Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/10/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]N.S.Ng wrote: <snip>I am thinking of buying either of the above zoom lens to use with my R8. Would anyone with experience in using these lenses care to comment on their performance? <snip> I have been using the "new" 35-70/4 Leica R zoom for the past 6 months with an R8. It is a zoom lens designed by Leica Solms and made by Kyocera in Japan. It has an aspheric element and at least two high index elements with anomalous dispersion characteristics. When used for general photography, it is a very useful lens. It comes with a limited macro capability and comes close to being a "universal" lens for general photography. It is slow at f4 but the advantage is the light weight for a zoom lens. I like the lens very much. I have not compared it directly to the older 35-70/3.5 Leica R zoom lens. The viewfinder of the R8 is so bright that it seems more like a 2.8 aperture lens than an f4. I also use the 60/2.8 macro, 100/2.8 apo macro, 70-200/4 R zoom and the 2x apo entender with the R8. I will say that the 100 apo is in a class by itself. The 60mm doubles as a "standard lens" and the 80-200 zoom is also surprisingly good. Not as good as the 70-180 apo zoom but a lot smaller and lighter than the apo zoom lens. At 5.6 apertures and smaller, the new 80-200 zoom is a fine performer. Even the Leica literature says its performance is close to the apo zoom with some of the lenses optimum apertures. I think the 35-70/4 is a sleeper. Leica doesn't seem anxious to promote it maybe because "real photographers" use single focal length lenses. But I find it very useful, very sharp and very comfortable on the R8. I sometimes wonder what Leica left off to get it to be so light. The rear lens mount seems to be solid brass with a thick chrome finish. Happy shooting, Richard - --------------------- Richard Clompus, OD