Back from the Mountains
Related: apochromatic, L-mount, Leica, Leica 90mm f/2 APO-Summicron-SL ASPH, Leica APO-Summicron, Leica APO-Summicron-SL, Leica SL lenses, Leica Summicron, Leica Summicron-SL
I’m back home from my trip to the Eastern Sierra, with a large backlog of work, but my week is chunked by catch-up and dental work for broken teeth. I ran into some challenges that slowed me down considerably—some technical, some health (unpredictable post concussion issues, plus after-effects from antibiotics), and some weather challenges (high winds on the wrong days).
A mystery solved
Readers interested in L-Mount mirrorless and particularly Leica SL lenses might remember my focus shift findings for the Leica 90mm f/2 APO-Summicron-SL (and it's 75mm sibling). Well, there is a focus shift just as I showed, but it’s not optical—on a hunch I finally solved the mystery, and I now have a compelling evidentiary series of images from both the 75mm and 90mm. I wish I had understood the problem from the get-go and avoided a lot of frustration and ruined images.
Bottom line is an electro-mechanical brain-fart which I can reproduce at will; I’ll be documenting it soon. This Leica SL lens fault is a serious problem for the way I shoot and well worth the year’s subscription price just for this one “gem”, since the behavior guarantees sub-optimal results with a $5000 lens when shooting more than one frame without refocusing. Many of my images were damaged, costing me inordinate effort and time to shoot and reshoot. That means my review has been damaged too—I am out of time: the lenses and camera are now due back. I am thoroughly disgusted with Leica, since the optical designs are among the best I have ever seen. I don’t understand why users should have to beta test Leica gear—but sadly that has been my experience over and over, over the years. I observed no issues with Panasonic lenses when shooting them concurrently.
Maybe Leica can address the issue, and maybe not. But I would not be a buyer given the issue.
Panasonic S1R + Leica 90mm f/2 APO-Summicron-SL ASPH
ENV: Hwy 120 east, altitude 7600 ft / 2316 m, 60°F / 15°C
RAW: LACA corrected, distortion corrected
[low-res image for bot]
