M
marknorton
Guest
Jono, maybe you haven't seen the latest WATE price, an eye watering €4495 from Leica Berlin or £3399 from Red Dot, so the new lens should come in at £1000 less, with luck.But . . . it's nearly as expensive as the WATE, and at 310 grams, it isn't much smaller either (WATE is 335), added to which, the WATE is absolutely at it's best at 18mm.
I think it will steal sales from the WATE - when I put it on a G1 to see live View, I'm struck how little difference, really, there is between 16 and 21mm. I think a dedicated 18mm is a happy compromise and none of the fiddling around with menu, filters, adjustable finders you get with the WATE. Mount the lens and the finder and you're set.
With this new lens, I think we have all we need, aside perhaps from a 28mm Summilux if and when a FF camera comes, the 28/1.4 is a favourite lens on Nikon FX, even if it's a bit past it optically.
[It will, incidentally be interesting to see whether the Super Elmar is a completely new optical design or whether it borrows from the WATE and is just a mechanically simplified version of it.]