REVIEWS - Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO Telephoto Lens

OVERVIEW

I have referenced the Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO many times in other reviews, so it felt time to write a review of the lens. At the time of writing this review, the Mamiya 645M 300mm F2.8 APO and Leica 280mm F2.8 Telyt-R APO Modular (with 1X focus module) were also on hand, so there will be some references to them as well.

The 300mm Lens Club

I have used the Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO mostly with the Leica M Monochrom Typ 246 and Leica M10 Monochrom, so the majority of this review is written from the Leica M perspective. The 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO has also been used with the Panasonic GX8, Leica M10-P and Sony A7rIV.

BUILD QUALITY

As one would likely expect, Leica's build quality is excellent. The machining of the parts is superb. Everything is engraved. The focus action is very smooth with a slight dampening. The lens hood slides smoothly to it extended position. The aperture ring clicks cleanly from detent to detent. There are 90º detents when rotating the lens in its tripod collar. The drop-in filter slides in and easily.

My only niggle is not having a quick release plate with an anti-twist pin that matches Leica's tripod foot. The tripod foot has a single 1/4" 20 thread socket and then two unthreaded holes, which I assume are for a locking pin. About 10 years ago Kirk made the LP-42 lens plate which included locking pin. Unfortunately, the Kirk plate was discontinued.

ROM VS CAM

If adapting the Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO via the Leica R-Adapter L to a Leica SL-2 or similar, the adapter receives some lens data (transmitted by the ROM chip). In turn this data is embedded into the resulting DNG and JPG files. The lens data includes the lens name, focal length and a guesstimate of the aperture. For all other cameras, a ROM lens offers no additional value vs the CAM version. I have owned both ROM and CAM versions and could not discern any physical or performance differences.

ADAPTING TO LEICA M BODIES

Adapting the Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO to a Leica M only makes sense with EVF capable M's. The two adapters I use are the Leica R-Adapter M and the Novoflex LEM/LER. Leica's R/M adapter has amazing build quality, but it can vignette with some lenses. Whereas with the Novoflex LEM/LER has had none of those vignetting issues. The Novoflex adapter is 6-bit coded and is well made. For the Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO, the Novoflex adapter is my first choice.

HANDLING

Handling the Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO in the field is where the lens really differentiates itself. Carrying the Mamiya 645M 300mm F2.8 APO or the Leica 280mm F2.8 Telyt-R APO Modular is a work-out, especially in difficult terrain or less than ideal weather. Setting up a 7 pound lens on a tripod, adding tele-converters, mounting the camera, etc. can be difficult depending on the circumstances. The 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO is an order of magnitude easier compared to its F2.8 brethren.

Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO mounted on the Leica M Monochrom Typ 246

The Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO uses standard 77mm filters - this is huge! Finding 5.5 series drop-in filter is near impossible. It is not possible to stack drop in filters either, like a dark red + polarizer. With the 77mm front filter thread, I can use high-grade modern filters instead of yesteryear's drop-in filters and can mitigate vignetting by using a 77mm ND and red filters with Leica's drop-in polarizer. Granted, all this is unique to my use cases with the Leica M Monochrome, but nonetheless, it is a really big deal (for me).

My go-to set-up for long lenses is a Gitzo GT5533S Systematic Series 5 Carbon Fiber Tripod and Arca-Swiss C1 Cube Geared Head. A 5-series Gitzo is far more tripod than needed, but I have it and it works like a charm.

Previous set-up before upgrading - Gitzo GT3543XLS and Arca-Swiss Cube

The biggest challenge with any super telephoto lens is nailing focus. Atmospheric conditions can obfuscate the plane of focus. At night, focus is decidedly more challenging with EVF noise. Adding a teleconverter makes things even more difficult. And of course, while focusing the camera, the lens is vibrating and the view in the EVF is bouncing all over the place. An EVF camera with in-body image stabilization (IBIS) helps steady the viewfinder while focusing. Focusing on the Sony A7rIV is easier vs the Leica M10 Monochrom's EVF.

PERFORMANCE

The Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO is often cited as Leica's sharpest, highest resolving lens for its time. Here we are today, 20-30 years later, and the Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO is still regarded as one of the very best.

• Sharpness:  The Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO may as well be a reference lens for setting sharpness benchmarks. Whether F4 or F8, it is excellent. Excellent at the center, edges and corners.
• Chromatic Aberrations:  I have not noticed any objectionable color fringing in the plane of focus with the 280mm. Stacking the 1.4x APO or 2x APO teleconverters can add some CA, but it is minimal, even with the 2X.
• Bokeh:  Surprisingly the 280mm F4's bokeh is smoother than the Leica 180mm F2 Summicron-R APO's bokeh when stacked with a 1.4x APO Teleconverter. I was shocked by that outcome. The 280mm F4 also shows less nisen (double image) bokeh than the Leica 280mm F2.8 Telyt-R APO Modular and Mamiya M645 300mm F2.8 APO when shooting busy backgrounds. The F2.8 lenses offer more abstraction and subject isolation since they have a 1 stop advantage, but it is not a clear cut win for the F2.8 lenses. The Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO is more predictable and less prone to nisen-like results.
• Flare:  If shooting with sun at your back or to the sides, flare is a non-issue. If the light source is head-on or just outside the frame, then flare is possible. This is true of all my lenses on Leica M's and causes me headaches time after time when shooting at night a street light that just outside the frame somehow injects its light into the frame and flares a portion of the frame. This is much less of an issue on cameras like the Sony A7rIV with its own native optics.
• Focus Shift:  Focus shift has proven to be a non-issue until stacking tele-converters and/or adding filters (namely, the dark red filter). The dark red filter is understandable because it is almost an IR filter. It shifts the light spectrum, so weird thing will happen, and those weird things become increasingly pronounced when stacking teleconverters. This is very unique to my case of the using the Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO on a Leica M10 Monochrom and stacking contrast filters. For those shooting on color cameras like the Leica M10-R, Sony A7rIV or Leica SL-2 - this is of no concern.

The Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO renders a nice 3D look from time to time. It is dependent on side lighting for the effect - which true for any lens. The 3D outcome is not a sure bet, but it comes across from time to time.

The Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO performs much better the Leica 1.4x Extender-R APO and 2X Extender-R APO vs the 280mm Modular set-up. The Modular was pretty bad. Whereas the 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO hardly loses any performance quality with the 1.4x. With the 2X, stopping down to F5.6 works out well. The 1.4x + 2x can be hit or miss, but it is decent. Not great, but decent.

CONCLUSION

For my case with the Leica M's, I need lenses with manual focus and aperture. And, I want the highest performing optics. The candidate list gets further reduced when factoring in how filters are attached. I have tried a broad range of candidates over the years, ranging from the very economic Olympus Zuiko 300mm F4.5 Auto-T, to the absurdly expensive Leica 280mm F2.8 Telyt-R Modular. And there have been many in between.

The Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO has proven itself the best performer. If a picture is soft, it is due to mis-focus and/or 'shutter-shock' from the Leica M. To work around the shutter shock, I keep shutter speeds at 1/500 and faster. Or, use a neutral density filter to keep exposures longer than 2-3 seconds. Using a 12-second delay also gives the lens more time to dissipate vibrations vs using a 2-second shutter delay.

For me there is peace of mind in knowing I am using the best lens (within reason) because if anything runs amuck, then the issue is 'me', not the equipment. The fix is 'me' doing a better somehow. So, the Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO is the right lens for me with my current gear. The Leica 280mm F4 Telyt-R APO justly deserves all the praise and hype, but whether it is the right lens for you will depend on you, your type of shooting and subject matter, budget range, etc.