Originally posted by MMVIII I've heard this before, but is it still true? Isn't the incident angle of the light rays at the borders of short flanged wa-lenses a problem on a digital sensor, even with microlenses on the sensels?
edit: I know that modern digital cameras tend to apply a normalisation, so to say vignetting correction already with the raw data (bad bad manufacturers...), but would a 645 mount be an advantage to the fancy new MF ML-mounts in this regard,? Anyone aware of tests of corner performance in a comparative way?
Well, I’m sure you know that was the reason Leica didn’t jump straight to a 35mm FF sensor with their first digital M-mount body. My understanding is that they solved the incidence-angle problem with the microlens redesign.
However, the L-mount has a flange focal distance (register, whatever) of 20mm, the same as the Canon RF, whereas the M-mount’s is 26.8mm. Again, as you probably know, the L-mount was originally designed for the CL and APS-C, but I imagine they had a larger sensor in mind from the start (or was it for the SL in the first place?).
The Nikon Z-mount’s is 16mm (which is possibly why the flange diameter is so big), by the way. Unless you want to keep the body as slim as possible, that’s possibly overdoing things, although you could probably design a pancake lens to go with it and have bragging rights about being able to keep one in your pocket.
The shortest FL Leica prime (unifocal) lens for L-mount is the 35 Summicron, which isn’t short in the barrel (suggesting it’s a retro-focus design, but I’ll rely on others with more knowledge than me on that score), but neither is their 16-35 Vario. However, it’s early days yet, and Panasonic have a big roadmap for their lens contribution.