[Leica] Advantages of M lenses on the SL compared to R lenses? Adapters?

[Mark Rabiner]

I think I'm seeing both sides of the new lens sizes issue a little bit. After years with the tight restraints of designing glass for the M system Peter Kolb and others lens designers seem to be having a ball with the generous lens mounts in the new mirrorless cameras giving them true room to breathe.  They are way wider than Nikon F, And Canon etc. established from the early SLR days though they didn’t have to worry about blocking a viewfinder window.  Nikon is celebrating by coming out with a .95 lens soon called a Noctilux I'd have thought that would be a Leica trademark. So they are also having a ball with the huge new mounts.
In the past year or so I've re bought Nikon 1.8 primes in 35, 50, 85 focal lengths and which are as if someone inflated them with a bicycle pump.  They are inflated and hollow feeling. The filter sizes are several sizes larger than the 52mm standard size of the classic SLR's. They don't look ill proportioned on the DSLRS they are designed for though and balance perfectly and better than my old compact D glass for the most part. So even on small old mounts lenses are designed way more generously than before. All the elements have room to breathe.

That said these huge zoom lenses made now to put on the front of the new flat, compact mirrorless cameras I'm not sold on getting myself. Getting into mirrorless I'd use Leica M glass and a Nikon Z lens would have to be of near pancake proportions for me to bite. I think maybe one is so far.  I'm not going to mount an air to ground missile on the front of scaled down compact cutting edge designed camera body.. Might just ruin the unobtrusive feeling of the body design. Part of good lens design to me is to not lose sight right in the beginning what the camera system is supposed to be all about. Mirrorless to me seems to not be about metal munching monsters. But compactness and flexibility. And video. And keeping up with the Joneses.

 
 

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Mark William Rabiner
Photographer

On 1/15/19, 6:30 PM, "LUG on behalf of John McMaster" <lug-bounces+mark=rabinergroup.com at leica-users.org on behalf of john at mcmaster.co.uk> wrote:

    I was commenting on the size and weight of the SL lenses
    
    john
    
    -----Original Message-----
    
    I thought the discussion was about SL and M lenses.
    
    Jim Handsfield
    jhandsfield at att.net
    
    > On Jan 15, 2019, at 12:55 PM, John McMaster <john at mcmaster.co.uk> wrote:
    > 
    > They are almost S lens size and weight, but only covering 35mm format.....
    
    
    
    
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