One of the great attraction of the SL is that, with the right adaptor, you can use all kinds of other brand’s lenses. I have a manual Novoflex adaptor, and it works superbly. Prompted by a friend pulling out their vintage Nikkor 70-210mm (F/4 – F/5.6), I thought I’d give it a try. I had earlier looked at the SL and Nikon’s 80-210mm F/2.8.
The Nikkor gets really good reviews, and yet is an absolute steal on eBay, at around £100 for a good condition version. The design uses a slide to change focal length, and the lens is quite generous with F-stop, staying at F/4 until around 135mm. You have to move the Novoflex ring to change lens aperture, and although you cannot actually tell what it is, the combination of the relative shutter speed and Iso (I use Auto ISO on the SL) is a really good guide.
These were shot at around 135mm, and a nominal F/4. ISO is 3200. They are reproduced here full frame and with very minimal processing (just my usual synchronisation settings in Lightroom).
OK, so it’s not the Leica 90-280mm – but it strikes me that this is pretty damn good.
Click on the image to get a bigger version in another browser tab.
I’m going to give it a shot at tonight’s Frome Festival gig.