Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1995/10/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>the article that appeared in Photo Techniques magazine that seemed to have >started this talk about Bokeh (at least in North America), they referred to >some Leica lenses as having good bokeh, and others that didn't. Much of it >is very subjective, and probably doesn't have much basis in sober >scientific analysis. > >Dan C. > Dan, you are right. If you ask Mr. K=F6lsch, the Leica optical design engineer, he will tell you that Bokeh does not exist. And I guess that he should know. Despite this opinion, which I take serious as Mr. K=F6lsch is a very solid optical engineer who learned his profession with Zeiss in Oberkochen, it is amazing to find that Leica slides are often more glowing, more contrasty and have more saturated colors than Nikon or Canon slides. And there is more: shadow detail, quality of the unsharp image areas and transition from sharp to unsharp. The recent discussion on the Nikon 2,5/105mm illustrates this perfectly. I happen to own one and Lucien & friends are absolutely right: the 2,5/105mm Nikon images come out flatter (on Kodachrome) than the images made with my Elmarit-M 2,8/90mm. There is a difference, Bokeh or whatever, and I have difficulty in understanding that it cannot be defined and/or measured. Once you know what it is, the optical designer should be able to engineer it back into future designs. Gerard Captijn.