Leica R - Who has experience with these?

[dave lackey]

Any Nikon MF camera will beat up Leica R.
SL/SL2 clumsy, SL2's 1/2000 is not reliable, Nikon FM/FM2 are far better in term reliability and handle
Lecia R3/4/5/6/7 are jokes, the shutter response time more or less like the 60's camera
FE2 is way better.

I hope some day a SONY full frame body with EVF and adapter will revive all my R, Contax and Pentax lenses.

Leica bashing? Go elsewhere, please.

 

[dof]

Can you please tell me what is micro-contrast? I'm getting lost with all these terms that seem to mean nothing more then, in this particular case... contrast?

I'm assuming you're not just being snide here, Clint. In short here's the gist of it:

Macro-contrast refers to the overall gamut of a given lens. It's the range of the deepest tones to the lightest ones that the lens can transmit. It's also sometimes referred to as dynamic range.

Micro-contrast refers to how intermediate tones are transmitted and therefore rendered. Higher micro-contrast contributes to the apparent sharpness in an image as there will be greater definition between two shades of green in a leaf, for example.

 

[nobbylon]

Any Nikon MF camera will beat up Leica R.
SL/SL2 clumsy, SL2's 1/2000 is not reliable, Nikon FM/FM2 are far better in term reliability and handle
Lecia R3/4/5/6/7 are jokes, the shutter response time more or less like the 60's camera
FE2 is way better.

I hope some day a SONY full frame body with EVF and adapter will revive all my R, Contax and Pentax lenses.

Rubbish! I've used both systems extensively and can say definitively that this is not the case. How are the SL and SL2 clumsy exactly? Please give us your insight. They are both the best focusing MF SLR's ever made, period. Nikon can't come close in this respect and I've had and used every pro Nikon from the F through to the F5. Built like tanks with an inner mechanism slid into the exterior shell as in M's they are both ultra reliable and ultra strong. The R series cameras are a delight to use and are also very reliable however I did prefer my NIkons to them having had various R4's and 8 but again MF was nicer and easier with the R's. SL2's 2000 speed is an Internet folklore mountain out of a molehill. A service with correct lubrication and not leaving the shutter wound eradicate this one.
I loved using all my various NIkon's and still use Fx Dslr's and an F5 however the best MF SLR after using many is simply the SL. It still has THE best viewfinder of any SLR ever made.

 

[steveyork]

To call a Leicaflex 'clumsy' really bespeaks of a lack of experience. They are far more ergonomic then any Nikon camera of the same period, and other then the M5, more user friendly then any of the Leica M cameras. Sure, they don't look it, but put a Leicaflex in your hands and the beefy controls fall right at the fingers. Like the M5, Leicaflex was designed with function in mind, not how they look, but as we all know now, the photography crowd wants their pretty little cameras -- the Nikon Fs, the M3s, ect. -- because they're concerned with image, and I'm not talking the image that appears on the negative.

 

[leicapixie]

If anyone "thinks" a Nikon-F is pretty?
It's a mean camera, sharp corners,
the advance lever can cut your forehead, in plain it's brutal!
It also still works without any care and coddling that a Leica requires..
I like my Nikon-F, love my M3, hated the "reliability" of Leica R series.

 

[dave lackey]

If anyone "thinks" a Nikon-F is pretty?
It's a mean camera, sharp corners,
the advance lever can cut your forehead, in plain it's brutal!
It also still works without any care and coddling that a Leica requires..
I like my Nikon-F, love my M3, hated the "reliability" of Leica R series.

+1 on the "pretty" v. "brutal" F cameras.
I like the F2...would like it better with a DE-1 prism. But, it is not an easy camera for me to use like the FE2 which I pick up and use without thinking. I have to plan and make myself use the F2 while I can appreciate the technology from years past.

I totally disagree on the dislike for reliability of R cameras. Been using mine for more than 2 years daily. Perfectly reliable 30+ year old camera. I have had more trouble with my Nikons over the years.

Besides, I started with this thread asking about people with experience with R cameras. I got it and dismissed most of the opinins. Bought what I wanted and love it as much as the M3! I would prefer that the mod just close this thread because it has served it's usefulness.

Time to stop bashing the R cameras because that is NOT what this thread is all about. Anyone want to bash Leica, or Leica R cameras, start your OWN thread, please.:angel:

 

[Spud10]

Don't close the thread yet! I still haven't finalized my kit. Went hunting again today and actually ended up taking home an R6! Wasn't planning on it but it seemed to be in excellent condition, short shutter release throw and the first one to not have cracks in the mirror box (if that makes sense). Hopefully it's as good as I think.

Still hunting for lenses. There seems to be a shortage here (Seoul) of r-lenses in general and I swear almost all the ones I find are 24mm! Strange...

 

[Clint Troy]

I'm assuming you're not just being snide here, Clint. In short here's the gist of it:

Macro-contrast refers to the overall gamut of a given lens. It's the range of the deepest tones to the lightest ones that the lens can transmit. It's also sometimes referred to as dynamic range.

Micro-contrast refers to how intermediate tones are transmitted and therefore rendered. Higher micro-contrast contributes to the apparent sharpness in an image as there will be greater definition between two shades of green in a leaf, for example.

Thanks for your explanation.
But I just don't buy it. Who decided this? I mean, who decided to take the term Contrast and subdivise it?
And a lens doesn't provide a good or bad Dynamic range. The recording medium does.

A lens with good contrast will also show show good macro-micro and macho contrast.
A lens with bad contrast will be bad on all the (pathetic, to me) sub-categories ala micro-macro-mucho and macho-contrast.
Yeah, I know that macho-contrast doesn't exist but it probably will, one day, when all the current terms will become old.

And why not call a lens "sharp" instead of "micro-contrasty"? Sharp, soft, high contrast, low contrast. Why create new terms?

 

[Spud10]

Thanks for your explanation.
But I just don't buy it. Who decided this? I mean, who decided to take the term Contrast and subdivise it?
And a lens doesn't provide a good or bad Dynamic range. The recording medium does.

A lens with good contrast will also show show good macro-micro and macho contrast.
A lens with bad contrast will be bad on all the (pathetic, to me) sub-categories ala micro-macro-mucho and macho-contrast.
Yeah, I know that macho-contrast doesn't exist but it probably will, one day, when all the current terms will become old.

And why not call a lens "sharp" instead of "micro-contrasty"? Sharp, soft, high contrast, low contrast. Why create new terms?

I always assumed that micro-contrast referred to a lens's ability to detect those subtle change of tones. And so, when you can see these greater tonal variations, finer details take on a greater dynamic, perhaps appearing "sharper".

At least thats what I thought.

 

[redisburning]

And why not call a lens "sharp" instead of "micro-contrasty"? Sharp, soft, high contrast, low contrast. Why create new terms?

Well with a high resolution medium (e.g. t-grained b&w film or very high pixel density sensors like the pentax Q) sharpness refers to the terminal resolution at which contrast drops below a threshold. Zeiss uses 10%, so when they give you lp/mm numbers like 400 for the 25 Biogon or 300 for the 100 MP that is what they are referring to. A lot of tests these days use MTF50, or what resolution contrast drops below 50%, as I believe this is the bases for how the imatest machines work.

Contrast is different than sharpness then. Contrast refers to transmission at various resolutions. "Macro" or "large structure" contrast is at low frequencies, like 5 or 10 lp/mm.

Optics are a compromise, and one of the compromises is how fast contrast levels fall off as you increase frequency. If you look at a lens like the v3 Summicron, Leica decided that they could sacrifice some of the contrast at high frequencies to boost it in the ranges that are important for what was considered a reasonable print size at the time. As films improved and enlargements got larger so too did the requirements for contrast at higher frequencies.

The human response to frequencies is not that great, frankly. When the research that ultimately led to the SQF measurements was done, they figured out that the impression of sharpness in a picture you were looking at from a foot was something in the neighborhood of .5 to 2 lp/mm. That makes 40 lp/mm only relevant at 20x enlargements, which probably goes a long way to explaining why people who eschew pixel peeping think a lot of not so sharp lenses are in fact pretty sharp.

Further compounding the issue is color separation and response in a lens. Lens makers have long battled with how to make two close colors be better differentiated. Frankly, Leica rules the roost in this regard, even above Zeiss. I can tell you that I am less intimate with the underlying issues here.

So why do people make up words? Because this a complicated subject and they need something general that speaks to their experiences without requiring them to read published articles on the frequency response of the human eye.

 

[dave lackey]

Don't close the thread yet! I still haven't finalized my kit. Went hunting again today and actually ended up taking home an R6! Wasn't planning on it but it seemed to be in excellent condition, short shutter release throw and the first one to not have cracks in the mirror box (if that makes sense). Hopefully it's as good as I think.

Still hunting for lenses. There seems to be a shortage here (Seoul) of r-lenses in general and I swear almost all the ones I find are 24mm! Strange...

Fantastic! Post a photo of your new baby!

PM me on a lens.:angel:

 

[Clint Troy]

Well with a high resolution medium (e.g. t-grained b&w film or very high pixel density sensors like the pentax Q) sharpness refers to the terminal resolution at which contrast drops below a threshold. Zeiss uses 10%, so when they give you lp/mm numbers like 400 for the 25 Biogon or 300 for the 100 MP that is what they are referring to. A lot of tests these days use MTF50, or what resolution contrast drops below 50%, as I believe this is the bases for how the imatest machines work.

Contrast is different than sharpness then. Contrast refers to transmission at various resolutions. "Macro" or "large structure" contrast is at low frequencies, like 5 or 10 lp/mm.

Optics are a compromise, and one of the compromises is how fast contrast levels fall off as you increase frequency. If you look at a lens like the v3 Summicron, Leica decided that they could sacrifice some of the contrast at high frequencies to boost it in the ranges that are important for what was considered a reasonable print size at the time. As films improved and enlargements got larger so too did the requirements for contrast at higher frequencies.

The human response to frequencies is not that great, frankly. When the research that ultimately led to the SQF measurements was done, they figured out that the impression of sharpness in a picture you were looking at from a foot was something in the neighborhood of .5 to 2 lp/mm. That makes 40 lp/mm only relevant at 20x enlargements, which probably goes a long way to explaining why people who eschew pixel peeping think a lot of not so sharp lenses are in fact pretty sharp.

Further compounding the issue is color separation and response in a lens. Lens makers have long battled with how to make two close colors be better differentiated. Frankly, Leica rules the roost in this regard, even above Zeiss. I can tell you that I am less intimate with the underlying issues here.

So why do people make up words? Because this a complicated subject and they need something general that speaks to their experiences without requiring them to read published articles on the frequency response of the human eye.

This is very complex and scientific. And yet people so easily come up with those terms. It's all fishy at best when one opens a pic in photoshop at 100% and starts analyzing and then writes a whole serious blog on the topic.

But this is the era we live in: Eveyone and their mother is an undisputed expert 🙂

 

[nobbylon]

The lenses for R have increased in price a lot over the last few years especially 35's.
I have a small selection including 35, 50, 60 and 90. All fantastic. I'm not one for technical jargon with lenses or indeed reviews like Erwin Puts'. I don't understand half of what people talk about regarding lens design, I just like the results I get with them.