Leica's new MF system Options

[woof75]

24-70 from canon isn't a good lens... Well it is one of the better Canon ones, but still a crappy lens.

I always thought the 24-70 L was supposed to be one of canons best. (non telephoto that is).

[Christopher]

I always thought the 24-70 L was supposed to be one of canons best. (non telephoto that is).

well, I had it and sold it again, wasn't reakky impressed by it. (had three copies)

[condit79]

I had a great experience with my 24-70 before it was stolen. It was a bit soft at 2.8 on the wide end, but nothing I'd call dissappointing. But with a 1dsmkIII that might be a different story.

[pss]

are there any adapters for all these contax and nikon and leica lenses that give me focus confirmation on the canons? i could not care less about metering and manually setting the f-stop but i usually only use focus confirmation with AF systems....

[infocusinc]

I had a great experience with my 24-70 before it was stolen.  It was a bit soft at 2.8 on the wide end, but nothing I'd call dissappointing.  But with a 1dsmkIII that might be a different story.

Mine is very nice on my 1Ds mkIII

[tho_mas]

are there any adapters for all these contax and nikon and leica lenses that give me focus confirmation on the canons? i could not care less about metering and manually setting the f-stop but  i usually only use focus confirmation with AF systems....

No.
But a screen with split image is the very best confirmation...
(edit: oops... sorry! Didn't know about adapters supporting focus confirmation... just know about those without.)

This post has been edited by tho_mas: Aug 16 2008, 05:40 AM

[tho_mas]

del

This post has been edited by tho_mas: Aug 15 2008, 06:45 PM

[eronald]

are there any adapters for all these contax and nikon and leica lenses that give me focus confirmation on the canons? i could not care less about metering and manually setting the f-stop but  i usually only use focus confirmation with AF systems....

Yes, there are some focus confirmation chips floating around. There's also Conrus who do some full AF conversions of some Contax lenses.

Edmund

[pss]

Yes, there are some focus confirmation chips floating around. There's also Conrus who do some full AF conversions of some Contax lenses.

Edmund

i saw some on ebay...was wondering if they are any good....the prices are SO all over the place...the novoflex are 240 and are "dumb" and there are some for 30 that promise contacts....i guess they are just flimsy? if anyone has any actual experience i would be grateful.....

[Christopher]

Mine is very nice on my 1Ds mkIII

It is nice until you see a 28, leica or zeiss prime and when you are starting to wonder, why are you throwing away so much image quality. So my silution was the Leica 35-70. I know the range is not as wide, but the quality is up to every prime lens in that area.

[EricWHiss]

There's tons of info on the different Leica to EOS adapters on FredMiranda's alternative forum. But I think the deal is some of them don't allow focus to infinity because they are too fat, some are not machined well and not parallel and some have the chips glued on poorly or where they will get knocked off.

I've got a couple of the happypageHK adapters, one for Leica to EOS, and one for Oly OM to EOS and they have worked fine for me. Neither look like high quality machine work but were considerably cheaper than cameraquest or fotodiox.

I think the suggestion to get individually coded ones is a great idea - when I go through my image catalogs I can tell which image was not shot with canon glass, but can't tell which lens was used.

[infocusinc]

It is nice until you see a 28, leica or zeiss prime and when you are starting to wonder, why are you throwing away so much image quality. So my silution was the Leica 35-70. I know the range is not as wide, but the quality is up to every prime lens in that area.

I've had a lot of different glass on this camera and quite frankly the 24-70 is quite nice and if it gives anything away it by far makes up for it by actually working as designed for the camera and not bring hobbled like adapter lenses.

That in itself is worth a few lp/mm in pressure filled commercial shoots.

When you add in offset, its a moot point.

YMMV

[eronald]

I've had a lot of different glass on this camera and quite frankly the 24-70 is quite nice and if it gives anything away it by far makes up for it by actually working as designed for the camera and not bring hobbled like adapter lenses.

That in itself is worth a few lp/mm in pressure filled commercial shoots. 

When you add in offset, its a moot point.

YMMV

This is a strange lens, because everyone has different impressions of it. When I was still trying to publish in magazines I had some shots published from this lens. Which I used because I was in a hurry and it got the job done. They liked them, I didn't.

Edmund

This post has been edited by eronald: Aug 16 2008, 06:48 AM

[woof75]

It is nice until you see a 28, leica or zeiss prime and when you are starting to wonder, why are you throwing away so much image quality. So my silution was the Leica 35-70. I know the range is not as wide, but the quality is up to every prime lens in that area.

God I'd love a nice 18mm zeiss prime with AF for my 450D. I'd pay a lot for that.

[James R Russell]

if you can do that, you will be very popular!  the trick would be to try and make it easy to setup. ive tried really hard to get that wireless thing on the side of a canon to work, but no success. even tried to get computer nerd types to hep me, but they have had no luck. its just so unintuative, and really isnt designed for osx.

paul

Paul is right, it has to be plug and play with an application that allows the clients to scroll back, something like the gallery functions in I-photo.

It also has to allow the jpeg to go into the computer.

On set we just don't have the time to run over to 4 different clients and say, here do this, or do that, or double push this button.

This week on location I notice the clients get monitor fatigue. On location moving set to set there is just no place for them to always be comfortable and see the image. Sometimes it's great but as the day goes on they are trying to see the secondary monitor and not be in the way of the shot.

A hand held device would do wonders, but once again it has to be simple.

JR

[carl dw]

i saw some on ebay...was wondering if they are any good....the prices are SO all over the place...the novoflex are 240 and are "dumb" and there are some for 30 that promise contacts....i guess they are just flimsy? if anyone has any actual experience i would be grateful.....

I have two Contax to Canon adapters from happypageHK bought on Ebay which I use on 21mm and 60mm Macro lenses with excellent results. The focus confirmation works perfectly.

Here is a summery of what seems to be available from happy and others...my apologies if this link has already been referenced.


http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/compatible.html

[Christopher]

Plz Canon just give me a GOOD 28-70 or even 35-70 at 2.8 with IS and I will be so happy ;-)

[gwhitf]

http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/compatible.html

I am certainly curious about using Zeiss lenses on the 1ds3, but I never get definitive answers why someone would go to this trouble. And are these landscape guys using these things, where they want to count the leaf blades from a mile and a half away? I just find that, with proper sharpening, the Canon files are just fine with Canon lenses. And with none of the PITA Factor, in terms of stop down metering, etc. And if someone wanted to be that anal, why wouldn't they just buy a P45 or an A75, and totally go for the gusto, if counting leaf blades was your cup of tea? Why would you settle on a CMOS sensor?

I'd just love to see a 100% mag side by side test. Something physical, to really see if it was worth the trouble.

And the other weird thing is, the same people who are screaming about resolution many times are shooting handheld instead of tripod, so doesn't that invalidate everything? How can you bitch about lack of resolution, and then in the same breath, ask for Image Stabilization, when you've got a mirror in there flopping around? Something just doesn't add up to me.

This post has been edited by gwhitf: Aug 16 2008, 01:09 PM

[Christopher]

I am certainly curious about using Zeiss lenses on the 1ds3, but I never get definitive answers why someone would go to this trouble. And are these landscape guys using these things, where they want to count the leaf blades from a mile and a half away? I just find that, with proper sharpening, the Canon files are just fine with Canon lenses. And with none of the PITA Factor, in terms of stop down metering, etc. And if someone wanted to be that anal, why wouldn't they just buy a P45 or an A75, and totally go for the gusto, if counting leaf blades was your cup of tea? Why would you settle on a CMOS sensor?

I'd just love to see a 100% mag side by side test. Something physical, to really see if it was worth the trouble.

And the other weird thing is, the same people who are screaming about resolution many times are shooting handheld instead of tripod, so doesn't that invalidate everything? How can you bitch about lack of resolution, and then in the same breath, ask for Image Stabilization, when you've got a mirror in there flopping around? Something just doesn't add up to me.

First some of us settle on a CMOS sensor, because we need a camera which can be used for a lot of different tasks and still deliveres hq results. Not all of us can afford a good dSLR system and a good MF System. Why do some of us shoot handheld but bitch about Canon glass ? Well because even handheld you can see that Zeiss, Leica and now even Nikon show higher resolution and especially better corner performance. Canon has great lenses from 70 up to 1200, but the lower end just isn't very good. Yes there are some better ones, like the 35L/f1.4, but generally they suck. I mean what is wrong here ? A Nikon zoom (12-24) outperformes easly a Canon Prime .... Both the Canon 14L and 24L have no real chance against the zoom.

have you really looked at to different shots from a 1DsMk3 ? I mean handheld ( speed twice of the focal length ) and a tripod image with mirror lockup adn etc ? There is a small difference, but not really visible in a final print, but the difference between a Canon 28 and a Leica 28 is visible. (Edges are much cleaner and sharper)

[carl dw]

I am certainly curious about using Zeiss lenses on the 1ds3, but I never get definitive answers why someone would go to this trouble. And are these landscape guys using these things, where they want to count the leaf blades from a mile and a half away? I just find that, with proper sharpening, the Canon files are just fine with Canon lenses. And with none of the PITA Factor, in terms of stop down metering, etc. And if someone wanted to be that anal, why wouldn't they just buy a P45 or an A75, and totally go for the gusto, if counting leaf blades was your cup of tea? Why would you settle on a CMOS sensor?

I'd just love to see a 100% mag side by side test. Something physical, to really see if it was worth the trouble.

And the other weird thing is, the same people who are screaming about resolution many times are shooting handheld instead of tripod, so doesn't that invalidate everything? How can you bitch about lack of resolution, and then in the same breath, ask for Image Stabilization, when you've got a mirror in there flopping around? Something just doesn't add up to me.

For me, it's neither about being 'anal' or resolution.

If shooting at 21mm with almost complete lack of distortion is important to you, as well as taking sharp photographs (right into the corners) at 2.8, or if having no chromatic aberrations to try and correct in post is on your shopping list - then Canon simply don't have a lens to fit the bill. I personally wouldn't forgo coupled metering unless the results really justified it. The second hand price tag on this lens says alot about the quality of the optics you are buying.

Equally, does Canon produce a flat field lens with next to no barrel distortion and minimal aberrations for technical work at around the 50mm length?....no, hence the use of a Zeiss 60mm Macro.

It has to be said the resolving power of these old Contax lenses is excellent - but the reasons for investing go far beyond resolution. Both lenses help produce superb photographs, both technically and aesthetically.

If you have the opportunity and inclination do try them for yourself.