Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/01/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]robmueller wrote: > Ted, > > Would you accept this vignetting image from any other lens? No. Why must we > make excuses for this? Because it is Leica? As an artist I object to this in > the image. I think it looks terrible and completely detracts from the photo. > > Rob Mueller > www.studiesinblackandwhite.com This are no excuses. This is not because its a Leica lens, it is a characteristic once you approach this large openings. I suppose to try and prevent this, the front element would have to be a lot larger than the F1 opening suggests. This would make the lens really cumbersome and it would just about block the range finder image. Leitz did this first on the Summitar lens. The front glass is larger than the f2 opening suggests. It didn't matter with this lens, because it is reasonable small anyway. You can plainly see this feature, if you compare the Summar and the Summitar. Both are 50 mm f2 lenses, but the Summar front element is smaller. Another problem with just making the front element larger, to reduce vignetting, is that it introduces other type of aberrations which then have to be corrected. This makes it even more expensive. Other brand lenses like the Cannon f 1.2 and f 0.95 exhibit the same characteristic. If you don't like this, then f 1.4 is about the largest lens you should buy. Regards, Horst Schmidt