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Vario Elmar 28-70 f3.5-4.5


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It is a good lens based on leica specs made by sigma japan.Leica do

appoint other japanese company to make lens for them based on their

specs but some was designed by japanese company like Minolta, But

they are all good lens that meet Leica Stadard.

 

<p>

 

28-70 f3.5-4.5 togeter with 70-210 F4.0 will good for travelling and

down-sizing all your prime lens,one thing no good is that they are

not fast lens,may be U can try zoom lens with f2.8 (leica lens)

 

<p>

 

good shooting

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  • 10 months later...

Hi All

I am a relatively new Leica R users who had recently added the Vario-

Elmar 28-70 ROM to my 50/2. I have taken out-door, in-door existing

light and flash photos with the 28-70 and 50/2. Whether Sigma

designed or not, it does not make much difference to me, the

contrast, color tone and shadow details which characterized LEICA

lenses is consistent for both lenses. Both lenses apparent performed

excellently at normal minimum aperture (f5.6-f16)but the prime 50/2

excels (as expected) at maximum aperture.I use the 50/2 more often

because I belong to the 50mm "standard" generation when I started

photography on a budget 20 years ago with the Nikon system and has

since switched to Olympus OMs (for macro) and now obsessed with my

secondhand Leica R3. As an "entry" into Leica on a budget the 28-70

is an "ideal" lens for any amateur who wish to own a second multi-

role Leica lens. BTW I've purchase all my R equipment second hand

(used) ,IMO they're worth every hard-earned dollars I've spent on

them. No regrets even its made in Japan and has Sigma blood (I was

warned by the seller), its the end results that counts. Some how, I

believe that the difference may be in the Leica multicoating, Leica

did have a couple of other Minolta zooms in their line and apparently

the Minolta half-brothers (according to a friend)doesn't seems to

have the same Leica color consitency and rendition.

 

<p>

 

Perhaps BW will show this difference greater in terms of shadow

details. Any comments ?

 

<p>

 

 

 

<p>

 

paid for.

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I have several zoom lenses for Contax: Carl Zeiss 35-135, and Sigma

80-200, I found that the 35mm range is not wide enough, and the Sigma

lens for Contax mount does not match the color rendition of Zeiss

lenses.

<p> Vario-Elmar 28-70 has beome my world travel companion: I carried

only this one lens travel to Spain, from Madrid to Barcelona, Valencia

Serville, Granada, Toledo; to Greece from Athens through Mykonos,

Rhodes, Santorini, to East Europe from Vienna to Budapest, Bratislava,

Brno, Prague... to Canadian Rockies from Banff to Lake Louis to

Jasper National Park.

<p> In March, I went to Vancourver, to attend my daughter's wedding

at Chatteur Whistler, I again used Vario-Elmar to record wedding

photos on the side( we hired a pro at Whistler ).. my daughter likes

the wedding photo very much, "dad, your wedding photos are sooo good,

so good".

.

<p> The 20x30" poster size prints on my walls of Maglin Lake,

Jasper, Lake Louis, Algonquin Autumn, Santorini, Salgrada Familia

Church are all from this Vario

<p> I am sure, this Vario-Elmar will acompany me to other parts of

the world, in particular, Huang Mountain and Guilin.

<p> I seldom use Leica standard lenses, last weekend, I went to

the Toronto Musical Garden at the Harbour Front area, I used Macro-

Elmrit, I found that I could not cover enough backgroud, I should

use the Vario instead.

<p> My VE has a very special build in lens hood, it was computer

designed to match the zoom range, at 28mm it is a wide angle lens hood

at 70mm, the coverage narrows to suit. This is Leica lens hood

technology as its zenith. I don't see any other zoom lens has this

zooming hood feature.

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  • 1 month later...

Hello everyone,

 

<p>

 

I am the guy who wrote the brief review of the Leica 35~70mm f2.8

Vario~Elamrit which was mentioned by someone in an earlier post. I am

also the owner of the VE 28~70mm f3.5/4.5 (ROM version).

 

<p>

 

Yes, it is true that the my 28~70mm is optically sharper than the

35~70mm f2.8 lens. To-date, I have tested three samples of the

35~70mm f2.8 lens. Only one sample was better overall. The other two

were soft at infinity between 40mm to 60mm. I have also spoken to a

senior staff at Leica AG regarding this new zoom lens. All I can say

is that Leica was having a hard time maintaining quality in this zoom

lens and due to the difficulty in producing it, production of this

lens was eventually stopped.

 

<p>

 

I have to agree with most of what Martin has written about the VE

28~70mm. The 28~70mm lens is indeed a very good lens optically and

despite its slight distortion, the lens is still an outstanding

performer in my book. The lens is not heavy and has silky smooth

focusing and zooming rings. It may be a little slow but I can live

with that with proper handholding technique and faster flims.

 

<p>

 

If you need a zoom lens for versatility, then you will not regret

getting this zoom lens from Leica. But do make sure that you get the

ROM version(latest) because optically this version is better than the

older model(the one with the built-in hood).

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  • 3 weeks later...

I sold my Angeniux-R 35/70 2.5 because of its lenght and short focal

range and bought Leica Vario Elmar 28/70, second generation. It's not

a good lens, and I'm very unsatisfied with it. Its distorsion is very

very very big and you can see it at first glance (I mean in the

finder, not in the photos , that's worse). I will probably sell the

whole thing and go back to nikon with fixed lenses.Regards. Gus

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If you are going to use this lens on a Canon EOS body Canon makes

three of the best zooms around in this range; 28-105 is good, 28-135

is is great (I use this one and love it) and 28-70 2.8 which is one

of the sharpest zooms ever made but a little heavy and pricy at

around $1200 (not by Leica prices) and these all autofocus if you

want them to. I bought one of the Leica to EOS adapters but it seems

a little clugy and I prefer to use my Leica lenses on my R7 or R4S.

Regards,

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I bought a used 28-70 VE a year ago. After I bought it, I did a simple

test shot on close subject and concluded the lens is not as sharp. The

lens had stayed in the closet since then. Recently, after I read all

the debate, I tested the lens again on far subject and found it to

perform quite well comparing to my 50mm Summicron M and 35mm Summicron

M, especially when stop down, but wide open isn't bad either. I am

using this lens more and more now because it is truly convenient. I

also own the older 35-70 VE, it is truly a mechanical marvel and still

perform quite well, but the close focus of 1m and the not wide

enough 35mm angle is the reason it stayed at home.

 

<p>

 

Anyway, I cast my vote for the 28-70. My conclusion so far is that the

lens performs very well at far subject and degrade a bit at near

subject.

 

<p>

 

/Chi

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  • 1 month later...

I had the vario-elmar 35-70 f3.5 made in Japan. I decided to do a

brief test in comparison with the 35mm Elmarit and the 35mm

Summicron, all shot at F8. The results were very interesting. I

analysed the film using a film scanner and was looking at color,

contrast and sharpness (detail). The differences were only detectable

in the enlargement... of course, not detectable in 4x6 or 5x7 sizes.

The elmarit was clearly the sharpest but was lower in contrast, the

Vario-Elmar had the most contrast and color saturation and slightly

less sharpness, the summicron was a balance between the two, showing

almost as sharp as the elmarit and almost as contrasty and saturated

as the vario-elmar. The bottom line was that the differences were

miniscule. The test did not take into account shooting at larger

apertures. Distortion and flare are a different issue and were not

examined here. I do know that the summicron is very flare resistant

and in general, fixed focal length lenses will always have better

distortion specs than the zooms.

 

<p>

 

Mike

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  • 1 month later...

Hi everybody

 

<p>

 

I would like to recommend a photo gallery by a travel photographer,

Mr Tong, I believe he uses Leica fixed focal length for M series

Leica and Leica VE-R zooms for R series. His series illustrated the

performance of our main topic of discussion the Sigma blood Leica

VE28-70.

 

<p>

 

Please judge for yourselves the performance of VE-R 28-70 and if you

like to own one. A few picture tells a few thousand words, IMHO.

 

<p>

 

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~taiji/gallery.html

 

<p>

 

Best Regards

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  • 1 month later...

How good is grade 3.2 ?

 

It is as good as many prime lenses<p>

 

Grade: 3.2 35mm/AF Canon EF 28/1,8 USM <p>

 

Grade: 3.2 35mm/MF LeicaR Elmarit-R 24/2,8 <p>

Grade: 3.2 35mm/AF Nikkor AF 28/2,8D <p>

Grade: 3.2 35mm/MF Nikkor 35/2,8 <p>

Grade: 3.2 35mm/MF Pentax SMC-F 28/2,8 <p>

 

BTW,

 

 

 

 

Grade: 2.8 35mm/MF Contax Vario Sonnar T* 28-70/3,5-4,5

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  • 2 years later...

fotoMagazin and Colorfoto test on VE 28-70/3.5-4.5 (v2 )

<a href="http://www.walterimaging.de/html/leica_objektive.html">Leica lens test </a><p>

 

Leica Vario-Elmar-R 3,5-4,5/28-70 mm (second version )<p>

fotoMagazin rating :optic 9,0 Mechanic 9,8 overall rating " super"<p>

 

How good is fotoMagazin optical performance = 9 rating ?

 

The following Leica lenses all have fotoMagazin optic =9 rating<p>

<ul>

<li>Leica Elmar-M 2,8/50 mm

<li>Leica Tri-Elmar-M 4,0/28-35-50 mm

</ul>

 

Colorfoto rated VE 28-70/3.5-4.5 (Ver 2) at 78.8 ****

that is better than the follwing:

<ul>

<li>Leica Summilux-R 1,4/50 mm 77,7 ****

<li> Leica Elmarit-R 2,8/24 mm 76,2 ****(*)

<li>Leica Super-Elmar-R 3,5/15 mm 67,1 ****

 

</ul>

 

It is interesting to note, that fotoMagazin rated ver 1 VE 28-70/3.5-4.5 optically better than v2 (v1 9.6, v2 9.0), v2 mechanically better than v1 (9.8 vs 9.6) <p>

 

French magazine also rated v1 higher than v2.

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  • 10 years later...

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17759282-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" /><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17759281-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="479" /><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17759285-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="480" />VE28-70 with Canon 5DM2</p>

<p>The advantage of dslr vs film camera is that the unsharp factor introduced by film plane flatness deviation, film scanner film plane curl, film scanner resolution downgrade are elimimated, thus showing the sharpness of a lens in true light</p>

<p>First picture is full size photo<br /> 2nd and 3rd are crops showing the fine details<br>

VE28-70 is very sharp indeed, no wonder why German magazine fotoMagazine test lab rated it optically 9.6 (out of 10)</p>

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  • 6 years later...
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