using a longer rangefinder lens on a mirrorless camera body. My morning off....

October 11, 2024

using a longer rangefinder lens on a mirrorless camera body. My morning off....

Working outside in Austin in October still calls for hats and sunscreen. 90°f. @11 a.m.

I worked on Wednesday. It was fun. But it was work. Today I photographed and walked for fun.

On to today's subject. I bought a lot of rangefinder lenses earlier this year and also last year. All of them have proved to be very good when used on the Leica M cameras but one lens hasn't gotten a lot of attention from me. That would be the Voigtlander 90mm f2.8 APO-Skopar. It's a small lens for a 90mm and the version I have is in the silver/chrome finish. It comes stock with a nice, metal lens hood.

The rangefinder frame lines in the M240 cameras are small at 90mm. And, for me it's always been more difficult composing longer focal lengths with a rangefinder camera. A good 75mm is about as long as is comfortable for me. I originally bought the Voigtlander lenses thinking I might one day sell off all but the rangefinder cameras and lenses and make a go of specializing with those cameras but that idea has passed into the bucket containing other random plans that, in the light of day, didn't seem to make a lot of sense.

While I knew that composition with the 90mm would be a bit painful in the unforgiving optical finder I did think I would overcome that "speed bump" with the addition of an external EVF accessory. After a while the novelty of it all wore off and I put the 90mm in a pocket of my Domke rangefinder bag and went about my business.

I recently bought a Leica SL2-S camera body and have read extensively about other peoples' use of that particular camera model as a platform for their M series lenses (with adapters). Seems that camera's sensor glass stack is designed to work well with the optical parameters of Leica's own M series lenses and those design adaptations confer advantages equally to most other brands' rangefinder focusing lenses. Think of Voigtlander and Zeiss as being equal beneficiaries.

After getting up to speed on the SL2-S I experimented with other lenses, like the 35mm and 50mm models and it was a worthwhile adventure. The lenses are optically very good and they nearly always are half the size and weight of the L mount lenses I would normally use on that camera. So, last night, just before I nodded off to sleep it came to me that I should pull out the 90 VM the next morning and see how it fared.

I should mention that I have another 90mm lens that I think is really good. It's the Sigma 90mm f2.8 for the L mount system and the advantage of using it is the autofocus capability and its proven high optical performance. So, I do have a quality reference to look at when making assessments. It's always good to compare.

I put the VM lens on the SL2-S, went into the very logical and comfortable menu and set the right focal length so the IBIS would work effectively. I set the camera to DNG/RAW and off we went. There is no long description forthcoming about the output of the lens. It's really superb. Even wide open it's sharp and competent across the frame. And it's nice to have this level of performance in a lens that makes my entire combination of camera and lens smaller and lighter; easier to carry around.

I took some images while I was walking around this morning. It's fun to alternate morning and afternoon walks since the light comes from opposite sides as the day progresses and that makes everything look different.