RE: [Leica] Guess the Lens

["Jeffery L.Smith" <jls@runbox.com>]

Scary. Only when discussing religion do I see one person perceive that 
praising one faith is considered to be tantamount to trashing another. 
Leicas are not a religion.

The Beatles - yes;  Leicas - nope.

At 01:33 PM 8/30/02 -0400, you wrote:
>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.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Steve
>LeHuray
>Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 1:09 PM
>To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>Subject: Re: [Leica] Guess the Lens
>
>
>
>
>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
> >
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