With my recently acquired Leica SL, a complete ‘new’ range of lenses becomes interesting for me. With the M240, live view was never good enough to use R lenses, at least, not if you wanted to have fun while working. The M10 offers a much more pleasing live view, but the combination of the (even thinner) M and R lenses isn’t the best.
Enter the Leica SL. Not only the Noctilux seems to feel at home with this camera, also R-lenses feel perfectly right with the SL ergonomics. Yesterday I bought a very nice Leica Summicron-R 90/2.0, just to give it a try. I once tested the Summicron-M 90 pre ASPH and funny enough, the R version seems to be both less heavy and smaller. But it’s not. In fact, it is 100 grams heavier, but it just feels lighter on the SL.
While the sun was almost gone, we had some last rays of light in our kitchen and I snapped a few pictures of my wife, sitting at the table. The Summicron-R 90 isn’t brutally sharp wide open, which is exactly what I like about it. Compared to the razor sharp 75 Summarit, you might call this lens soft, but for portraits, this might be the better lens.