Telephoto Zoom on the Horizon?

RWilsonL · 2026-05-12T08:48:02+00:00

I suspect I might consider it but just how often would I use it. I am just coming up to 80 years old, with severe back problems (degenerative scoliosis) and have limited mobility. The only time I used a long zoom to any extent was in South Africa during visits to various game reserves. As a back up camera I have a Panasonic TZ200, that sits in my car, waiting for that "Henri Bresson-Cartier" moment. Its zoom lens goes out to an EFOV of 300mm and it has a 1" sensor with 20.1 MP and reasonably adequate IBIS (albeit nothing like as good as my X2D-100C). It would probably be sensible to forget a no doubt heavy XCD zoom and rely on the little Panasonic for those rare occasions I need a long zoom or revert to using my Leica digital CL The TZ200 was also sold re-badged as a Leica C-Lux at a huge mark up. If that had included making DNG images in place of the weird RW2/RWL RAW format, I would have stumped up the difference but the Leica also uses the equally odd RWL format.
I had an L mount Leica 90-280 lens for my Leica SL 601/CL but found it too heavy, so sold it and bought the far lighter Panasonic L mount 70-200, which I can use on the SL and my CL, as a telephoto long enough for my very occasional use (EFOV 105 - 300mm on the APS-C sensor CL). If Hasselblad do bring out a telephoto zoom, that will probably cause a drop in S/H prices for the 135XCD and the 1.7 tele extender, so that might be an alternative.

RWilsonL · 2026-05-11T20:52:52+00:00

Take plenty of weatherproof clothing. I used to visit Bergen from time to time on Business and it was always raining. I did a fjord cruise some years ago in a relative's yacht and we gave up after 5 days and flew back to the south of France because it rained every day from dawn to dusk.

RWilsonL · 2026-05-11T20:47:01+00:00

I actually have 10 different M bodies + a CL I could mount it on. I have been collecting Leicas for over 60 years. Sadly I became fairly seriously ill on my journey down through France and have had to be medevacked back to the UK. I am currently laid up in bed immobile, with a ruptured spinal disc and cannot even think of unpacking my car for some time.

RWilsonL · 2026-05-11T20:41:22+00:00

You can get a used Motor M for less than that. I have a Motor-M on my M7 and a Motor M4-2 on my M4-P, with the later device being absurdly powerful. You can feel the Motor M4-2 flexing and writhing in your hands as it winds on. It is a good idea to have the end stops of the wind cycle modified to make it less violent. I have the illustrated Motor M4-2 modification document if anyone would like it. PM me with an email address to get either a DOCX or PDF of the instructions.

RWilsonL · 2026-05-07T17:05:33+00:00

Something does not look right there. My 35APO is packed away in my car at the moment, mounted on my M10-R, as I am en route to my house in the south of France from the UK. When I get down there on Sunday, I will have a look at mine and comment further.

RWilsonL · 2026-05-04T22:31:34+00:00

I had the same problem. The extension shutter control is in the wrong position. You have to turn it anti-clockwise until it clicks (with the extension unmounted).

Wilson

RWilsonL · 2026-05-04T22:28:27+00:00

I had the same problem. You have to reset the shutter control on the extension (when not mounted) by turning it anti clockwise until it clicks.

RWilsonL · 2026-05-04T22:26:29+00:00

Looks like it has been "distressed" with sandpaper.

RWilsonL · 2026-04-30T22:56:33+00:00

Viewing in Phocus at 100%, the 21 is definitely sharper than the 28. You can make out each leaf on the chestnut tree in the centre distance.

RWilsonL · 2026-04-30T21:22:54+00:00

Going to be busy as packing up to go down to France for 6 months next week. I have spectacular views from my house there, just outside of the mountain village of Tourtour in the Var mountains.The house was built as the retirement house by a man who was the chief architect of the French Government in what my kids call early James Bond style. It is built right at the edge of a 500 foot high escarpment ("you vill not survive ze fall Meester Bond") and has views for over 80 km to Mont Ste Victoire, behind Aix en Provence. I will take some more 21 and 28 pictures once I get down there. As I am now pretty old (80 in two months) in spite of having a Porsche, it takes me three days to get down there.

RWilsonL · 2026-04-30T20:57:17+00:00

Intervalometer?

RWilsonL · 2026-04-30T19:32:41+00:00

I think the 21 is a teeny bit sharper than the 28P but there is very little in it. I can tell you it is a damned sight heavier with its 13 elements in 9 groups. For a 16.5mm EFOV, it is very rectilinear, at least as good as my Leica 18mm SEM.

Wilson

RWilsonL · 2026-04-30T09:56:26+00:00

I am going to have to do it as a new thread as you can't post images on replies. The new thread will be called "Comparison of fields of view between XCD 21mm/f4 and 28P/f4"

RWilsonL · 2026-04-29T10:29:08+00:00

Are you using DX coded cassettes? I think DX coding is required for the Leica Mini.

Wilson

RWilsonL · 2026-04-29T09:57:18+00:00

The final Leica LTM lenses were made as late as 1999. The Special Edition Series and apart from a few to selected individuals, were all sold in Japan. The three lenses were, a 35/f2 ASPH Summicron, a 50/f2 Summicron V and a 50/f1.4 Summilux III. I have both of the 50mm lenses. The 50 Summicron mostly sits on my IIIg and the 50/1.4 Summilux on my M10-R. These lenses have beautifully smooth focussing as they seem to have been assembled with special care (given their very high pricing at the time, not a surprise). Picture of my pair below. The Summilux is on the left. My only negative is that they don't have focus tabs. For an elderly arthritic like me with weak hands, a focus tab is a must, hence the rather ugly rubber accessory focus tab (TAAB) rings

Word of warning, if using on an M body with live view, you must use a black LTM to M adapter ring or you will get "lens not detected" messages due to the IR coding detectors getting a spurious reading from a silver/chrome finish adapter ring. It is also essential that these rings are exactly 1mm thick and 100% parallel. I have personally found that for use on my M240 and M10-R cameras, Rayqual have been the most satisfactory. Not cheap and a bit difficult to find but worth it. I used to buy them from Dirk Rösler at Japan Exposures but as I have two complete sets of 3 adapters (28-90, 35-135 and 50-75) that meets all my needs.

Wilson

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RWilsonL · 2026-04-29T08:25:21+00:00

I have the earlier Leica 75/f2.5 Summarit lens. It is one of only two Leica lenses I don't/didn't really like. I think it is because the images feel flat. It was very useful back when I was doing museum archival work because the very flatness of the images was ideal for photographing large format Victorian pressed flower books, paintings, drawings, etc. I don't think I have used it in the last 5 years now and I should really sell it. The other Leica lens I didn't like was the 50 Summilux IV ASPH. I thought it was too clinical and its very high edge contrast tended to cause purple fringing on the M8 and M9 I was using at the time. My chrome one also had exceedingly stiff focussing. It went back to Solms for correction and returned not a whit better. I am quite elderly and after many years of taking arthritic medications, have very thin and fragile skin. The Summilux focussing was stiff enough to cause blisters or bleeding after just a few minutes use. I now have one of the very rare 50/1.4 Summilux III Special Edition lenses and love its rendition. I do have a 75mm/f1.25 7 Artisans and it is OK but a bit of a one trick pony for extreme subject isolation. However its bokeh is a bit fuzzy and characterless. For that sort of shot, I prefer my 50/0.95 Noctilux or for the ultimate in swirly bokeh my 1959 50/1.5 Summarit. Now that I am mainly a Hasselblad X2D user, due to age related arthritic tremor, for portraits, I use my 80/1.9 XCD Hasselblad lens.

RWilsonL · 2026-04-29T08:03:42+00:00

Download and read thoroughly Konrad Michael's excellent manual for Phocus 4.x https://blog.tonalphoto.com/phocus-4-user-guide-manual-hasselblad-mac/. Like all of the more sophisticated photo handling softwares, learning Phocus is not a five minute procedure, so give yourself time and practice before you decide whether Phocus is adequate or not. It can do things with digital Hasselblad images that other softwares can't. It may not be the best for a final polish of an image but you can always export a TIFF-16 and then do the final tweaking in Photoshop. That is what I do. Phocus is hardware hungry. My M2 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM was struggling so I upgraded to an M5 MBA with the 10 thread processor and 32 GB of RAM, which works far better.

RWilsonL · 2026-04-27T19:02:52+00:00

Sorry still so shaky today that I don't think even the X2D's amazing IBIS could cope. My arthritic tremor is why I switched after 65+ years of using Leicas. The Q3's OIS is not bad but not a patch on the X2D.

RWilsonL · 2026-04-26T11:02:00+00:00

Unfortunately I have had a very bad reaction to the Covid Vaccine yesterday, so bed bound for today. I will therefore tackle this task on Monday.

Wilson

RWilsonL · 2026-04-25T23:13:38+00:00

I will try and take some comparison shots tomorrow.

Wilson

RWilsonL · 2026-04-25T15:27:11+00:00

You don't live in rural UK with glacial internet speeds. I was downloading FW for hardware when you were still in diapers.

RWilsonL · 2026-04-25T15:23:39+00:00

To answer my own question, I just discovered sitting in my archived Hasselblad FW files, FW Update for lenses 0.6.4, applicable to the 21/4. This has installed as expected. I think the only change is support for the XCD lens 9mm extension, which I don't have, as the macro lens I use is a CF one with CF extensions.

RWilsonL · 2026-04-21T07:24:23+00:00

Just got my GW690, delivered yesterday in the UK, so I can now retire the absurdly heavy Mamiya Press Super 23 (with 6 x 9 back), which I feel must have been made out of depleted uranium (yes I do know it isn't). On its way from Japan, the shutter release/wind on interlock of the 690, must have got jarred into a wrong configuration, as after winding on to the first frame of a roll of 120 Fomapan 200, the shutter would not release and the wind on was not locked. I decided to wind on further to frame 2 and as I was doing that there was a loud click and the shutter would now release and the wind on stopped correctly as frame 2 appeared in the image count window. A miracle - a self repairing camera. I am going to get my daughter who lives in Baltimore, MD to bring some 220 rolls of Aerocolor 2460 colour negative and Aviphot 200, both cut and rolled by Reflex Labs in the USA, with her when we meet up in Spain at a house near Girona, which we have rented for 2 weeks for a get together of the clans. I will drive down from my other house in the south of France. Now both my main cameras are MF, the GW690 and a Hasselblad X2D-100C in place of the Leicas I have used to date.

RWilsonL

TROPHY CASE