I recently spent some time with old analog Leica R lenses. I was excited to try them out because I’ve never really shot anything on vintage glass. I expected some scratches on the glass and maybe some vignetting – but they all were clear and sharp. Why Leica? A good friend owns three R lenses pus a R4 body that shoots some great analog photographs. He bought an EF adapter to make it work on Canon cameras. Unfortunately the adapter didn’t really fit the lenses so when rotating the aperture ring on the lenses the whole lens would fall off. Gladly nothing happened but when using it I always held the lens with one hand and changed the aperture with my other hand.
We went out to the Mainfest (a local festival near the river) were we also shot parts of the RØDE Stereo VideoMic Pro review to film at night.
The lenses with an aperture of F/2 and F/2.8 really impressed me. No doubt they were meant to last. You can get a 50mm F/1.8 lens from Canon and Nikon these days for a 100 Dollars but they are not playing in the same league as those high quality lenses from Leica. I recommend everybody to try and work with some vintage glass because it really is a big difference in terms of handling and of course the whole look of the final image.
I listed my recommended DSLR’s for you here!
Written by Moritz Janisch