How does the Leica 90mm Elmarit R look on the Leica SL2? Let's find out.

One week ago today we'd just suffered through two nights of near zero degrees, the wind was howling and our expectation for the low last Wednesday night was somewhere around 12°. What a difference a week makes. It hit 87° Fahrenheit here in Austin this afternoon. Time to put on a pair of shorts, grab a sun blocking hat, and hit the streets. What better reason to go out than to try and divine just how well a 40 year old lens might work on a brand new, big res, camera body?

The lens in question is one that pops up on the used market every once in a while. It's an Elmarit-R, 1:2.8, 90mm and it's old enough that they lens is inscribed "Leitz" instead of "Leica" which was used on more modern lenses (but not on Elmarit Rs). Mine is worn such that the numbers on the aperture ring are faded but the lens is physically solid with a silky smooth focusing ring and no play in it at all. I bought my well used 90mm Elmarit from a photographer friend for around $350 but a pristine, late model, three cam version can go from anywhere from $500 to $750. While the optical design is simpler than modern lenses picking up the lens informs you that the optics are dense, even though the system is comprised of four elements in four groups.

Mine is a type 2 variant which was a redesign adding a built-in, collapsible lens hood and, after 1983, a third cam for sending the camera lens information. The one I own, according to serial numbers, was built in 1983, and the entire run of Elmarit R 90mm f2.8 type two lenses, over a decade and a half, numbers about 16,000. 

The camera of the day today was the Leica SL2 and I mounted the lens to the camera with a Novoflex R to L lens adapter. It's a "dumb" adapter so the lens is used in a totally manual mode but interestingly enough, if you dive into the sub-menus on the camera you can set the actual lens model, letting the camera know the basic characteristics of the lens. This is a good feature since the information is used for image stabilization as well as exposure metering. As a result, the camera actually records the aperture used and this is shown in Adobe Lightroom. I don't know but I wonder if Leica has also included in their in-camera lens profile information about the basic characteristics of each lens; including its amount of vignetting, and geometric distortion. If I used more R lenses on the camera I'd probably be motivated to find out but I'm happy with the combination as is. More information won't improve or reduce the quality of the lens...

I owned a copy of this lens back when I was shooting with a bunch of R series cameras in the 1980's and 1990's and I found that I was most successful if I stopped down to f4.0. Using it wide open was hit and miss and mostly limited my contrast and overall sharpness. An aperture of f4 cleaned up most of the performance issues--- but the lens really comes into its own at f5.6 and f8.0.

Since there's no autofocus I depended on the SL2's focus peaking. The FN button on the back of the camera allows one to toggle through four screens for shooting. One screen is totally clean with no information, one has basic information and a level while yet another one includes focus peaking. You needn't dedicate a separate button for this, you just toggle through the available screen options. 

Today I shot almost exclusively locked in at f4.0. I like stuff to go out of focus in the background so it's a nice compromise. All of today's images were shot in the Natural profile as large, fine Jpegs. I did not apply sharpening to the images but did mess with highlights and shadows where I was looking for a different balance for a few of the shots. 

Older lenses tend to have been computed and designed to perform best at certain distances. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this one performs best when used between 6 feet and about 30 feet. That's not to say it can't be used at infinity or at its close focus distance of approximately 25 inches, it's just that entering the range I described above gets me the best optical performance. 

I've reviewed the photos shown here at 100% and I find them to be sharp, but not in the way my more modern Lumix 50mm f1.4 or the Sigma 85mm Art lens are. Those two show off a very high level of resolution along with a well balanced contrast. The Elmarit doesn't resolve anywhere near those lenses but the simpler design goes a long way toward delivering high contrast. It's a different look. Probably part of what gets described as a "film" look. But it is different from modern optics and so has a place in the equipment drawer for those times when contrast and acutance are more aesthetically important that a tamer, high resolution look. 

In the end I have to say that I find the look the lens delivers to be really nice. I feel that many of the R series Leica lenses shared that high acutance and high contrast look but it was mainly attainable in the 35mm, 50mm, 80mm and 90mm lenses in the R catalog where you can really see this. The wider lenses were good in their day but nothing special compared to current wide angle primes. 

If I intended to put together a group of R lenses to use with the SL2 I would have a small list. It would include the 50mm Summilux 1.4, the final version of the 50mm f2.0 Summicron, the 80mm f1.4 Summilux, this 90mm Elmarit and the 180mm f3.4 Apo-Telyt. While there are other good lenses in the range these are the ones that always delivered the best looks for me. If you are a real portrait geek you'd also add in the 90mm f2.0 Summicron but you'd be aware that it's softer wide open than the others. Not a fault, more of a feature. Stop it down and you'll find it fits right into the family.

When adapting wider lenses to the SL cameras I think I'm happier with some of the Contax Y/C and N series lenses. My current fave being the 28mm f2.8. But when considering wides I always come back to modern, well corrected zooms for the few times I use them. 

Take a look at the images and tell me what you think. Do they look different from the zoom lens photographs I usually post? Maybe it's all in my head...

The camera does quite well at ISO 5,000. I did drop down to f2.8 just to stay under ISO 10,000. 

Not bad for such a high megapixel camera!

First (legally allowable) outing with the Leica 90mm-R Elmarit lens. A morning trip to Pedernales State Park.

I got an e-mail a few days ago from the Texas State Park folks letting me know that a number of parks were opening back up to the public starting Monday the 20th and I rushed to make a reservation. I checked the weather first. The app predicted that today would be a beautiful Spring morning in central Texas. Coolish temperatures and low humidity, and not a rain cloud in the sky. My reservation was for Pedernales State Park which is about 45 minutes due West of Austin. I stuffed sunscreen, a couple water bottles and some roasted almonds into my little leather backpack and grabbed a Lumix S1R with the Leica 90mm on it. I tossed a Zeiss 50mm into the pack, just in case the 90mm became too claustrophobic. Oh, and I invited Belinda to come along with me.

We hit the park around 9 a.m. and picked up our "no contact" windshield sticker from a board outside the park office and then we headed for the falls. The Park officials have some rules: First, all reservations must be made online and in advance. Second, the entrance to the park is staggered by time slots. We had the 8-11 a.m. slot. We're allowed to be in the park all day until 10 p.m. but we had to be in by 11 a.m. latest. Third, face masks are to be worn at all times. Fourth, everybody has to practice proscribed social distancing. With thousands of acres of fun land to explore, and only about 18 cars per time slot allowed in, the park was a much different place than what we experienced a year ago. We saw very few people and intersected with almost no one. Everyone followed the rules to the letter. 

The 90mm Elmarit R lens is wonderful. Very well behaved and as sharp as a macro lens. While I post my images here at 2800 pixels on the long side I can assure you that at the full resolution of the S1R raw files, and with f-stops set to 5.6 or 8.0, the amount of detail you get in a file is just stunning. The color is neutral and the nano-acuity is off the charts. The lens was just as I remembered it and now I'm keeping an eye open to see what I can pick up in the used markets. I'd like to pick up a 50mm R Summilux (f1.4) and also the 80mm Summilux but I fear the cat is out of the bag among Panasonic S users and the prices are starting to surge up again. Not the worst outcome for me; I can always at least try to practice some financial restraint from time to time....

I didn't bring a tripod or an ND filter so all my water in the shots flows in real time. But that's okay; I was getting a bit bored with the clichéd, smooth water I see in EVERY landscape shot that includes moving water.

We hiked until one p.m. and figured we'd soaked up enough vitamin D, nature and sunlight. I'd shot some test shots to play with and it was starting to heat up going into the afternoon (it's supposed to hit 98 degrees (Fahrenheit) tomorrow afternoon --- not looking forward to that). We exited the park and went to look for lunch. 

When we were younger adults, with meager budgets, we always loved finding a What-a-burger hamburger stand out in the Texas countryside. They started as a Texas chain and we trained ourselves to love their griddled burgers and mustard based condiment philosophy. It was, and probably still is, the only fast food, burger chain where you can order Jalapeño slices as an addition to your burger. We found one just outside of Dripping Springs, Texas today but as it was lunch time and they were only doing drive through, the line of cars was outrageous. We skipped What-a-burger and headed towards home. 

There is a McDonald's just a few miles from our house and when we drove by on the main road we saw that there were only a few cars in line so we stopped there to grab a lunch and take it home. We probably haven't done that in a decade but it was a carefree day and we were enjoying the nostalgia of it all. The food was...okay. But the adventure was fun and relaxing. Next week we may hit Enchanted Rock State Park, if we can get a reservation and the weather is nice. 

And I'll probably bring the 90mm R along in tow. 

Signs everywhere telling you two things:

"Practice Social Distancing."

"Keep an eye out for Diamond Back Rattlesnakes."

got it.

An old favorite comes home to roost. It's the Leica 90mm Elmarit-R on the Lumix S1R. Nice.

Leica Elmarit-R, 90mm f2.8 Adapted to the S1R

with a Novoflex adapter.

However you feel about the value proposition of current Leica models it's hard to argue that, through the decades, they've made some of the finest lenses in the world --- and continue to do so today. In the early 1980s one of the most sought after lenses for the M series cameras of the day was still the Dual Range 50mm Summicron (f2.0) which was designed in the 1950s. It could stand up to anything on the market some 30 years later, and it was better than the majority of its competitors. I know, I bought one when I started shooting with a single stroke M3 in 1979.

I was a Leica fan in the film days and throughout the 1990s I shot with both Leica M6 and M4 cameras as well as a very functional collection of R lenses and a motley (and ever changing) collection of Leica R bodies, including: The original Leicaflex, the SL, the SL2 Mot, the R3, R4, R5, R6 and R8 (for some reason I skipped the R7...). I did not own them all concurrently but at any one time I usually had one of the totally manual classics, a mechanical R6 and finally, until the end (death by digital), the R8s. 

But the reason to own Leica R cameras (all SLRs) wasn't for the bodies (some were better than others) it was to be able to use lenses of the same quality that we'd come to enjoy using on the M cameras. There were some things the M lenses did better. I don't miss semi-wide or wide-angle R lenses much; the M versions always seemed better. But the longer lenses (from 80mm on up) were much better suited to SLR style cameras and we started adding R cameras to our systems to get easier good results with fast 90mm lenses, 180mm's and longer. The longer focal lengths were harder to use on rangefinder cameras because the finder images got smaller and smaller while focusing accuracy got worse and worse. 

My favorite working combinations by the late 1990s were M6 cameras with 28mm and 35mm lenses combined with an R6 or R8 equipped with, alternately, the 80mm f1.4 Summilux, the 90mm f2.0 Summicron or the 90mm f2.8 Elmarit. Most Leica R shooters gravitated to the faster lenses not because they were optically better than the slower ones but because the very narrow depth of field on those fast, short telephotos made manual focusing so much easier in dim lighting. Also, we were more or less constrained to use films rated at 400 or 800 ISO at a maximum. So, easier focusing and better light gathering capabilities pushed us to reach for the fastest glass we could afford. And, for the most part, Leica lenses delivered very decent images even when used wide open (as long as you didn't care too much about field flatness...).

Most of us were aware that the f2.8 lenses were either just as good at f2.8 and slower as the fast lenses, the only reason to spend more was for speed, not quality. But we also learned, by shooting thousands and thousands of frames, that when it was possible to shoot in good light and take time to focus accurately, that the last generations of the Elmarit 90-R lenses were better. By f4.0 the f2.8 lenses were sharper and resolved more detail. They were also flatter field lenses so there was less compromise on the edge of the frame. 

Sadly, Leica stopped making R lens compatible cameras for a number of years and interest in the orphaned system of optics waned until the rise of the mirrorless cameras along with their shorter lens flange to sensor distances which allowed for an almost unlimited use of adapters. This brought all kinds of really good, film era, SLR lenses back out of drawers and off shelves and back onto the fronts of cameras. And with highly superior high ISOs (think  6400 and 12500 on the S1 and Sigma fp) the slower aperture hardly matters anymore.

I really like the lenses I've accumulated for the Panasonic Lumix S1 series of cameras I'm shooting with now and my only complaint has been the huge size and  ponderous weight of the lenses that correspond to the focal lengths I'm most interested in using. I love the image quality I can get with the Sigma Art Series 85mm f1.4 but the lens is huge and weighs a ton. I'm waiting impatiently for Panasonic to release their 85mm f1.8 but I fear it will still be a beast; especially if the 50mm f1.4 gives us any indication of their design aesthetic for modern lenses. 

What I really wanted was what I had back in the days of Leica R stuff: a very good lens that's small enough to carry around for a full day and which will blow the doors off many more modern lenses available for other systems. Like the Leica Elmarit 90R. It's not light, even by modern standards, but it is compact and easy to use. The focusing ring on my copy, which is probably 25 years old, is like clarified butter. And the image, even just in the finder, is superb. Quintessentially Leica. 

I bought this current copy of the 90mm from a friend who bought it in a moment of impending Leica lust only to be distracted at the last minute by the Leica S2 camera system instead. I bought it from him immediately. 

I ordered a cheap adapter ring from Amazon.com but in their current disarray, and fervor to ship more toilet paper and Diet Coke in bulk, the adapter ring would not arrive for the better part of a month. Not acceptable. I canceled that order and paid ten times the price for a Novoflex R to L-mount adapter from Camera West in California. It came in a few short days and it fits perfectly. 

I haven't had much opportunity to shoot much of anything with the new/old lens but will take it with me tomorrow on a shooting expedition outside the city. If it's half as good as I remember I'll never take it off the camera. 

Tomorrow I'll shoot it on an S1R outdoors in nature. But what I'd really like to see is how it will deliver when used on the Sigma fp, in the studio, for a nicely lit portrait. That vaccine can't come quick enough. 

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that we're up and running on what will be a multi-post test of the lens. Nice to be back in the Leica glass world. Hope this doesn't lead to any rash purchases of current Leica SL lenses, that way lies financial madness...