Re: [Leica] Re: Digital M

[Mark Rabiner <mark@rabinergroup.com>]

On 2/10/04 7:08 AM, "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Just a couple brief things -
> I don't think anyone is happy with 1.5 - or 1.3 for that matter - Mark,
> they're just stuck with it. ;-) I want to use my lenses at the focal
> length they were designed as, not at some compromise focal length.
> 
> Also, why is 30.5mm a "good place to be?" It is if you want a 30? It
> isn't if you want to shoot with a 21, or a 28, or a 35 - it's a weird
> place to be. One of the big problems with the idea of a Leica M that's
> less than full frame is precisely the fact that there won't be any
> lenses wider than 30.5 - unless one goes to the Cosina superwides, which
> are terrific for what they are, but are hardly Leica 21 2.8 ASPHs, or
> Summicron 28 ASPHs.....
> 
> A digital M could probably make it with a multipication factor, but it
> would hardly be ideal.
> 
> B. D.
> 
We've heard how people rave about getting 300mm out of their 200 mm lenses,
BD. It's comical but there it is. There is a feeling we get a new set of
lenses with our DSLR. When you buy a lens you buy two lenses in effect.
I bought a 14 2.8 Nikor a cool focal length I've never got to use with film
before but most often I'd be using it with my D100 at in effect 21mm. 21 a
focal length I've learned to love and rely on through my use of Leica M's.
And here I am using it with the more questionable outer edges of the field
cropped out. Less of an issue though with Leica glass but this is only
slightly sublime Nikon glass.
I'm intrigued how a 50mm becomes in effect 75mm. For chump change. With the
more questionable outer areas cropped out again. I think a major difference
between optics we dream about and optics we already have is that super
consistency of quality between the center and outer portions of the field.
The outer areas have to hold up really well. A parameter with Leica-Zeiss
glass we keep hearing and less with Canon-Nikon. With exceptions of course.
Their centers of filed might even be sharper than ours in a number of
examples. But their outer areas go completely to hell a whole lot more than
ours do. If ours ever do.
So the "Urban legend" goes. Or is that "Erwin legend"? :)
(so much of what many of us "know" about optics comes from Erwin
http://www.imx.nl/ )

While people complain of too much depth of field in the new digital formats
I'm at a loss on that one. I've noticed a whole lot of photography in which
the "photographer" seems to effortlessly without bringing in a bunch of
lights getting full DOF and I'm jealous. With grab shots. I found it
unsettling as I couldn't figure it out. Deep focus I think they called it in
Citizen Kane. I figured out much later I was looking at the new digital
photography. 
I've always shot that way as much as possible having only recently dabbled
in wide open shooting. A new format. Half frame. Not that new but not that
used as of late.

I fully plan in about a year to be shooting digital with my Noctilux. I
think I'll be doing fine in the isolation department. The selective focus
department. The pulling darkness out of the light department. Switch that.

When I say 30.5 is a good place to be I should have been clear that I was
not trying to say that this was for me most of all. Less for the masses
whose peculiarities I could only guess.
I most often find 28 too wide. 35 not wide enough. A 30 would be a lens
which I'd go out shooting with all day all by it self and come home smiling.
It would stay on the camera with out being taken off for long periods.

A 30 would give you a 60 degree horizontal depth of field. Close to within a
degree or two of the 50 I've used so extensively on my Hasselblad. My only
wide angle for that system for me for 20 years..
http://rabinergroup.com/ScooterPages/Bob.html
Although I just got a 60 for cheap
A match for the perfect 40 3.5 Tessar I've got in my Rollei 35.
I guess I'm a lover of nitch glass. (I had to add "nitch" to my Microsoft
spell checker)

I also forget to mention that with this new love of ultra ultra wides which
everyone now has with this new digital thing we'd only at first gravitate to
the Cosinas. And I agree with you despite what my expert friends seem to
think, Henning, Tom, Erwin, I donšt think they stack up to a 21 ASPH at all.
For me at least. Ignorance is bliss.

I think the 18 mm focal length is missing and Leica would do well to come
out with one of those. That will give us a 23 or 27mm lens to play with.
That's a very good area to be; or should I say: often trampled ground?. Very
useful.  Also a 14 is missing. The lens I just got which is my new 21.
After that Leica just might do what I always hoped they would. Go head to
head against Corsica and come out with a 12, 15 and for that matter a slow
compact 75 all their own.
If they did I'd buy them. So far no Cosinas.
The 12 on the Cosina does intrigue me though and with the edges cut off
making it an 18 it would make an even more impressive of an optic. When
Leica comes out with one I'd trade it in for that probably.

The digital M  with a multiplication factor would not be ideal I can
certainly see that.
But with the edges being the issue with the way the special non retrofocal
Leica M glass is designed (often a main key to it's  superiority I think)
the edges ARE the problem area.

With Leica R and all the other DSLR's with a magnification factor.
There is no mass exodus away from this it seems to be firmly ingrained with
much glass being designed around it.

It would be strange I think for us to expect the new Leica M digital system
to be one of the one or two few to over come this.
When it has more reason than the others to crop off that chaff.

When they come out with an affordable medium format for the Hasselblad
system I sure donšt expect to be shooting 60mm with my new 60mm lens. I
donšt know what a typical magnification factor is for medium format backs.
Or large format backs. I think they are more than 1.5.





Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland, Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/Catagorypages/PersonalWork.html




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