Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/12/22

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] New Zeiss lenses compared against Leica
From: feli2 at earthlink.net (feli)
Date: Wed Dec 22 11:33:12 2004


-----Original Message-----
From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>

>I don't find it hard to believe that it matches it, Feli. I'm sure this
>is NOT your father's Planar.

It has more to do with physics B.D. Every optical design has it's 
limitations which at a certain point hits a performance ceilling set by the 
laws of nature. Then you have to switch to different technologies like ASPH 
surfaces or  floating element, APO correction etc to reach the next level. 
If is also more difficult to extract greater performance out of these 
designs when you have to keep the lens compact. The Planar design hasn't 
changed radically in the past hundred years. It's basically a math formula 
and unless the laws of physics have changed in the past 100 years it should 
be just as valid today as it will be in another 100 years from now. It's a 
very good design but has it's limits. It's like the Summicron 2/50, which is 
a double Gaussian design. The current formulation has pretty much been 
pushed the design as far as it can go. To take it's performance to the next 
level, you would have to break with tradition. It's not a Leica vs Zeiss 
issue.



>I owned and used the lenses for the G1 for a while - I got rid of the 
>outfit because the autofocus was so
>attrocious on the G1 - and my feeling is that in real world use, those 
>lenses were every bit as good as their Leica >equivalents. In fact, some of 
>the results I got were really stunning. 

No doubt that Zeiss makes great lenses. I love the Planar on my Hasselblad 
and Rolleiflex. Wouldn't mind coming across a 1.5/50 Sonnar for my IIIc...


>Sure, there's a huge technological difference between a 1955 planar and a 
>the new asph 50 summilux, but I >wouldn't bet on this being a re-issue of a 
>50s lens. ;-)

Well,  that's the $64,000 dollar question. Is it a classic Planar design or 
have they added some more exotic features? If it's a straight classic Planar 
design it's almost certainly not better than the new Lux.

Feli



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feli di Giorgio * feli2@earthlink.net

Replies: Reply from bdcolen at earthlink.net (B. D. Colen) ([Leica] New Zeiss lenses compared against Leica)