Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/05/09

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To: kstc@msn.com
Subject: Re: How to pick between M28 and R28
From: pgs@thillana.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 13:09:32 -0400
Cc: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us

I don't know anything about the M 28mm lens, and I think that you
probably need to decide whether you use the R camera or the M camera
more, but I can talk about the R 28mm lens.

I have one of the old 28mm f2.8 Elmarit-R lenses, which I bought used
from KEH.  It's a three-cam lens, but still probably from the
seventies because the lens hood is a bayonet-mount thing that will
hold series 7 filters in place.  (There's also a screw thread for
filters -- 48mm if I remember correctly.  It vignettes quite
noticeably if you stack two screw-in filters.)  So it's a bit of a
pain in the butt in some ways.

On the other hand, it produces very nice results.  I keep an 8x10 of
my wife on my desk, a photograph I took of her with this lens last
summer when we were at Caneel Bay.  It was on Plus-X Pan, with the
lens wide open to blur distracting foliage in the background.
Although the lens was wide open the image is quite sharp, even at the
edges (which are in this print despite its being on 8x10 paper because
I typically print the full frame, ending up with broad margins on the
sides).  Anyway, contrast and tonal range are really very nice.
Out-of-focus objects have a wonderful quality to them that's a little
hard to describe -- a kind of impressionist look as though the tones
had been smeared on with a broad brush.

Okay, I'm raving a little, but this is my favorite lens.  I understand
the new one is supposed to be better, and I'd be interested in trying
it out, but I already like this one very much.  Focuses pretty close,
too.

-P.