Leica Leica CL with M21/3.4

Hi Bud,

I bought the CL body and mount the M21/3.4A on it. Therefore, I can onyl focus mannully. The TL lenses focus automatically and it is frequently said that the autofocus is quite fast by the web reviews.

Anyway, CL is a lovely model.

Enjoy.

Luo
 
<...>To be recognized by the CL, they should be coded accordingly but I do not know how to do. How to select my second lense for the CL? My requirements include: portait and street shot, sharpness, large aperture, compatibility to the Leica CL body, compactness and light weight. The question seems radiculous. Anyway, your comments will be hghly appreciated.

Toward telling the CL which lens you're shooting, in the menus manually select a Leica lens that best matches the characteristics of your (less expensive) lens choice.

I occasionally shoot Zeiss M-Mount wide-angle lenses, they are marvelously sharp. I "feel" they have a different look than their Leica counterparts (not better or worse). Absolute sharpness beyond a certain point isn't necessarily better if you end up giving up anything toward bokeh look, color, flare-resistance, etc. Not to say that the Zeiss gives up much in the other categories..

But put two photos side-by-side, I'm sure I couldn't say which came from a Leica lens, and which a Zeiss.

Portrait ... on an APS-C, anything from 35mm to 60mm will be fine. If you have a preferred focal length, go for it. You'll need a bit wider aperture to get the same out-of-focus effect as a given lens would on a full-frame.

Is there a reason you don't want to consider the TL 35mm? It apparently achieves gorgeous results for bokeh, sharpness, color, etc. And it has auto-focus on the CL ... A bit less expensive than a similarly spec'd Leica M mount lens ..
 
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Toward telling the CL which lens you're shooting, in the menus manually select a Leica lens that best matches the characteristics of your (less expensive) lens choice.

I occasionally shoot Zeiss M-Mount wide-angle lenses, they are marvelously sharp. I "feel" they have a different look than their Leica counterparts (not better or worse). Absolute sharpness beyond a certain point isn't necessarily better if you end up giving up anything toward bokeh look, color, flare-resistance, etc. Not to say that the Zeiss gives up much in the other categories..

But put two photos side-by-side, I'm sure I couldn't say which came from a Leica lens, and which a Zeiss.

Portrait ... on an APS-C, anything from 35mm to 60mm will be fine. If you have a preferred focal length, go for it. You'll need a bit wider aperture to get the same out-of-focus effect as a given lens would on a full-frame.

Is there a reason you don't want to consider the TL 35mm? It apparently achieves gorgeous results for bokeh, sharpness, color, etc. And it has auto-focus on the CL ... A bit less expensive than a similarly spec'd Leica M mount lens ..

Hi Carlb, very useful tips. Thanks. I have been puzzled by the third party lens issue on CL these days. Zeiss and Voigtlander have quite a few high quality lenses for M mount with reatively low cost compared to the primary ones
 
Leica M mount versus 3rd Party M mount ...

In general, only the Leica is the Leica. Heh! But yes they're so much more expensive.

I think the decision comes down to: the Leica has a bit of its own thing going on for experience, and much more subjectively, results. You do pay dearly for that, but if you split that extra cost across the years that you shoot the lens ... and compare how much extra you enjoy the Leica lens over those years ... For me it's most often worth it.

Keep in mind that I buy almost all of my Leica gear used. So I bring down that high cost a little bit.
 
Leica M mount versus 3rd Party M mount ...

In general, only the Leica is the Leica. Heh! But yes they're so much more expensive.

I think the decision comes down to: the Leica has a bit of its own thing going on for experience, and much more subjectively, results. You do pay dearly for that, but if you split that extra cost across the years that you shoot the lens ... and compare how much extra you enjoy the Leica lens over those years ... For me it's most often worth it.

Keep in mind that I buy almost all of my Leica gear used. So I bring down that high cost a little bit.

Leica is Leica. Agree absolutely. Otherwise, why a Leica body? As a matter of fact, each brand has its own 'culture'. Combination with a third party, either body or lens, generate a new 'culture'. The new 'culture' is good, as lots of photographers have been trying with endless attempts and enjoying. Nevetheless, it is different from their origins, more or less. My searching space for the second lens is being narrowed to M50/2 and M35/2A now. However, the ZM35/1.4 is still within my eye scope for its large aperture, color rendering, and incredible sharpness.
 
It was very cold outside. I am still not used to hold the small cl yet, especially in such a cold day. Tried only a few shots for your comments. Appreciated!
L1000033-NEO-BW.jpg
L1000036-NEO-BW.jpg

They were shot in DNG+JPEG (S). I did not use the DNG. Instead, I resized the jpg, coverted to the BW, and added a frame in Neo-Imaging. As I remeber, the F-stops are at 8 for both photos.
 
Good looks to both images, Luo. The 21mm SEL is nicely rectilinear here, and quite sharp throughout. Great lens.

The second image has just a few spots near saturation, which is just about perfect for displaying the largest dynamic range. Great architectural subject matter.

The first image appears slightly off-horizon? One thing I'll often try for wide angle is to get low, close to the water (or ice), and try the shot from there. Something tocreate a reference close to the person viewing the photo which I often find helps a composition.

Just wondering, why jpeg and not raw? I like pulling the best resolution I can from a DNG, which can be quite surprising.
 
Suggestive comments, Carl. Appreciated. For the first image, I found that the tower is not critically vertical too. Might have straigthened it a little bit, or adjusted the camera a little when shooting.

I tried to buy a copy of Light Room. However, I did not succeed. Thus, I have no software to treat the DNG files up to now. I will play with the images when I get the Light Room. Cheers.
 
The second image has just a few spots near saturation, which is just about perfect for displaying the largest dynamic range. Great architectural subject matter.

Yes. There is some kind of reflection from the right section of the dome. However, in the image, it is just near saturation. It was not white out. I noticed that spot. The smooth tone transition is amazing. I have to say, I like it very much.
 
Another photo at the same place of the first image. The dark section is fairly good, full of details . If there were some shimmering on the ice, would it be better?
L1000030-NEO-BW.jpg
 
Suggestive comments, Carl. Appreciated. For the first image, I found that the tower is not critically vertical too. Might have straigthened it a little bit, or adjusted the camera a little when shooting.

I tried to buy a copy of Light Room. However, I did not succeed. Thus, I have no software to treat the DNG files up to now. I will play with the images when I get the Light Room. Cheers.
Luo - You might want to check Adobe for the photographer's "package".
Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan | Professional photo editing software
It's $9.99 per month and you get Lightroom and Photoshop. I like it because you get updates included. I had issues with Lightroom CC, (cloud based), but the "Classic" version works great on our Macs. Good luck.
. . . David
 
Luo - You might want to check Adobe for the photographer's "package".
Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan | Professional photo editing software
It's $9.99 per month and you get Lightroom and Photoshop. I like it because you get updates included. I had issues with Lightroom CC, (cloud based), but the "Classic" version works great on our Macs. Good luck.
. . . David
Thanks, Burkey.
I will try. I have much to learn the post processing. Generally, I just make a little adjustment to the exposure and the curve in Nikon Capture. Frequently, I do resizing, cropping, and adding a frame as the final touch. ^_^.
 
Hi Bud,

I bought the CL body and mount the M21/3.4A on it. Therefore, I can onyl focus mannully. The TL lenses focus automatically and it is frequently said that the autofocus is quite fast by the web reviews.

Anyway, CL is a lovely model.

Enjoy.

Luo

Luo,

Thank you for your reply.

I purchased my first Leica, the M10 in December. I have a few Leica primes to go with it. I'm getting the hang of manual focusing and the resulting image quality, processed in Capture One Pro 11, is fantastic.

The Fuji XF primes and zooms for my XT2 and XPro2 are sharp and contrasty, but every Leica lens has great micro-contrast and edge to edge sharpness, even when shot wide open. They are a notch slightly above the Fuji glass, however, the comparison really demonstrates how good the Fuji XF lens are.

You can check out my first Leica-produced portfolio images on my web site by clicking HERE.

Regards,
Bud James

www.budjames.photography
 
Focus of M lense on CL relies on experience, I think. It is difficult to judge the focus point when fine aperture is used. This case, you may need to use the magnification wheel as while. Combined use of the focus peaking and magnification wheel helps a lot. In case of infinity, it is very easy to focus and get very sharp imag with the SEM. In other cases, focusing should be done very carefully. For street shot, the small aperture of the SEM is not a very big problem. It usually does a very good job.
 
The SEM is not good for the low light. I want to add a larger aperture lense. However, I still cannot make my decision which one should be: M35/2A, M50/2, ZM35/1.4, ZM50/2. I do not like to change lense for a single body. So, I will possibly add another body, a fullframe one. Therefore, there will be quite a few combinations of lense and bodies that will result different focus length ranging from 21mm to 75mm. I shoot mostly street, sometimes lanscape.

Your comments on selection of the lense? Appreciate.
 
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