Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/31

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Leica R vs. Contax SLR lenses
From: InfinityDT@aol.com
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 18:14:20 EDT

In a message dated 8/31/99 5:15:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time, cyberdog@ibm.net 
writes:

<< Does anyone who uses (or has used) both the Leica R and Contax SLR lenses 
 care to comment on the qualities of the respective lens lines?>>

I'd be interested to hear this, too.    I know they're metal/brass 
construction and all designed by Zeiss.  According to the MTF ratings at 
Photodo the Contax SLR lenses equal or exceed the Leica R's.  That they're 
priced so low in comparison is no shocker nor is it necessarily a sign of 
inferiority, vis the 3 Leica R lenses which are also produced by Kyocera and 
are also much cheaper than the rest of the Leica R stable.
 

<< Is developing in the Contax SLR lens line still going on? I have the 
 impression it has more or less come to a standstill (e.g. no fast zooms, 
 no recomputations like Leica etc.).>>

From my observations of the Leica R line, they seem to be *discontinuing* a 
lot of the shorter primes and the ones that are left (save for the 50 
Summilux) have been around for quite a while.  The 35 and 50 Summicrons are 
contemporary with the M lenses of about *2* generations past, and the 24 
dates back to Minolta days. Even the 80 1.4 is getting a bit long in the 
tooth.