Nikon z6 or Leica SL for use with Leica M glass?

[Roel]

Thank you Vince for the contribution with the pics of the Summilux and the Nikon s 50mm. I ordered and received the Z6 with 24-70 f4 s. was thinking of getting the 35mm 1.8 s first and using the Leica 50 cron and Yashinon 55mm f1.2 adapted. But now i wonder if i should start with the 50mm 1.8s.

Love all the great info in your remarks guys. Hope i can add some of my own when getting going with the camera.

Regarding grip. I think i would benefit with a slightly higher body and am looking for some options. I saw the Meike bottom plate and the Gariz leather plate/case. Both will probably give some pinky support. Any (other) options or ideas?

Other smart accessoires for shooting the Nikon Z?

 

[Roel]

Vince, your shots are between the Summilux and Nikon S 50 are really great. Do you think it is possible to shoot a portrait with surroundings with the two lenses for comparison to check out the overall rendering? Would be really great. I will be shooting mainly people with my set up.

 

[trix4ever]

Roel, Try the Smallgrip l-bracket, it makes the z6 just the right size, but I do have big hands.
All the best, Mark


https://filmisadelight.com/

 

[Vince Lupo]

Regarding grip. I think i would benefit with a slightly higher body and am looking for some options. I saw the Meike bottom plate and the Gariz leather plate/case. Both will probably give some pinky support. Any (other) options or ideas?

Other smart accessoires for shooting the Nikon Z?

I have the Lim's 'half case' and I love it. Looks great, feels great and is a nice addition.


Dressed Up Z7 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

 

[Vince Lupo]

Vince, your shots are between the Summilux and Nikon S 50 are really great. Do you think it is possible to shoot a portrait with surroundings with the two lenses for comparison to check out the overall rendering? Would be really great. I will be shooting mainly people with my set up.

Yes I certainly can -- I was also thinking of doing a comparison between the 75/2.5 Summarit and the 85/1.8 Nikon. I also have a 85/1.5 Canon LTM lens I can try.

 

[Roel]

I have the Lim's 'half case' and I love it. Looks great, feels great and is a nice addition.


Dressed Up Z7 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

Looking very classy!
Is the strap wide enough for the weight of the camera + 2.8 zoom?

 

[Vince Lupo]

Looking very classy!
Is the strap wide enough for the weight of the camera + 2.8 zoom?

Oh yes, Gordy's are good strong straps.

 

[Archiver]

@Vince Lupo, I wish you had a digital M body so you could compare how the Summilux performs on it alongside the Z7. Most things I read say that M lenses perform best on M bodies, but I'm wondering if I could be happy with M lenses on a Z6, given how much smaller and lighter these lenses are.

 

[Vince Lupo]

@Vince Lupo, I wish you had a digital M body so you could compare how the Summilux performs on it alongside the Z7. Most things I read say that M lenses perform best on M bodies, but I'm wondering if I could be happy with M lenses on a Z6, given how much smaller and lighter they are.

I have an M-D, so I could compare. But it’s only 24mp, as compared to the Z7’s 45.7, so not sure if it would be a fair fight. However if you’d like me to give it a shot, I can.

 

[Godfrey]

@Vince Lupo, I wish you had a digital M body so you could compare how the Summilux performs on it alongside the Z7. Most things I read say that M lenses perform best on M bodies, but I'm wondering if I could be happy with M lenses on a Z6, given how much smaller and lighter these lenses are.

I have an M-D, so I could compare. But it’s only 24mp, as compared to the Z7’s 45.7, so not sure if it would be a fair fight. However if you’d like me to give it a shot, I can.

Regards rendering performance: It depends on the lens. Only Leica bodies have the Leica lens profiles which help correct exposures in such a way that the lenses' original rendering remains the same to a high confidence across film and digital bodies, and different sensors in the different digital bodies. This is much more important for some Leica lenses than others.

Trying to do a comprehensive test that shows the differences clearly is very difficult and very time consuming. I tried myself, comparing Sony A7 with Leica M-P240 and SL bodies. That was an easy test because the Sony A7 was awful with most Leica M lenses shorter than 50mm (and even some Leica R lenses as well) where both the M-P240 (and M-D262) and SL works brilliantly with all of them. I'm not familiar with the Nikon Z6-Z7 sensor; I hope it would do better than the old Sony sensor as it's a half decade newer design...

For me, however, I never used my M lenses on the SL very much. The SL body was much handier in use with the R lenses instead. This remains true today with my CL body, it's because the R lenses design was conceived of for an "at the eye" TTL focusing and exposure control camera where the M lenses were designed for a rangefinder coupled focusing system. The location of aperture ring, focusing ring, etc, on the R lenses is very consistent; the location of these things on the M lenses is quite variable until you get to the most recent generation of M lenses. The difference in ergonomics is very significant to my hands and eye. I use more M lenses on the CL simply because of their smaller size and weight, but whenever some critical activity comes up and I know I MUST get the photos, I use my R lenses exclusively.

I personally wouldn't consider using anything other than a Leica body for Leica lenses at this point, although I'll break that rule myself when the Hasselblad 907x gets delivered (because I'm fascinated to see what it will do with adapted M and R lenses... 🙂)

G

 

[Vince Lupo]

I've tried the 50 Summicron for some actual shooting (not just the previous tests) on the Z7 and it's totally fine - I can't necessarily see that its performance would be inherently better on an M body than on this, but I could be wrong. Honestly, the native Z lenses are really good, so I don't really see an advantage to putting M lenses on the Z7, other than the fact that they're physically smaller. The Z7 handling is great, however, no matter the lens.

 

[Huss]

@Vince Lupo, I wish you had a digital M body so you could compare how the Summilux performs on it alongside the Z7. Most things I read say that M lenses perform best on M bodies, but I'm wondering if I could be happy with M lenses on a Z6, given how much smaller and lighter these lenses are.

Don't forget you will need to use an adapter, which makes the lenses larger:

 

[Huss]

I wonder about the native Z-glass: how future proofed is it?

For example a Leica representative told me that the lens for the Leica "Q" is good for up to an 80 MP sensor, and we are only up to 47 MP with a Q2.

On the SL Forums they say the native "L"-glass is future proofed out 3-4 generations or 100-120 MP sensors. We now have a second generation SL, a SL2, with only 47.3 MP.

Consider how many generations out if considering Z-native glass.

Cal

If you check the manual focus lens threads on fredmiranda.com, you will see lots of examples of old lenses from Japanese mfgs that work superbly on Sony A7riv, Nikon Z7 etc.
So I think the future proofing claim is marketing speak to encourage you to buy up.

Consider this... the Z lenses on Nikon Z bodies already are the highest resolving glass made by Nikon. Then consider their cost - about 1/3 to 1/4 of what Leica asks for their equivalent. So even IF a Nikon owner was affected by future proofing, they could buy the next greatest lens and still be at 1/2 the cost if they bought Leica glass.

 

[Huss]

Fascinating - the Nikon is definitely sharper, I prefer the uncropped bokeh of the Summilux, but the other way round when cropped!

The Nikon is sharper on the Nikon body than the Summilux is on the Nikon body.
When I compared the Summilux on my M240 and Z7, it was sharper on the Leica even taking into account the mp difference.

Native lenses perform better on their native bodies.

 

[oldwino]

Native lenses perform better on their native bodies.

Yup, I've found this to be generally right on. But I do have a couple of older Leitz lenses that are really fun to use on my Z6; a coated 1935 Summar 50, for instance. The Summar actually performs better on the Z6 for some reason - very sharp, better contrast, and the bokeh is even crazier.
Since Nikon don't have a 28 yet, I've been using my version 2 Elmarit 28 with very good results (but that lens was a retro focus design anyway, so maybe no wonder).
Other lenses (my summicrons 50 & 35) is just fine, but the Nikon Z lenses just blow them out of the water in this use case.

 

[Calzone]

T

Native lenses perform better on their native bodies.

Huss,

Another yup here. In my case APO 35 Cron and 50 Lux-SL on SL2.

Interesting note on how the zoom-in works on the SL2 verses the SL with MF lenses. On the Leica's depress the toggle for the zoom-in; the toggle allows you to move the zoom in to a point of interest, say an eye on a face; when you depress the shutter release halfway you get the full frame to check the composition.

Both the SL and SL2 work the same, but here is the difference: on the SL the focus patch re-centers; on the SL2 it stays in the same position you toggled (no re-centering even after you take a shot).

I love the way the SL2 works because with MF lenses it is faster and easier to bracket my focus. On the SL I find that I tend not to toggle the focus patch and I tend instead do the rangefinder method of focus on the centered patch and pan to frame and compose.

Of course the SL2 is faster and makes bracketing focus much easier. I would also argue also more accurate.

Faster yet is the APO 35 Cron. Know that the 50 Lux does not enjoy the speedier focus of the APO 35 Cron. Another reason I love the APO 35 Cron is that the close focus is about 12 inches.

BTW the VF'er and rear screen on the SL2 crushes my SL. The rear screen on the SL2 is perhaps a sixteenth of an inch larger, but it has literally twice the amount of pixels. Kinda like having an EZIO on the back of my camera. I find myself using the rear screen with me holding the neck strap taunt against my neck, toggling the zoom in spot to an area of interest, and bracketing my focus with a few shots. Know that I have a habit of moving and shooting in three round bursts.

The added resolution of the SL2 EVF and rear display surely make it better than my old SL for MF lenses.

The EVF on the SL2 is also of higher resolution. If you don't like focus peaking and like focusing optically it is likely a SL2 is right for you.

Hope this is deemed relavent on not off topic.

Cal

 

[Huss]

I think the EVF in the Panasonic S1R is the same as the SL2 and the highest Rez one on the market at the moment.
I tried out the S1R in the store and could barely tell the difference between its EVF and that of the Nikon Z7 . I think we're now at the point of diminishing returns.

 

[Archiver]

Here's my situation, and why the use of the Z6/7 with M mount lenses interests me.

I prefer the small size of M bodies and lenses, but am finding them problematic for certain shooting situations, like fast moving sports in low light situations like boxing. On the weekend, I shot at a wedding with people on the dance floor, which was another fast moving low light scenario. I got way more keepers with my GH4 and native Voigtlanders using liveview than I could with the M9, even though the M9 image quality rocked it all over the GH4.

A full frame mirrorless camera seems to be the solution, either with really good face detection AF, or with manual focus lenses. I deeply enjoy the character and look of my M lenses from Leica, Zeiss and Voigtlander, and would like to use them in these situations, but I'm willing to forgo them if performance is not up to scratch and/or I can get more pleasing (to me) results with native lenses. For example, the 5D Mark II with 35L can take some beautiful images, but it doesn't work well in the situations I described above, and I'm not as fond of the rendering as the Voigtlander Noktons in either m43 or M mount.

An alternative which has just occurred to me is looking into Voigtlander Nikon F mount lenses adapted on the Z6 or Z7. This might be a viable path. But if I go that way, I might as well use my Pentax K and Minolta MD glass and minimize expenditure. Another alternative is to get a Leica M with liveview and see how that works for low light random action shooting.

 

[Calzone]

I think the EVF in the Panasonic S1R is the same as the SL2 and the highest Rez one on the market at the moment.
I tried out the S1R in the store and could barely tell the difference between its EVF and that of the Nikon Z7 . I think we're now at the point of diminishing returns.

Huss,

I don't know if the EVF is in fact the same in the S1R either, but I know that the EVF in the SL2 "crushes" the old VF'er on my SL, granted my SL is 5 years old.

It is said that the SL2 sensor is the same, but then it isn't because it has a thinner cover glass.

If one dislikes focus peaking and prefers optical focusing exploiting the zoom in the SL2 is really-really elegant.

I'm keeping my old SL as a backup and a second body for now. Leica pricing is crazy. A spare battery use to cost $250.00, but now with the Trump tariffs the cost is $275.00. It almost pays to keep my SL just to have the spare battery at this point.

How was the rear screen on the S1R? I'll look up the specs.

Also of note the SL2 kinda has the "A" Mode active even if you are using "M" (manual) exposure. When you depress the shutter release half way the EVF will jump in brightness or become dimmer if there is a "Delta" (difference between) "A" and "M" exposure mode settings.

This initially was distracting untill I understood what was happening, and now it is useful because between the rear screen and the EVF I can actually toggle the "FN" labeled button on the back to get full frame with no header or footer, and by tapping the shutter release I can gauge my manual exposure setting from the camera's "A" mode reading.

Once you get use to the lack of clutter in the EVF and rear display pretty much setting manual exposure is performed without a header or footer distracting you. I use the EVF and rear display kinda like a calibrated monitor. Just know that the default settings on the brightness I had to lower to match WYSIWYG. Default setting was the midpoint or a 50 on a 1-100 scale, I dialed it down to about a 30.

Now I'm spoiled. I go full frame/no clutter all the time now. Also the difference in resolution between my SL and SL2 is so vast that the added resolution not only speeds up manual focusing, but also is more accurate.

Pretty much I focus on fine detail that is not revealed on my old SL. I'm talking focusing on eye lashes instead of an eye using the zoom in. When I say it is like having an EIZO on the back of my camera it is not so much of an exaggeration.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

Huss,

Indeed it seems that the Panasonic S1R and the Leica SL2 have the same spec EVF's and Backlite LED rear displays.

5.76 MP improved EVF, magnification 0.78.

3.2 inch rear display 2,100,000 pixels. This number BTW is twice that of on my SL.

Cal