Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/27

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Plastic spastic and Leicas
From: "Henning J. Wulff" <henningw@archiphoto.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 19:02:57 -0700

At 7:57 PM +0000 10/27/99, Mike Johnston wrote:
>>>>Again and again and again:  none of us know and none of us, other
>than you,
>give a hoot<<<
>
>I would guess this "Junior" is teasing "Buzz," no?
>
>Just a guess.
>
>--Mike

In the months that 'DonjR4319' has posted on the list, I have _never_ been
able to detect any humour. I would love to be proven wrong.


On your post re: the Summicron 50 being the pinnacle of 50mm design, I have
to agree with you. It is a fine lens, which rarely is the limiting factor
in any real world picture taking situation, but it could be bettered. I now
have a number of recent ASPH M lenses, and the one that comes closest to
being a reference standard is the latest one, the 90 APO-ASPH.

Just to raise the bar a bit on this 'reference standard' thing, I am
copying part of a post from the MF digest by Kornelius J. Fleischer, who
works for Zeiss in Germany, and sometimes posts on lens (Zeiss) topics:

______________________________________

To Jeff: You are pointing at an interesting topic: The optical systems for
semiconductor manufacture are the most demanding lenses on the planet
today! The first optics used in this field in the sixties were micro-film
lenses like the ones discussed above. They are the size of typical photo
lenses and their price is, although high, still in the vicinity of photo
lenses.
Today¥s semiconductor lenses, like the new Zeiss "Starlith" lenses, weigh
about a quarter ton, cost a million dollar a piece, and resolve stunning
5,000 line pairs per millimeter (yes, five thousand, not five hundred).
They are so far not available with mount for Alpa or Contax or Hasselblad
or Rolleiflex, rather they are built into wafer stepper machines by ASML of
Veldhoven, Netherlands, one of the leading providers of semiconductor
manufacturing equipment.

______________________________________

....lest we lose sight of where our Leicas stand in the scheme of things..

   *            Henning J. Wulff
  /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
 /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
 |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com