Contax 645 Lenses on Leica S

[Shashin]

The price does really limit sales. It is high even for MFD standards if we compare specs. (I won't even bring up the dee ate hun dread.) Professionally, you really need a good influx of revenue to go there and apart from high-end fashion, I am not sure what would support that. There will be individuals that can afford that system, but I would imagine the market is very limited, especially if they are married or want to stay married.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Yea my baseball helmet can only take so many hits until it gives out. LOL

 

[Geoff]

Pricing (as we all know) is a bit of an art form. It seems that Leica is still using a pricing model to recover costs in a limited production run (in the low thousands, perhaps?). Many of us believe that if they priced them more competitively, they would increase their sales significantly, but then again, they are the ones at risk. All that integrated processing hardware/software work isn't cheap.

Contrast this with Linhof's small production runs - Techno production is in the hundreds, not thousands. Its all mechanical work, and doesn't have the complexity of a modern camera. Food for thought.

 

[fotografz]

The price does really limit sales. It is high even for MFD standards if we compare specs. (I won't even bring up the dee ate hun dread.) Professionally, you really need a good influx of revenue to go there and apart from high-end fashion, I am not sure what would support that. There will be individuals that can afford that system, but I would imagine the market is very limited, especially if they are married or want to stay married.

I think that's the point of Leica making adapters for existing system lenses ... The S lenses are breathtakingly expensive, and the CS versions even more so. Hard to go all into that without a divorce notice attached to it

If you only had to buy a body and adapter ... even a used S2, the way in is less frought with baseball bat bumps on the noggin.

The Contax lenses have one disadvantage in that they are not Leaf shutter like the H system lenses ... which is part of the spec for the S system ... dual shutter. Yet, for some that's no problem.

- Marc

 

[peterv]

Marc, good point about the leaf shutter option with the HC lenses. Since you have used both the Hasselblad and the Contax lenses, how do they compare in your opinion?

 

[baudolino]

Great news! I will be considering a Distagon 45/2.8 (a focal length presently not covered by Leica) or possibly the 55/3.5 which is a great compact travel lens and one of my favorites when I used to shoot with the Contax (but maybe a bit too close to the Summarit 70 though).

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Near were I live, i.e. near Lake Constance in Germany, I had a talk with the Leica professional store manager (it is a store within a bigger photo store). He told me that they sell half of their Leica stuff to Chinese tourists who come with busses and halt directly in front of the store. He told me the story of a guy who bought a brand-new S2 with all lenses they had in stock - 4 lenses - for I think 40k EUR. No long talk, just briefly tried out the stuff and paid directly with credit card ...

Whilst he was playing around with the camera the tour guide came up to him, took him aside and asked for a "commission". I.e. something in the area of 10%. The store manager refused and the tour guide became very angry and apparently said that in other stores he would get commission and that he would never again shuttle Chinese tourists to that store.

Half a year ago in Munich I also talked to the official Leica store manager and asked him why they didnt have summiluxes in stock. He told me that the ones that arent pre-ordered and are free to be sold in the store dont stay there too long (ok, we know that) but he also told me of those Chinese tourists who come into the store and aggressively ask for the Noctilux, Summilux etc. and who spend 20k without long discussions while the bus waits around the corner.

Why am I telling this? It seems to me that Leica M/S2 sell very well in Asia and I am pretty much sure that Leica sells off every S lens they make pretty quickly. Not in the US/EU but surely to some rich hobbyists from Asia.

New World Order?

 

[chrismuc]

I was wondering too that the Munich Leica store had few lenses on stock while the several Guangzhou Leica dealers have all M/S camera and lens models available: That's their main market today.

 

[chrismuc]

The Contax 35 and 350 mm lenses are wonderful. Enclosed two links for sample pics with the 5um IQ180 back. S/S2 with its 6um crop sensor would be less demanding. The 350 pic is with Contax cam, the 35 pic with FPS and about 10mm upwards shift.
35f3.5 @ f13:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u..._35f3.5atf13_IQ180-FPS-shift_Desenzano-01.jpg
350f4 @ f8:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u...80/Contax645_350f4atf8_IQ180-Guangzhou-01.jpg

 

[baudolino]

Peter, I know you asked Marc but I am happy to report a very good experience with the HC 210 on the S2. Perhaps is not as "super surgically bitingly micro contrasty fantastic" as my Leica-S 120 (for example) but it is also a superb lens - sharp, flare resistant, nice bokeh, well corrected for chromatic aberration. Reminds me of the Zeiss/Contax lenses in rendering. And focuses as quickly on the S2 as the native lenses (and has the leaf shutter also). Last but not least, you get dedicated profiles for the HC lenses on the S2 in LR4, exactly like for the native lenses.
Plus I got it used for 1/4 the price of the new Leica-S 180mm (but of course the adapter is not exactly cheap...). I don't use this FL all that often so saving some money by buying a HC lens with a similar FL seemed a good option to me. Here is one of my first shots taken with the HC 210 on the S2.

Regards, Martin

 

[gfs]

No, the 35 mm will stay 35 mm. It will be less wide than on the C645 because that camera uses the entire image circle of this lens. On the S the 35 mm will be a 28 mm eq. (In 135, so called FF terms)

Huh?

The Contax 35mm was designed and made for a 645 film camera. It will give the field of view that you would expect from a 35mm lens on a 645 camera (or even a 6x6 camera).

If you use it to expose a 30x45mm area, you are not using the full 645 (6x6) area and therefore, rather unsurprisingly, the field of view will not be the same. It will in fact be similar to a 43mm lens on a 645 camera. The point being, do not expect your Contax 35mm to give you the same field of view on a Leica S2, as it does on your Contax 645.

 

[peterv]

Of course no one expects a Contax 645 35 mm or whatever 645 lens for that matter, to give the same fov on a smaller sensor. The point is that the image circle being wide enough, a 35 will give the same fov as a native S 35.

 

[baudolino]

Considering the Contax 35 (I used it on the C645 with a Sinar 75LV back, so I know a bit how it behaves with a crop digital sensor). It is a good lens... but the Leica S 35 is just sensational and a very useful FL, so you'll probably end up buying it eventually.

The Distagon 3.5/55 would be my recommendation as a "standard" (and possibly initially the only) lens for someone on a budget (I know it's all relative) who's trying to get into the system gradually and buy more (or native) lenses when money allows.

 

[baudolino]

So, can anyone advise on the lenses? Which lenses can you recommend? How is the Apo-Makro-Planar 120/4?

The Apo-Makro-Planar 120/4 is an amazing lens. Superbly sharp at both close up and infinity, the best bokeh ever. Just wonderful. But it is a manual focus lens and, being a macro, it has a long focusing throw. Therefore, great for macro, landscape etc. but you need to be extra careful for portraits, for instance, where the subject may move slightly before you press the shutter button. I've tried a few manual lenses on the S2 via adaptors but my preference here is really to use the very accurate AF and avoid manual lenses, in order to maximise my hit rate. Plus the Leica-S 120 is probably the best lens in the S system, so again, you'll probably end up buying that also, eventually. But the prospect of the Zeiss 120 on the S2 is seriously tempting... (especially at the usual s/h prices...). And for someone who does not have the Leica 120 and does not want to spend Eur5500 on it just yet... it is a no-brainer...

 

[ddanois]

If there smart they would. But I doubt Phase would give them the rights to it

Isn't the Phase 645 DF the same Mamiya mount and AF interface from years past? I would think that any IP on that mount or interface would be expired. If so, Leica wouldn't need any permission at all.

What a game changer it would be to have Hassy, Contax and Phase/Schneider Lenses on the Leica S platform!

One can only hope while we wait to see what Phase One has in store for a new body.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Yes they are the same mount. The short answer is yes it be awesome but I have no idea what's in place on the legal side in regards to the mount. Most everyone has patents on there mounts. Now Sigma reverse engineers it, how they getaway with that I have no idea. But I'm glad they do, love my Sigma 35 1.4. Lol

I think Canon for instance licenses Tamron on there mount. Now I'm guessing here but my bet is Leica is licensing the Hassy mount and Contax for that matter. We need someone in the industry to set this straight so we have a better idea how all this works. But there is patents, licensing , partnerships and so on that happen in the industry. Hell we probably don't know who owns who anymore its gotten pretty confusing.

It certainly helps folks like me that do not want to invest 6k per lens out of the gate to get in. Frankly for me it maybe a year anyway and maybe worth waiting it out for a new updated sensor. But I like the form factor pretty much. Now if you can steal a used S2 for cheap and get in with some Contax, Hassy glass one has to wonder (me) if its worth dumping all the Nikon gear for it. Grand move and I like my Nikons but I'm not gushing over them either. It gets the job done but maybe not serve my artistic needs as I would like. But that's me and I'm always looking for a edge. Baseball bats don't stop me very well. ROTFLMAO

 

[monza]

The Contax is most likely reversed as that's an obsolete system, who knows if the documentation for the pinouts even exists in the bowels of Kyocera. Legally there is no problem with reversing electrical pinouts, I used to do that all the time with Apple products. They were not going to share squat with us, but we figured it out anyway, and there were far more pins on an Apple CPU card than there are on a lens. There really is nothing to protect when it comes to the mechanical side of a bayonet mount.

 

[peterv]

Peter, I know you asked Marc but I am happy to report a very good experience with the HC 210 on the S2. Perhaps is not as "super surgically bitingly micro contrasty fantastic" as my Leica-S 120 (for example) but it is also a superb lens - sharp, flare resistant, nice bokeh, well corrected for chromatic aberration. Reminds me of the Zeiss/Contax lenses in rendering. And focuses as quickly on the S2 as the native lenses (and has the leaf shutter also). Last but not least, you get dedicated profiles for the HC lenses on the S2 in LR4, exactly like for the native lenses.
Plus I got it used for 1/4 the price of the new Leica-S 180mm (but of course the adapter is not exactly cheap...). I don't use this FL all that often so saving some money by buying a HC lens with a similar FL seemed a good option to me. Here is one of my first shots taken with the HC 210 on the S2.

Regards, Martin

Hi Martin, thanks for sharing your thoughts and the nice image. I guess your observations and Marc's post earlier on made me realize some important things about adapting lenses to an S. The leaf shutter option on the S (in combination with native CS or HC lenses) is a very nice option to have and C645 lenses constrain the user to 1/125 flash sync.

Another thing that I came to realize is that the adapter is the same price as the HC adapter, but gives less options, no CS and less lenses to choose from. Besides that the C645 are from a dead system, meaning it will be difficult to get them replaced/repaired if needed.

For someone like me, who doesn't already have lenses from another MF system and is considering to go the adapted lenses path, the HC adapter offers more possibilities, though the Hasselblad lenses are more expensive than the C645. Of course there is also the question of which lenses one likes. I suppose some of the Contax Zeiss designs are quite interesting and they draw different than the Hasselblads.

Regards, Peter

 

[fotografz]

Hi Martin, thanks for sharing your thoughts and the nice image. I guess your observations and Marc's post earlier on made me realize some important things about adapting lenses to an S. The leaf shutter option on the S (in combination with native CS or HC lenses) is a very nice option to have and C645 lenses constrain the user to 1/125 flash sync.

Another thing that I came to realize is that the adapter is the same price as the HC adapter, but gives less options, no CS and less lenses to choose from. Besides that the C645 are from a dead system, meaning it will be difficult to get them replaced/repaired if needed.

For someone like me, who doesn't already have lenses from another MF system and is considering to go the adapted lenses path, the HC adapter offers more possibilities, though the Hasselblad lenses are more expensive than the C645. Of course there is also the question of which lenses one likes. I suppose some of the Contax Zeiss designs are quite interesting and they draw different than the Hasselblads.

Regards, Peter

Yes, I'd say that "artistic rendering" comes into play when selecting adapted lenses. Probably one of the most generally adapted lenses is the Zeiss 110/2F-FE using a dumb adapter because of the way it renders.

In the Contax 645 lens system the 120/4 Macro was the star, and IMO unsurpassed for bokeh or character until the S 120/2.5. The CZ 80/2 probably has more artistic character than the S70/2.5, if not any other reason than it is slightly faster. The Zeiss 350/4 APO has no equal focal length in the S system, and the Hasselblad HC300/4.5 while good, isn't as good.

My favorite lenses in the Contax 645 system were the 45, 80 and 140 ... almost entirely for people work. Easy kit to carry, same filter size, nice character for shooting people.

In the Hasselblad H lens line up the "character king" is the 100/2.2 ... which is why it is the only HC lens I kept for my S2. I use it alone for both focal plane available light @ f/2.2, and leaf shutter sync to 1/750 ... plus mount it on the Hasselblad HTS/1.5 tilt-shift unit for 150mm T/S table top applications, or selective focus portrait work. The Hasselblad HCD 24/4.5 on the HTS/1.5 produces a 36mm FOV with T/S ability.

The other killer optic in the H line up is the new 50/3.5-II ... perfect fit between the S35 and S70 ... just like the 100/2.2 fits nicely between the S70 and S120.

All four of my S lenses are the CS versions that sync to 1/1000 ... which is why I am out of budget for some time.

- Marc

 

[Ed Hurst]

The Zeiss 350/4 APO has no equal focal length in the S system, and the Hasselblad HC300/4.5 while good, isn't as good.

- Marc

This might be slightly off-topic, but if you are looking into a ~300mm lens, the Pentax 67 300mm f4 EDIF is absolutely first rate (one of the last lenses made for the system - not to be confused with the much older 300mm f4 non-EDIF). I expect dumb adaptors can be found to allow its usage on the bodies being discussed here and I can honestly state that it would be worth it.

Ed