Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2019/01/14

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Advantages of M lenses on the SL compared to R lenses? Adapters?
From: red735i at verizon.net (Frank Filippone)
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2019 17:56:29 +0000 (UTC)
References: <764379042.18398325.1547488589333.ref@mail.yahoo.com>

We will soon have more body choices to the Leica SL... the Panasonic body is 
supposed to be announced soon. ?More of the Leica?user base will be looking 
for these ( and other) bodies for their existing R?or M optics. ?What would 
be helpful is to have those that have used the system for a while give the 
rest an idea of what works and what does not.
Several members have SL bodies, and may have adapted their M lenses or R 
lenses to the SL. ?It would be very informative if members could post their 
experiences with the various combinations, especially if they have tried 
both M and R versions on their SL.
Some ideas......What adapter do?you use that does the job? ?There are 3 
possible (China adapters not included) solutions: ?R-SL adapter. ?R-M plus M 
to SL 2 pieces adaptation. ?Novoflex R-SL adapter. ?Did you experiment with 
one or another solutions and found them unsatisfactoy? ?Why?
Yes, they all work with almost all the R lenses or M lenses, this is taken 
for granted. ?Did R lenses work ?better? or ?worse??than the equivalent M 
solution? ?What did you identify as the reason one was ?better? than the 
other?
Some long Telephoto R lenses?will vignette with the use of the R to M 
adapter followed by the M to SL adapter. ?( Caused by the smaller throat of 
the M adapter compared to the R-SL direct adapter). ?Use one of the 1 stage 
adapter to avoid this. ?They work.
What anomalies have you found? ?What is ?weird? when you use your older 
lenses? ?What did NOT work?
How do you focus? ?Open up lenses to max aperture and focus, then shut down 
lens to working aperture? ?Do you magnify the view when focusing? ?Use the 
Focus confirmation indicator? ?
Based on your personal experiences, what would be your ?wish list? adapter 
look like? ?Features wanted? ?R to SL or M to SL?
For those about to write how nice the SL native lenses work and the quality 
of images made,..... We all know native lenses are more ergonomic to use, 
and robably produce ?better? (optically)?images. It is the $4-5-6K per lens 
that is the underlying point of using adapted??R?or M lenses, which cost a 
small fraction ( in most cases) of their newer brothers. ?Not everyone is 
rich enough to afford a set of 4-5-6 times?$5K lenses.

>From what I have read to date:The ?best? adapter is the one piece R to L 
>adapter. ?It transfers fstop ( estimated NOT direct aperture reaad out)?and 
>focal length of the ROM?lens to the body for writing into the EXIF file. 
>?Optical lens corrrections can be?automatically applied.
The ?best? M adapter is the M to SL adapter as it transfers the 6 bit code 
of the lens to the body. ?Optical lens corrections can be automatically 
applied.

The Novoflex adapters are all basic tubes. ?No info from the lens is 
transmitted to the body...none. ?You may manually enter this info into the 
body by selection from a menu of lenses. ?( same is true for any dumb 
Chinese adapters) or non-ROM lenses on Leica made adapters.
No existant adapter has any mechanical connection to the lens mechanics. 
?None of the aperture connections will work with R lenses.?

Frank Filippone?Red735i at verizon.net


Replies: Reply from photo.philippe.amard at gmail.com (Philippe) ([Leica] Advantages of M lenses on the SL compared to R lenses? Adapters?)