Sony / Leica combos

[ShovelFLH]

Hello all. This is my fist post in this forum. I do not yet have a Sony a7 camera but am leaning towards the a7II. I have the bittersweet pleasure of inheriting a fair amount of Leica M/LTM kit and am trying to find the best digital camera, within my budget, to use with the lenses. They are 1950's: Summaron 35mm F/3.5, Summicron 90mm F/2, Hektor135mm F/4.5, Nikkor 25mm F/4, Elmar 50mm F/5; and a late 1960's Summicron 50mm F/2 (dual range). Perhaps aside from the collapsible Elmar, I believe these lenses should fit any of the a7 range without interference. Has anyone used these lenses with the a7II? If so, what did you think of the results? Best.

[joshinthecity]

I haven't got any of those particular lenses, but I do use Leica glass on an A7II. 

I think you've found your camera :-)

 

j.

[Marc Contaxtonikon]

Same as Josh, I can't comment on the Leica glass. I use my A7II (have it since 6 months) with vintage Contax Zeiss glass. Loving every minute of it... I sold my Nikon D700 with my lens collection and never looked back.

One suggestion - you may want to consider if you actually need the features of the A7II vs the A7. In my mind, the two main differentiators are IBIS and better AF performance. For you to decide if these 2 warrant the prce premium for you or not

Ons way or another - I wish you loads of fun.

You may enjoy looking at some pics taken with the combo

https://500px.com/marccontaxtonikon

[joshinthecity]

In my humble.

I'd suggest that it's worth it for the IBIS alone.

Legacy glass, that you can hand-hold at ridiculously low shutter, speeds? Plus great peaking and high ISO performance?

For me, it's the holy grail.

I can hand-hold a Summilux f1.4 in just about no light. I max my rig at 6400.

j.

[Marc Contaxtonikon]

In my humble.

I'd suggest that it's worth it for the IBIS alone.

Legacy glass, that you can hand-hold at ridiculously low shutter, speeds? Plus great peaking and high ISO performance?

For me, it's the holy grail.

I can hand-hold a Summilux f1.4 in just about no light. I max my rig at 6400.

j.

 

I would totally agree - that's why I went that same route. It still bears thinking about though

[Joe S]

joshinthecity, on 10 Jun 2016 - 02:59 AM, said:

In my humble.

I'd suggest that it's worth it for the IBIS alone.

Legacy glass, that you can hand-hold at ridiculously low shutter, speeds? Plus great peaking and high ISO performance?

For me, it's the holy grail.

 

 

I agree completely, much better than any Leica body, after carefully selecting lenses.

[Trad]

I can't talk to your M/LTM inheritance, I shoot both Leica R and Zeiss Contax Yashica (CY) mount lenses with my A7ii,  and for me there isn't a better full frame body at the price point for such glass.  The IBIS and focus magnify functions are exactly why I went with the A7ii, shooting manual glass is a real pleasure.  I love the acuity, colour, and rendering from legacy glass on this body and the Sony sensor is a cracker.

 

There is some discussion around the sites on some issues with the softer corners on Mirrorless with wider Leica M lenses, like wider than ~ 24mm, but thats only if you are concerned about the absolute corners of the frame, the Kolari sensor stack mod is also something that can be done for this body to help with this if you really want to - plenty online about that.  

 

One other important consideration is adapters, as I also have some Canon glass, I went the Metabones path, and have adapted all my glass to the Canon EF mount via Leitax adaptors, one for each lens so I don't have to muck around with adaptors while out shooting.  There is also an element of risk management in my approach, not being wed to a relatively new mount - e.g. look whats happening to Sony A mount...  Canon EF also happens to be a fairly convenient  flange focal distance at 44mm on the Sony E mount at 18mm, thus allowing the adaption of a range of popular systems by e.g. 1.5mm thick adapters for CY lenses at 45.5mm, 2.5 mm for Nikon (tho the focus twist would be opposite to all my other lenses), and 3 mm thick for Leica R, so Ive chosen my lenses around a few factors and when a better body comes along in the future, be it Canon, Sony whoever....  Not really of much relevance re your lenses, but might be of broader interest to other readers.

[PeterWa]

my experience with Alpha 7II and Contax rangefinder lenses perhaps also applies to Leitz rangefinder lenses:

the Contax G 35mm / 2.0 is only a good performer, if you stop it down to 4,0 or 5.6; this is due to the fact, that the rear lens is very close to the sensor, so there is a big amount of light in the edges of the frame, which is not rectangular to the sensor; for film, this was not severe, but sensors need rectangular light; iirc Leica had this problem with their first digital M camera, and they introduced a densitiy filter as a workaround, which gave more light to the edges of the frame

 

for your rangefinder lenses, perhaps an alpha 6300 might work better than an alpha 7

[ShovelFLH]

Thank you all for the advice!

[JimmyD]

The A7II or the A7RII.  In either case, unless you shoot almost exclusively portraits (or you otherwise don't care about corner / border sharpness), I would keep adapted Leica M and compatible mounts lenses to 50mm and longer.  As has been well documented, with a couple notable exceptions (the Leica tri-elmar 16-18-21 f/4 and the Voigtlander 21mm f/1.8), you will end up with corner smearing and possibly magenta color casting.  So with your lenses, you will likely have these issues with the Nikkor 25mm F/4 and perhaps to a lesser extent the Summaron 35mm F/3.5.   

[finarphin]

I have a 35mm Summaron f3.5 and I like it a lot; it's one of my best lenses.  It works great on a a7ii.  I also like my 50mm Summicron collapsible, which I would consider to be the holotype of a great lens. 1950s Leica and Canon lenses have the rendition I like -- kind of an intangible.

 

By way of contrast I also have a 90mm Summicron R preaspherical, which I don't like.  It's sharp, but since it's not a double-gaussian lens it doesn't look right to me.