Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/08/30

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: Re: [Leica] Guess the Lens
From: "Steve LeHuray" <icommag@toad.net>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 14:25:41 -0400

> Thanks for caring so much, Steve, but I can take care of myself. And by the
> way, Steve, while we're talking about people making fools of themselves - I
> didn't post a guess suggesting that the $450 Cosina was a Summicron or
> Summilux.  Nor would I be enough of a fool to post a scanned image and
> suggest that it proves anything about lens quality. ;-)
>
> Your buddy - B. D.
>
Dear Bud,

Yes I do care about you and hate to see you go through such angst over the
high prices of Leica equipment, I agree that this is very offensive to most
people. But remember, as offensive as it may be to our sensitivities, there
are some people who actually will pay $80,000 for a Porsche because they
LIKE them. Oh the horror! They could do the same thing with a Miata for a
1/4 of the price. What possess people to do such things? ....hmmm, I guess
they can afford to...depressing.

sl

>
> B. D. Colen continues his anti Leica rant:
>
>
>> Well, ain't that a hoot! Summilux! Summicron! Summaron! Leica! Leica!
> Leica!
>> And both shots were taken with Japanese glass - one a 50-year-old design,
>> the other a modern lens which sells for $489 NEW at B&H.
>
> <<snip>>
>>
>> B. D.
>>
> B.D.
>
> PULEEZZ, I really hate to see you keep making a fool out of yourself with
> your constant anti-Leica stance. This Summilux 50/1.4 shot at f1.4 blows
> away Peter's Nikkor and Cosina lenses by any measure you can think of:
>
> http://www.streetphoto.net/images/im120.jpg
>
> With apologies to Peter, who takes very good pictures.
>
> sl
>
>
>>
>> OK, folks, here's the results of the Guess The Lens contest.  Only one
>> person correctly identified one of the lenses, but he matched it to the
>> wrong picture.  The person who thought one picture was taken with a Summar
>> and one with a Summicron had the right idea, but the wrong lenses.
>>
>> This picture was taken with an early-1950s 50/1.4 Nikkor, wide open at
> 1/60:
>> http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/marianne-4.jpg
>>
>> And this one was taken with a nearly-new 50/1.5 Voigtlander Aspheric
>> Nokton, wide open at 1/60:
>> http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/marianne-5.jpg
>>
>> The 1/3 stop difference in apertures is insignificant for black and white
>> film.  The reason why somebody thought the Nikkor picture was exposed less
>> is because the Nikkor has significantly less contrast.
>>
>> As far as delivering detail to the negative, the Nokton is clearly the
>> better lens wide-open.  However, the Nikkor is kinder to women over 30.
> My
>> wife strongly preferred all the Nikkor's "portraits" to the Nokton's,
>> having no idea which was which.
>>
>> For those who thought that camera shake or focusing mistakes played a part
>> in which lens looked better, sorry, but I don't think so.  I shot several
>> pictures of two different people with each lens, and the differences
>> between the lenses are apparent in all of the shots.  One thing about the
>> Nikkor is that at this distance, wide open, it has a "hump" of decent
> focus
>> rather than a sharp "peak" of razor-sharp focus like the Nokton. I focused
>> very carefully on an eye in all cases.
>>
>> Remember, neither picture has any sharpening applied.  And all lenses are
>> less than perfect at f/1.4, where abberrations abound and the depth of
>> field is a whopping two inches.
>>
>> Perhaps a couple of more pictures will demonstrate things a little more
>> clearly.  Here's a Nikkor shot of another colleague.  This is a full
> frame,
>> shown for scale.  It's is a normal Web-JPEG with curve adjustments and
>> sharpening, reduced from my printing
>> file:  http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/susan.jpg
>>
>> Now here's a detail of just the face with each lens. No size reduction,
>> *no* sharpening and *no* curve adjustments.  These pictures were both shot
>> at 1/30 and f/1.8.  Warning: These are approximately 140K files.
>>
>> Nikkor:  http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/susan4-detail.jpg
>> Nokton: http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/susan5-detail.jpg
>>
>> Anyway, I hope this has been useful to somebody.  It's unscientific, may
>> not apply to your lenses,  and may have been influenced by the moon, swamp
>> gas, or the fact that I saw Cirque du Soleil last weekend.  BUT it does
>> show what these two lenses do, hand held, in available light
>> conditions.  The differences show up on a 2700 dpi scan, so they're not
>> academic.
>>
>> --Peter Klein
>> Seattle, WA
>>
> --
> To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
>
> --
> To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
>

- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html