Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/08/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]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. Yes, I know we were all looking at jpgs on computer screens,but of course that's what we always look at on the LUG, and that's what we look at when people put up their lens "tests" purporting to show how much better one Leica lens is than another, etc. etc. Perhaps this little demonstration might suggest that the differences between Leica images and those produced by other lenses are not quite as easily discernable as has been suggested. And it might also lead to some thought being given to the fact that one can make excellent images with non-Leica equipment. (Nah! It'll never happen. No red dot, image sucks.;-)) B. D. - -----Original Message----- From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Peter Klein Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 1:03 AM To: leica-users-digest@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: [Leica] Guess the Lens, was PWIFLI: Portrait of Marianne 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