So here is a bit of a unicorn. Couple-a-six years ago I swapped the lensmount on a Leica 90 Elmarit-R for a Nikon mount with one of those Leitax aftermarket mount swap kits. The whole thing went smoothly from a no-lost-screws perspective. But I was using the lens on my D3 in stop-down mode and never really got pictures that were as critically sharp as I had come to expect from that lens design. The 90 Elmarit is a pretty well corrected lens, at least my other copy of it was great on Leica R bodies. I should have probably just undid the conversion. But being lazy, it has sat on the shelf for a good long while. This afternoon I popped it on the Z8 to see what's what.
I'm just going to apologize upfront for the subject matter, just because it is so darn boring. But that's what it is to be trapped at home in the Northeast US betwixt and between winter and spring. We call it mud season around here and there's an autumnal corollary, stick season, on the backside of the calendar. So: boring subjects, but perhaps useful as an informal new camera test.
Shot at 5.6. I gotta say, I find the Z9's focus peaking OK when taking a picture of a general scene, but not ideal for isolating one's subject. Particularly like the snap above where the door and the hinge all show red-specklies suggesting that they are in the same plane of focus. They aren't really, though, and you can see I was at a slight angle because the wood grain to the right of the picture doesn't show the same focus qualities as the wood grain on the picture's left.
Here's the ubiquitous clothesline:
You can see the lens is pretty good at isolating subject matter, even at f:5.6. There's a pretty good wind up today and I needed some shutter speed to freeze things. But the clothespin was zinging in and out of the plane of focus.
There's only one backyard cliche that's more well worn than a clothesline, and that is a knotty pine exterior wall. You got it:
And for the pixel peepers, a 100% crop:
