Best Leica R Lens for Canon 1Ds MarkII ?, Your Opinion and Advise?

Looking to buy "two or three" in total best lenses for Lifestyle, Beauty and

Fashion. I would like to buy "only new" Originally I was thinking Medium Format

Contax, Rollei, Hasselblad? but I was advised on Leica R lenses as the very best.

 

So, I would like to find out from you guys what is your opinion and advise?

 

Thank you

180mm f/2.8 APO Elmarit, 100mm f/2.8 APO Macro-Elmarit, and a wide lens like the 28mm

f/2.8 Elmarit. The new zooms are also excellent -- the 21-35 and the 28-90 are fantastic,

and all the current telephoto zooms are great.

And what exactly is wrong with Canon L lenses, as used by the vast majority of the world's professional photographers?

 

Do yourself a favour and save yourself a lot of hassle - buy Canon.

c'mon, this is the leica forum. canon has to be crap. unless it's 40+ yo, and screws onto a leica ,-)

Maybe the ROM E60 50mm Summilux. But, my experience with the 35 and 50mm

Summicrons, and the 80mm Summilux did not lead me to believe they are superior to the

Canon lenses i have. Get the Canon 35L, the 85L and then consider the 50L versus the

50/1.4. Even if the Leica Summilux is better than the Canon 50s, you'll get more consistent

results (sharpness) with the Canon's AF, and won't have to deal with stop-down

workarounds. Shooting fashion, you don't want to have to limit yourself to shooting at only

apertures of f4 and wider.

 

If you really want to use Leica-R lenses, get a used R8.

The only lenses I've ever heard a sizeable number of Canon-toting pros claim that Canon is significantly enough lacking in performance so as to make them look to adapted lenses, are the extreme wide angles. The Zeiss Contax 21mm and Leica's current 19mm are popular.

Leica 15 2.8,19 2.8, 28 2.8 35 lux and cron, 50 lux and cron, 60 macro, 80 lux, 90 cron, 100

macro, 180 f2, 180 2.8 , 280 f4, 28-90, 35-70 2.8. These are the best around and used

everyone on the DMR, 1dsMKII,1dMKll and 5d. The best Canon lenses there fisheye, 35 1.4,

50 macro, 85 1.2 ,135 f2, 200 1.8, 400 2.8, 90 TSE owned them also. The rest of the Canons

i would consider general purpose, good but the ones listed are there best.

 

Pick your poision

Look up the alternative digital systems and lenses forum on fred miranda's site. There is a whole community of people looking to adapt best lenses from other manufacturers on Canon cameras. There is also a 16-9 lens test site, where you will find a compilation of best lenses on the market at each focal length. That being said, I feel that in the normal to telephoto range, there are lots of excellent lenses from many manufacturers, including Canon, and this focal range will be your bread and butter choice, so maybe it is only justifiable to use other manufacturer's lenses for lanscape/architecture, wide angle slow type of work.

 

As a teaser, I would say - forget Canon and get yourself a D3 with the Zeiss ZF primes in the shorter range and the 70-200VR Nikkor zoom for the rest.

Ditto what Vinay wrote. Canon's 35L and longer are neck to neck with R lenses. The 24L

has a bit of distortion but if you are shooting people then you will not notice it. For straight

lines you can use the 24L TS. If you need any wider than that then maybe you can consider

the Zeiss 21mm. Been there and done that and can say firsthand it is not worth the hassle.

After endlessly repeating the much more practical advise of sticking to Canon image stabilized L glass, especially at the longer focal lengths, and only ever considering alternatives in the wide angles department when your needs are served by mounting the camera on the tripod and fulfilling the pixel peeping art/commercial director's strange desires, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should proactively start recommending any and all exotic glass from Leica, Zeiss, et al, to anyone who wants to put up with the hassle of using them with Canon. This would effectively keep the smart working pro focused on getting the results the way they know how to get, and keep the rest of the "professionals" busy with what they like being busy with - convincing themselves and anyone who'd listen that Leica and Zeiss glass is categorically superior.

Nels i'm sorry but as a Pro and previous owner of Canon and also one of the grand fathers

that started this revolution of using alternative glass on the 1ds going forward I have to

disagree. I have actually owned many of the alternatives but more importantly tested them

and bottom line leica and Zeiss are better than ANY wide canon has to offer. Like I said it

starts at 35mm for canon and after that going up they have some great glass but trust me

the Leica 180 F2 is a class above the 200 1.8 which i owned 3 of them. So as much as

canon owners love to fight me on this i will always stick to my testing of these lense which

i owned many of them and to my many years as pro and my experience. You can debate it

all you want, could care less but i know better and folks that trust my opinion usally agree

on what i think is the better lens. Don't get me wrong just because i shoot Leica lenses

and bodies that i don't like Canon which is far from the truth but I go by owning and doing

direct tests against each other not by internet rumor. This test are all gone now and have

no desire to rehash old news but i am intrigued that canon has finally gotten the message

and are bringing a new 16-35 to market which they needed to do , i went through 3 of

them. But secretly i think canon has started to improve there glass which is awesome and

for canon shooters that is really what they need. They have state of the art bodies but

where lacking in the lenses and frankly that is why i switched. So i hope that Canon has

finally figured it out but using alternative lenses is a royal PITA but if you want sharp

corners on your wides than leica and Zeiss where the only way to go and hopefully that is

changing. I have been here and done this so you believe what you want but i will not

debate it , I see no point nor need too. I'm not trying to be a bully here and say I know

better than anyone else BUT i put my money where my opinions are and spent a fortune

on canon and leica glass so please go out and do the testing yourselfs if you want but i

have done this and i have no interest or care either way what folks spend there money on.

I

deliever images to clents and at the end of the day that is all i care about.

"trust me the Leica 180 F2 is a class above the 200 1.8 which i owned 3 of them"

 

Why did you own three of them? Couldn't you get by with two?

 

"i...spent a fortune on canon and leica glass so please go out and do the testing yourselfs"

 

Or, alternatively, give the brick walls a break and just take some photographs of life.

There's no great mystique to any of this, some Leica lenses (and all M series lenses) are a

bit sharper than their Canon (or Nikon) equivalents. They also cost a great deal more and

aren't at all convenient to use when mounted on a Canon. For most purposes pretty much

all lenses have been sharp enough for decades. Does anybody really look at a Marc Riboud

print from the 50s, or a Don McCullin print from the 60s, and think: "Nice picture, but a

shame it wasn't taken with an aspherical lens"? Maybe Guy does, but most of us are just

pleased to look at great images. The current Nachtwey show, "The Sacrifice", at Mark

Seliger's gallery in NY has some sizeable prints of photographs made with the much

maligned Canon 16-35, but when I was there there weren't a lot of people complaining

that the corners are soft. Outside of purely technical photography it really doesn't much

matter what you use. Photographs aren't made or broken by lines per mm or a bit of

distortion. If it floats Guy's "Pro"-boat to buy and sell more stock than Adorama then that's

cool, but lets not kid ourselves his conclusions have any significance to real world

photography.

Guy, or "one of the grand fathers that started this revolution of using alternative glass on the 1ds",

 

Can you site a single example of a picture of yours that was rejected by an art director or whoever paid your bills on the basis of your use of a Canon L glass that made you switch to using the Leica R glass with an adaptor?

Yes i can several of them shooting cockpits for clients for one, soft corners would have me

looking for other work( which is a major client). It's not always about what the client will

accept but about what you

want to deliver to your client. Honestly if you feel a image may not be your best do you

really want to give that to your client and than ask thousands for it. I honestly don't. I'm

out to get clients excited about what i deliver not make excuses for it. Not that i can't

deliver a canon image but if there is a better lens than that is what I want.

 

The canon 200 1.8 I kept upgrading it for a newer and cleaner one because it was

discontinued and parts for it are disapearing quickly that I wanted as new as i could get to

last longer. Frankly this is there best lens they ever made

 

i don't shoot brick walls either and I don't do gallery work.

Boris there is more to photography than gallery work. Advertising, brochures , marketing

material for companies is something many people just think comes out of thin air. There are

many commercial shooters that do advertising and maybe never shot a gallery artistic image

in there life. I never hear anyone talk about guys that do this type of work and it's always

about Ansel or Henri or some other type of work that is more journalist style. There are

thousands of commercial shooter that just shoot cars to make a living , no one talks about

them or even thinks they exist. I know this forum is more geared at the journalist but there

are many differnt types of photography out there.

"It's not always about what the client will accept but about what you want to deliver to your client."

 

I have to say that having never found before, I never expected to find anything insightful buried in one of Guy's vein-popping rampages but that is one. It's certainly true in medicine, where the patient has at best a cursory ability to understand the issues, that quite often one does what one feels is one's best even though we know it won't be noticed, appreciated or bring additional compensation. Whether it's my doctor or my photographer I'd certainly not criticize him for going a little overboard in the direction of perfectionism. Certainly preferable to an attitude of "the client/patient won't know or care about the difference so why should I bother?".

There is never anything vein popping about my posts , it is just the way i write but you just

may read them wrong and that is fine but I truly am a very calm person . So please lets

move on to the subject at hand . We don't need to go here. But i do agree i would rather

over compensate than under compensate for defects or other factors in lenses but that is

me and it is not always needed either but certain work needs to be the best you can ouput.

 

Vinay we don't like each other at all but let's leave that aside, I have no interest in petty

wars with you or anyone. if you can't see your way past that than ignore whatever i say and

just move on. Otherwise i rather take the high road than stoop to level i rather not go.

Thanks Guy

<I>"It's not always about what the client will accept but about what you want to deliver to your client." </I>

<P>

It's not often I read anything insightful on photo.net but this truly is, thanks Guy - and thanks Vinay for the analogy that broadens the application of this concept.

Thanks Doug maybe a new signature line. LOL

 

I appreciate your comments and as always your talents

Adapt Leica glass for wide angle and if you can put up with the lack of auto focus and exposure. You will be trading automation for corner sharpness.

 

Canon has a new wide zoom which I would check first. It is like 20 to 40 or close to it. It is replacing the older similar design.

 

Also you may need larger format anyway. It just depends on the final use size and quality required.

Guy, it's a fair and noble objective to want to deliver more than what the client expects. No arguments there from me. Also, I'm glad that Canon is releasing an updated 16-35L partly in response to the fair complaints from photographers who shoot interiors and such, and partly in anticipation of their upcoming 1DsIII where any weaknesses in optics are only likely to be exaggerated beyond how they currently appear.

 

But if you primarily shoot using a tripod, and ultimate image quality is what you're after, why deal with 35mm when you could get far superior results with medium format digital?

Nels excellent point and i do agree and i want to move into that direction for sure and i

have been for awhile. My main problem is what is out there in the market and if you look

at the MF digital side it is all over the place as too who owns who and what software works

on what platform plus there are really only maybe 6 differnt company backs out there .

Now hassy had a open system than closed that with the H3. So i have been waiting and

maybe too long for a good solution. I'm going to PMA and see what these guys have and

start making some decisions. But the other issue is dropping 40k and than that back

becomes a part of another company with no support too. It honestly has been a mess and

there are a lot of guys now stuck to upgrade or be left in the dirt. leica gear although

expensive it is at least something you can sell easy if they don't work out, MF is a tough

nut to sell used. i really would like to get to two M8's and MF and leave the DSLR out of it. i

honestly love the M8's and yes it has some issues but the files are really good if you are

willing to work around the IR issue which I have. But for some of the PR work that i have to

do they are great at that stuff and i even did a lot of commercial work with them, the M

glass is really good and i did not know how good until I got the M8 . I never owned a M

camera until now. Stupid really on my part that i watched them for 30 years and never

bought one. i could kick myself now for it.

 

But Mf is a big expense and i just want to be sure i am at least buying 5 years worth of

camera.

 

I also agree with you if canon puts out a 1dsMKIII without improving there wides they will

just bury themseleves , so i am glad about the 16-35 it is a very positive sign from them.

"Vinay we don't like each other at all but let's leave that aside, I have no interest in petty wars with you or anyone. if you can't see your way past that than ignore whatever i say and just move on. Otherwise i rather take the high road than stoop to level i rather not go."

 

...and lucidity fades as he sinks back into paranoid ranting. I don't dislike you Guy, you're the only one with any disliking here...for anybody who disagrees with you. If anything I feel sorry for you that someone with good intentions and ideas flies into a furious rage like Donald Duck at the mere suggestion there's an valid alternative to your opinions.

"Boris there is more to photography than gallery work...There are many commercial

shooters that do advertising and maybe never shot a gallery artistic image in there life. I

never hear anyone talk about guys that do this type of work"

 

People don't talk about these photographers because, just like, say, medical

photographers, their work has no resonance to the outside world (at least aesthetically).

The obsessive, and never satisfied, chase after corner to corner sharpness has no

relevance at all to the majority of photographers or their images.

 

"The canon 200 1.8 I kept upgrading it for a newer and cleaner one because it was

discontinued and parts for it are disapearing quickly that I wanted as new as i could get to

last longer. Frankly this is there best lens they ever made"

 

On paper this might be the sharpest lens that Canon made, but it doesn't follow that it's

the "best". In practise, you wouldn't see any sharpness difference between this lens and a

300f2.8. This is about the desire for the biggest and baddest rather than most useable.

Pretty much all the strongest images ever made in 35mm format could have been taken

with a simple 28, 35, or 50. It's interesting that in the world of commercial and advertising

some of the biggest, most lucrative, and high profile contracts are awarded to editorial

photographers

using equipment less exotic than that owned by the average Leica toting dentist. Vision is

all.

Vinay i expected a answer such as that , you simply donot give up throwing punches . Not

interested.

 

Boris if you need a 1.8 a 2.8 will no get it done. My needs were for a 1.8 lens for certain jobs

that i do. The 300 2.8 is a nice lens but I never owned it so if you owned them both and

tested against each other than i will take your word for it. The 300 was too long for me.

Could have been is a little different than were don't you think. But if that is your thoughts

than that is fine.