Aug 12
27
Shooting Leica Boss doesn’t always require holding a Leica camera. Even the Boss of Bosses knows that you can get Leica goodness from a number of camera bodies.
So the 90mm Summicron f/2 is an amazing tool. This is an early 1980′s Midland version. It’s compact, beautiful, sturdy, & deliberate. The problem is, on an M6 or M9 camera, the tiny and somewhat inaccurate frame lines and iffy focus (holy craptastic backfocus, Batman!) really hold this lens back in terms of shot reliability when the details matter.
Tree in a Ford Truck
With the Sony NEX-7, though, it’s fast and simple to get fine focus perfect and achieve those gorgeous, creamy narrow focus shots without any guesswork.
At a 1.5x field of view crop factor – the lens has a 135mm full-frame field of view equivalent. Comparison with the Canon 135L and 5D Mark II is certainly called for!
I never look at my NEX-7 files at 1:1 anymore. It’s useless. Now, I downsize to about a 16 megabyte file and properly sharpen. This takes away any nagging concern about noise and leaves a managebale file with plenty of pixels. More than I generally need. There is a ton of detail in these photos, people. The Summicron 90mm is a BEAST when it comes to contrast, detail and rendering. Simply beautiful.
- Roadside fruit stand
So what are my impressions of this combo?
- Summicron 90mm or even some of the f/2.8 Leitz lenses are an absolute STEAL these days… this won’t last
- Paired with the NEX-7, you can shoot with confidence – nailing fine focus and framing with the steadiness of a 3-point-of-contact shooting stance afforded by the EVF
- The pair is pretty epic – producing richly detailed files, wonderful textures, rich color and without a harsh contrast
- 90mm on APS-C bodies is one of those love/hate focal lengths (~135mm fullframe FOV equivalent). I happen to love it
- Strong recommend on this pair!
