[Leica] 16-16-15 lens comparison

[len-1 at comcast.net (Leonard Taupier)]

Leo,

I have the WATE and have used my son's CV15 and also looked at some  
of his photos he took with it. I mostly use the WATE with my M8,  
which corrects for any vignetting, but I have also used it on my film  
MP. I have never even seen the Zeiss 16mm so can't comment on it. My  
son's photos with the CV 15 were taken on a film camera as well.

I find the CV15 vignettes more then the WATE on a film camera.

My son's photos were all taken on the Boston Common with a lot of  
trees in the pictures. The branches on the ends and in the corners  
were fuzzy. I attribute that to focus error and shallow DOF. I didn't  
see that when I used the lens.

I see barrel distortion using the CV15 that I don't see with the  
WATE. Mostly I see no distortion with the WATE but I do have one  
photo where the corner of a church very close to the edge of the  
frame shows a little pincushion. I don't know if the church is built  
that way but in any case it's only on one frame out of many I've taken.

All of these lenses can benefit from a finder with a built in bubble  
level like what's built into the new Leica Frankenfinder that comes  
with the WATE kit. An un-level camera will give you pretty distorted  
pictures with all of these lenses.

There is a huge price difference between these lenses, however with  
the WATE you actually get three lenses in one. The CV12 may be better  
then the CV15. For the price I think they are very good lenses. A  
coupled RF would help.

I hope this helps. I can post a couple WATE photos taken with the MP  
if you like.

Len


On Nov 2, 2007, at 2:12 PM, leo wesson wrote:

> How does the 16 zeiss compare to the 16 on the WATE to the 15 CV?   
> Mostly
> asking about linear distortion and edge to edge sharpness and  
> vignetting.  I
> have the cv lens and it kinda drives me nuts that it 1) isn't  
> rangefinder
> coupled and 2) isn't a 2.8, but I am wondering if it is worth 3-4k  
> more to
> upgrade.
>
> Thanks
>
> Leo
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information