Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/06/29

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Leica and 15 year old technology
From: Simon Ogilvie <simon_ogilvie@ionica.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:44:21 +0100

>On  Mon, 29 Jun 1998 06:55:33 +0200
Alan Ball wrote:
>
>BTW, this week-end at the Photo-Puces event in Brussels, I got the 
>opportunity to fiddle around with most of today's and yesterday's photo 
>hardware. The setup which impressed me the most in there was a EOS1n + 
>200mmf2.8 EF: great balance, instant (really instant) reactivity, relative 
>silence (I found it less noisy than a R5 I tried at the next table), nice 
>finish. That whole (mint) setup was offered at 50 pct of the price of a new 
>non-APO 180mm f2.8 R lens. Did not shoot film, so I won't elaborate on 
>optical performance, but my preconceptions make me quite sarcastic towards 
>the Leica R marketing logic. 

I use the Canon 200 2.8 EF regularly.  In fact I shot with it alongside
my M6 Saturday before last (20th June) and have the results back now.
I was shooting the local Church fete and used the M6 with my 20mm Russar
for close-in shots of the stalls, and the 90 Summicron for longer shots.
I used my EOS with the 200 for other longer shots to get candid
portraits.

On the roll from the Leica with the 90 Summicron there are several shots
that are not critically sharp.  On the EOS there's one, and that was my
fault not the camera's (as with the Leica of course).  I prefer the
shots
from the EOS 200mm lens to those from the 90 Summicron, perhaps
because the DOF is shallower with the longer lens, or perhaps because
of the perspective compression - I'm not entirely sure why.  Both films
were developed by the same lab and printed to 7x5 prints.  OK, I know
print film is not the medium to use for lens comparisons, but this is
what
was required in this instance, and I would say I had more successful
results from the EOS than the Leica.  Perhaps if I was using all the
lenses
wide open, and shooting on slide film I would have come to a different
conclusion.

I'm not writing this to denigrate the Leica by the way.  I suspect the 
higher failure rate with the Leica is mostly because I am still more 
familiar with the Canon and can therefore concentrate more on 
composition than I can with the Leica.  Hopefully when I've used the
Leica for as many years as some of our distinguished company here
have, my success rate will be higher!  However, the 200mm EOS lens
is a gem in the Canon line-up and compares well with some Leica
glass in my experience.

Simon.