advice on R4 (R) lens

[ranger]

Since I now own a Leica R4 I've been looking at lens possibilities. Don't really understand the difference between a 'cron and 'lux but more importantly I've been wondering if buying a fixed focal length over a 'vario"
is the way to go. I like the idea of a wide zoom but do you lose quality over a fixed? probably? Not enough to matter? My taste is in the mild wide to normal range. The cost is a factor too. I dont want to kill myself with an enormous purchase. The used 50 market seems pretty good. Anyone else have opinions?

 

[payasam]

A 50mm would probably be the place to start, but you should not rule out a moderate zoom if you plan to do portraits, for example, and landscapes and city-scapes and groups of people. A lens of fixed focal length will almost always give better quality than a zoom, but for most purposes the difference will not be enough to matter.

This post should be in "Evil SLRs", by the way.

 

[giellaleafapmu]

Back in the days I had a R3 Mot and I tried a few lenses. It is long time but if I remember the few I could test...

35mm and 50mm summicron are great, 60mm macro is fantastic, 90mm...which was that, I forgot but it was the cheapest available at the time...did not impress me, varios even less. I once tried a long Telyt, forgot the actual length, I think it was 400mm, which was essentially a pipe with a single glass at the end and I was impressed by how good such a simple combination could be.

I ultimately sold the camera because it broke on me too many times...the good lenses were great but sometimes decent photos are better than no photos and also the difference in price was much higher than difference in quality compared to Nikon, which was the other system I had and to which I am still faithful!

GLF

 

[dexdog]

the 'cron vs 'lux designation refers to maximum aperture. The 'cron is f2, while the 'lux is f 1.4.

 

[ranger]

thank you. I have the 50 elmar on Bessa R and really like it. Multiple lenses for the (D80) so i'll probably stick with another 50.