[Leica] LHSA convention cluster bombs Part One The Beginning.

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

> Sharp is one thing. Brittle is another. I've seen some scenics with the
> 90 APO ASPH in strong side light which are just awful. I could use a
> compact 75/f2 but don't need a "clinical" lens for my M's. Note that
> the 50 ASPH is not an APO. I'll keep my fingers crossed since I enjoy
> the 75mm perspective a lot.
> 
>> I would fully expect it to be at last as sharp as the awesome 90 APO ASPH
>> ACRO regardless.
> 
> William
> 
Show me/us the scenic with the 90 APO ASPH in strong side light which are
just awful as I've used the lens intensively and not gotten any other
results beyond exquisite.
I'd love to see it and have a feeling won't.  And I don't buy the anti ASPH
mindset.
Obviously a lens which was sharp in a crude or brittle way so it produced an
unpleasant image would be a poorly designed lens and if the lens designers
didn't see this they would not be good lens designers.
They'd be bad lens designers.
It is my opinion and belief that Leica designed lenses are second to none
including Schneider and Zeiss. Rodenstock and Nikon and Canon.
That means their lens designers are good lens designers.
Not bad lens designers.
Not idiots.
Calling Leica lens designers "good" lens designers is of course a coarse
insult. They are in the tippy top of their field.
Out standing in the lens design field in knee socks.
Great would be an insult.

Supercalafragilisticexpealadocious would be more to the point.

We're supposed to think they would be overwhelmed by crude number results in
the design of a lens so that pure resolution and contrast numbers would
overrule the range of issues which define a quality image? Like they're
myopic or have some kind of tunnel vision in their craft and art?
I'm sure the lens designers at Leica are dimly aware that there are a range
of issues in good lens design and the range of issues which define a quality
image
They're not opening a clinic so would have no real use for "clinical"
results.

Here is a clinical 90 ASPH APO shot of mine you've all seen before if you've
been on the list for more than 9 months.
http://rabinergroup.com/ImagePages/Carrie.html

The lab results were very encouraging. She's expected to live.

Use a loupe on this 11x14 fiber print and every eyelash is it's own entity
screaming out "hey look at me! I'm an eyelash!"
The results though are not clinical when viewing the print held in your
hands or on the wall.
The overall look is not what you get with a Nikon zoom.
It is beatific and I'm complementing the glass not my own work. Or the gal.

I, by the way don't buy the internet talk about soft lenses for the
photographing of people. Women in particular they apply this to. I think
that's garbage. (Men by the way are much more vein)
Give me a lens which produces the most clear image.
If they have "bad" skin then don't do a tight close up.
Just like the song: "Far Far away".
Pull back a little.

Plenty of people I've found are well aware that their face does not look
like a wax mannequin or some type of fuzz and don't even mind a sharp tight
head shot blown up life-size or bigger. And they are middle aged or older.
And not men.

Check out the Edward Weston show he caught on soon enough and is the
ultimate example fur such a thing.

HE was trained and could retouch a neg and fuzz a lens with precision gusto
but threw that stuff all away.

The 50 ASPH is not an APO because APO is an issue in normal photography for
tele not normal lenses or wide lenses.

In repro photography if that still exists you'd find it in all the lenses.
Process cameras.

It's not the "AP0" which gets the criticism of the people who think anything
after Leitz was not Leica.
It's the "ASPH".
Which I don't think they know from a hole in the ground.
:)

Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/