask about "80-200/4 E60" how good is this lens? I´ve a chance to buy it in mint condition for 600EUR. (in plan for D700). Recently I ´ve seen some forest pictures taken with this lens and they´re nice looking with 3D efect.
Compare also the Contax 80-200/4. There are some shots from this lens in the ZE/ZF thread, and I think maybe even some Leica 80-200/4 shots in that thread for comparison. Samuli has owned both and currently uses the Contax. I also own a copy of the Contax.
aCIDfire wrote:
... I´d like to ask about "80-200/4 E60" how good is this lens? I´ve a chance to buy it in mint condition for 600EUR. (in plan for D700).
Thanks for info&nice pictures from 80-200/4. I think that contax 80-200 can´t be adapted to F-mount (Leitax site) , Leica 80-200/4 E60 ROM can be adapted to F-mount via reversible custom conversion work for the Leica Zoom lenses with ROM contacts.
aCIDfire wrote:
Hi to all Leica fans, I´am new on this great forum, hope I´ll upload soon some of my photos taken with my 180/2.8 and 60/2.8 on K10D / in 1-2months D700/. I´d like to ask about "80-200/4 E60" how good is this lens? I´ve a chance to buy it in mint condition for 600EUR. (in plan for D700). Recently I ´ve seen some forest pictures taken with this lens and they´re nice looking with 3D efect.
aCIDfire, Leica 80-200/4 is very good lens. However images shot with it lack 3D efect, if you look at my shots few pages back you can see that sharpness is excellent as well as bokeh quality, however trees just look like somebody would have printed cardboard trees and placed them to forest; trees completly lack shape and volume. This is why I mostly prefer Contax 80-200 instead, however there is price to pay using Contax;
1. Leica is much better at 200mm to produce small details, and as overall Leica is little sharper on small detail.
2. Leica has less vignetting when shoot at f/4
3. Leica has smaller minimum focus distance
Few things I don't like the Leica zoom (Contax is much better in these areas, but some people don't like the combined zoom and focus ring Contax has, in practice it works very well since the resistance on both is just right and when I focus I never accidentally change the zoom):
A. It's zoom and focus rings lack resistance and it's next to impossible to take panorama, since it's so easy to accidentally touch focus or zoom ring - also when camera is hang from neck the lens slowly goes to minimum focus distance due to lack of resistance - focus throw is also very short and due to this it's pain in the #ss to focus on long distances, very difficult and time consuming to focus subject in e.g. 15m distance accurately
B. Close to minimum distance the focus ring acts as zoom, in order to get framing you want you need to tweak focus and zoom rings both at same time, very slow and time consuming
EDIT: Forgot to mention that Leica weights more but it has possibility to use tripod ring, which is VERY BIG plus on when comparing Leica and Contax 80-200 zooms.
aCIDfire wrote:
Thanks for info&nice pictures from 80-200/4. I think that contax 80-200 can´t be adapted to F-mount (Leitax site) , Leica 80-200/4 E60 ROM can be adapted to F-mount via reversible custom conversion work for the Leica Zoom lenses with ROM contacts.
I am using my Contax 80-200/4 on a Nikon D3. Or do you mean Pentax mount (isn't that K)?
Maybe you identified the sole drawback with the Leica Vario 80-200mm f4, Samuli, and from your images and knowing what you shoot, I see your point. These images are closish range, however, and would benefit from the CY's textured deeper bokeh.
It has exquisite colour handling, great highlights and draws a broad midtone area. It also has the great virtue of having no real faults, as Doug points out. It is optimised for mid-range, 140mm or so. It's also likely stronger everywhere than the Contax equivalent, especially at f4 - not that that is everything of course. Degrees of excellence..
) and the packaging. I wish I had found this before buying mine.