[Leica] RE: New Zeiss Ikon

[jonathan at openhealth.org (Jonathan Borden)]

Emanuel Lowi wrote:

> ...
>
> Unless Leica intends to make its market out of
> cameras shuttered with pansy-coloured silk scarves and
> clad with ladies' glove leather, Leica really has to
> find itself a bed-mate with opto-electronic
> competencies. Enough with the siren charms of the
> ever-designing French.  What was that all about
> anyway? Nostalgia for Paris, circa June 1940?

Yes well I just received the laser engraved iPod mini that I ordered 
for my wife (at a cost of an extra $18). It was drop shipped from 
Shanghai via fedex. I tracked the package via Memphis TN, via Cleveland 
OH and onto a truck header for Erie PA. In the age of this sort of 
thing, Dell etc, it is totally unreasonable to add an extra KB (that's 
kilobuck :-) onto the cost of a camera...
> ...
>
> Meanwhile, for me, the Zeiss Ikon lens line offers no
> enticements yet. I can't imagine their optics
> bettering my 21/2.8 ASPH, 28/2 ASPH, 35/1.4 Aspherical
> or 50/2. And the price of the 15/2.8 will be leagues
> ahead of the dirt cheap 15/4.5 Cosina -- anyway, this
> latter is a very special purpose thing.

One ought not judge a lens based on its specs, but that said, a 15 is 
no longer a 15 when you take into account the digital magnification 
factor, and if there is anything to the idea that digital sensors might 
not like rays striking them at acute angles, the Distagon retrofocus 
design may have significant benefits (over say a Biogon/Super Angulon 
type design).

>
> And where are the fast lenses?
>
I don't expect Leica to fall over and die in that area but perhaps this 
will nudge them into some new designs.

You know the Biogon really is a "Leica" design in some way ... it 
started like as Bertele's Wild Aviogon which Bertele then adapted for 
Zeiss to the postwar Biogon 35 and 21 -- of course essentially copied 
as Schneider's Super Angulon. Now since Wild owned Leica at one point, 
and adopted the Leica name, the Biogon is essentially a Leica design 
:-)

Jonathan