Leica Super-Vario-Elmar-SL 16-35 f/3.5-4.5 ASPH Full Review

Have been shooting the Leica 16-35mm SL Lens pretty much since it first shipped.

Below is my full review, complete with full size samples – as always!

Leica Super-Vario-Elmar-SL 16-35 f/3.5-4.5 ASPH Preview

Check out our Full Review!

If you are reading this then you know that Leica has recently started shipping the Super-Vario-Elmar-SL 16-35 f/3.5-4.5 ASPH lens in limited quantities. The other day, I managed to get a hold of one, so here we have a limited preview of the lens. The full review will be published as soon as I have had a chance to thoroughly shoot the lens and examine it’s attributes.

Leica Summilux-SL 50 f/1.4 ASPH (11180)

A comprehensive review of the Leica 50mm SL 50 lens. This review has full size sample images and a detailed write up.

Note: To view any of the images full size, just click on the image

The Leica Tri-Elmar M is Leica’s only wide angle three position zoom. Is it a zoom, well sort of… It is a lens with three distinct positions, and it only performs well at these specific focal length positions. We have a lens that covers 16mm, 18mm, and 21mm focal lengths. We are going to look at its strengths and weaknesses…

It is arguably one of the best wide angle lenses in the world, easily holding its own today. A few other wide angle primes are better, but they are primes, they’re supposed to be better. If you want a small unobtrusive wide angle lens then this maybe your ticket.

For this test I used my Leica 24 megapixel M240. The M240 only records an approximate aperture value. There is no electronic link with M lenses to the camera. Yes, there is a 6bit coding on the lens, but that only tells the camera what lens is attached. No aperture information is passed. When you examine the files you may see an aperture value, again it is only an approximation. I did record that actual aperture values used in this test independently.

All images on this page can be clicked to see the full size version.

This is a superb lens! You can expect extraordinary sharpness right from wide open. Smooth Bokeh and no, and I say again, no chromatic aberrations. The lens distinguishes itself by having excellent separation of the subject from the background, it’s very 3D. Colour contrast is high and images need very little processing when coming from dng files. The lens has a very special look, especially at mid-distances. Close up performance is also very good, due to the floating element. Close up images still retain interesting bokeh as well. Check out the parrot shot below. Vignetting also serves to enhance image quality ( I know that some will disagree), but I really like this lens and its output.

Yep its quite a mouthful, but the Contax 17-35mm N Mount – EOS conversion lens offers very good wide angle performance on the Canon SLR. Its a big lens, that is no lightweight, weighing in at 900g or 2lbs! it requires 95mm filters. Optical performance is very good for a wide angle zoom, it is not perfect, with somewhat softer corners at wide apertures. With one or two exceptions this type of wide angle zoom performancer is the norm for almost all manufacturers. Lets talk about the good, and there is plenty of that Zeiss look! The lens renders with that 3d zeiss look that we all like! It shows great macro contrast, good shadow illumination and reasonable chromatic abberations or CA for short. CA is almost a non event these days, and lightroom deals with very well. Wide open at 17mm you can expect a full stop of fall off (vignetting) this decreases to about 2/3rds of a stop at F8. Fall off at 35mm is less, with about 2/3rds of a stop wide open and a little less than 1/3rd of a stop at F8.