Leica Elmarit-R 90mm f/2.8

My usage

Leica Elmarit-R 90mm f/2.8 is short tele and about focal length I tend to use most often. However after purchasing Canon EF85mm f/1.2 L USM mk2 and Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 2/100 I have very little use for this lens. For travelling it's option for it's small size, but since I like Zeiss images better I tend to take either Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 2.8/85 C/Y or Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 3.5/100 C/Y with me instead. Sometimes when Leica colors and Leica bokeh is preferred I use this lens.

Image quality

Sharpness

On close-ups the performance is not as good as with Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 2/100, not exactly surprise... On medium and long focus distances the performance is very good.

Bokeh

Bokeh is very Leica-like, quite smooth and natural. I have never seen CA in bokeh (which is most biggest problem with Canon 85L and to smaller extend problem with Zeiss 100mm Makro-Planar. Bokeh highlights are round and pretty smooth. Compared to the Zeiss 100mm Makro-Planar there is less bokeh meaning that the depth of fields is larger in Leica at similar apertures.

Colors

Colors are very good as generally with Leicas, if you prefer Leica colors.

Build quality and basics

Lens body is made of metal and there is no wobbling or anything else strange. Build quality cannot get any better.

Lens is very compact size: Length 81mm (with Leica-R adapter and EOS lens back cap and lens front cap), diameter 65mm and distance from EOS mount with adapter to front of the lens is 60mm. Weight with Leica-R adapter and both caps is 499g. Lenses minimum focusing distance is 0.70m, resulting about (calculated) magnification of 0.13x (1:7.8) meaning minimum area captured by fullframe camera is 28cm x 18.7cm. Lens minimum aperture is f/22. Lens has 6 aperture blades, and aperture is hexaconal at f/5.6 and smaller aperture sizes.

Lens has integrated hood, which can be pulled from the lens. It extends about 15mm when focused to 0.70m. Hood is pretty efficient considering that front element is about 1cm deeper that the top of filter ring. The integrated hood extends about 21mm when extended.

Handling

Manual focus feeling is very good, there is just about correct amount of resistance. Focusing from minimum distance to maximum distance takes about 270 degrees.

Lens also has proper depth of field scale. However on digital cameras I would recommend 2-3 stop larger aperture scale since the circle of confusion is smaller these days when digital SLRs enable much larger print sizes than film cameras, making the depth of field therefore narrower.

Summary

Pros

+ Smooth bokeh even on distracting backgrounds (of course bad bokeh is possible with any lens
+ Compact size
+ Excellent build quality

Cons

- "only" f/2.8, well it's not this lens fault, there are Summicron and APO versions...
- Not very sharp at close-ups

See photos in my picturebank taken with this lens.

Pictures of lens

Integrated hood

Lens has integrated hood, which can be pulled from the lens. It extends about 11mm. Hood is pretty efficient considering that front element is quite deep inside the lens.

Integrated lens hood at infinity and minimum focus distance
Larger versions

Integrated lens hood effectiveness when extended

Lens cap

Elmarit 90mm came with original Leica lens cap.