Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/07/23

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Subject: Re: M use
From: "Henning J. Wulff" <henningw@archiphoto.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 09:03:00 -0800

Roger Beamon  wrote:

>Snip>
>
>>I have since
>> seen the new version of the hood, but find that in addition to being very
>> inexpensive, the rubber hood has cured the lens of its most serious
>> performance defect - the bad flair at critical angles at apertures around
>> 5.6. This flair is exacerbated by the viewfinder cutout in the Leica made
>> hood.
>
>Interesting, Henning. I have a recent production model of the 35/1.4 ASPH
>M and other than having to remember what to align before rotating to
>properly secure the darn thing, I've not noticed a flare problem at arounf
>f 5.6. I bought the lens mainly for less flare than the 35/2 Summicron and
>have been pleased with its lack of flare. I do lots of shooting direct
>into the Arizona sun and flare is a way of life.

The thing about this lens is that flare levels are extremely low wide open.
I haven't figured out what exactly causes this flare problem at around 5.6,
but if the sun  (or other bright area) is just out of the picture it can
get quite bad; if the sun shines through the hole in the hood, the flare is
at its worst. I was talking last week about this with Tom Abrahamsson, and
he has noticed exactly the same phenomenon with his lens.

Turning the hood 180 degrees is not what one should have to do with a $100
lens hood. Not that other camera companies are immune to putting out idiot
products, but Leica, with its relatively small size, puts out a number of
them. The finders for the wider lenses spring readily to mind.


   *           Henning J. Wulff
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