D3 at 6400 ISO

[Steen]

but for Leica?
what happens if you change to Nokon mount?

I don't think the flange focal distance (or "register") allows us to put a Leica R lens on a Nikon F mount camera body. See e.g. the second last sentence in this wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leica_R
But if it could be done, we would (as usual) have to initially focus with the aperture wide open, secondly stop down the aperture ring on the lens to the desired aperture, and finally fire the shutter. Pretty bothersome in my mind. And besides we would have to use an adapter to mount the lens in the first place, thus adding alignment issues. Not so with the ZF lenses on a high end Nikon body. With an AIS type lens the aperture iris closes automatically when you fire the shutter, according to the chosen aperture, with the camera in Aperture Priority mode.
Please, Victor, forgive me if I have totally misunderstood your question, my english isn't too good ?

 

[gogopix]

I don't think the flange focal distance (or "register") allows us to put a Leica R lens on a Nikon F mount camera body. See e.g. the second last sentence in this wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leica_R
But if it could be done, we would (as usual) have to initially focus with the aperture wide open, secondly stop down the aperture ring on the lens to the desired aperture, and finally fire the shutter. Pretty bothersome in my mind. And besides we would have to use an adapter to mount the lens in the first place, thus adding alignment issues. Not so with the ZF lenses on a high end Nikon body. With an AIS type lens the aperture iris closes automatically when you fire the shutter, according to the chosen aperture, with the camera in Aperture Priority mode.
Please, Victor, forgive me if I have totally misunderstood your question, my english isn't too good ?

I do trhat all the time withhassey lenses (the V with leaf shutter)

see this;

"...The flange focal distance of 47 mm is fairly large, meaning that few other systems' lenses can be adapted to fit on a Leica R and retain infinity focus, but R lenses can be converted to other systems. The distance is only 0.5 mm larger than the Nikon F-mount, which is not sufficient to make a workable adapter; however, at least one Nikon camera has been modified with a Leica R bayonet mount to take R lenses.

..." so it COULD be done by changing out the Nikon body mount ("R" body mounts can be gotten from some viso adaptersI think)

but really, TOOOO extreme.

For Leica lenses, "get a canon" seems to be the answer

 

[Steen]

Not quite sure about which of the two methods you say you use "all the time with Hasselblad lenses" ... but I can't imagine it is 'stop down metering'. I therefore assume you mean firing with automatically closing aperture iris, right ? At least that is what I would expect from a lens specifically made for the Hasselblad camera system.

And that is what the manual focus ZF lenses do when put on high level Nikon camera bodies. The ZF lenses are made specifically for the Nikon F mount system. If you put them on a Canon EF mount body with an adapter they no longer act like AIS lenses, and you are again left with stop down metering, just like if you put a Leica R lens on a Canon EOS camera with an adapter.

Stop down metering is too much hassle for my taste. That's why I would anytime prefer "Zeiss ZF on Nikon without adapter" to "Leica R on Canon with adapter" even though I would expect Leica glass to be even better than Zeiss glass. At least Leica glass is usually optimized to perform extremely well wide open, while Zeiss lenses usually gain from being stopped down a couple of stops. But at the end the preference is probably a matter of personal taste (and maybe price also).

Summa summarum: For Leica lenses, "wait patiently and get an R10" seems to me to be the one and only adequate answer
I hope the R10 will be affordable. Otherwise I will sell my R lenses and go "ZF on Nikon".

 

[gogopix]

hassey of C645 is simple; mode manual, set aperture you want on hassey,9H has an aperture release/lock sliding switch in both CF and FE lenses, called "F" position) move speed ring till exposure where you want.
yes, if you cant see at 5.6 eg you need to focus at wide open then stop dow.

But any camera will meter stopped down I believe and even show a nify + or - bar scale (so you can 'push' the exposure as we used to push development)

In Cintax the Hassey lenses even have focus confirmation since the focus is independent of lens

I dont find it much of a bother at all, but NOT ofr sports (except prefucused shots, say at a turn in a car race.)

you gotta want the lens look to bother though. In general I agree-stick with the camera manufacturers lenses.

BTW< for AF, the bigger deal for those who went Nikon because a higher % of shots are in focus NEDD the Nikkor lenses (they still call them that, yes?)

Victor