[Leica] 16-16-15 lens comparison

[len-1 at comcast.net (Leonard Taupier)]

Hi Mark,

I'm kinda fussy with the glass I buy. I can't tolerate bad barrel  
distortion. The biggest offenders of course are the wide range zooms  
which have barrel at the wide end and pincushion at the narrow end. I  
have been using Nikon lenses for many years and pretty much have not  
had to worry about this distortion. I also have the Nikon AF 14mm  
f2.8 lens and find it to be pretty free of distortion. Just like my  
Leica gear.

I have been using a Canon 5D camera for the last few months primarily  
for it's low noise and to utilize the full frame for my Nikon and  
Leica wide angle lenses via adapters. Well I decided to get a Canon  
zoom to carry around and I got the Canon 24-105mm L zoom. This is one  
of Canon's so called L professional lenses. I found this lens was  
very sharp but the barrel distortion was so bad at 24mm that I would  
not use it. The distortion was very weird. The upper half of the  
frame was fairly straight but the bottom half of the frame bowed in  
like a fish hook. I took it back to my dealer and tried another new  
one right off the shelf. Same exact performance. The dealer is very  
good so he said get anything else you want. So I tried the 24-70 L  
zoom. It was very good at 24mm but at 70mm it had bad pincushion.  
Both of these lenses are Canon's L lenses and cost over $1000. I  
think they're crap. I ended taking home a fixed focal length lens. I  
won't buy another Canon zoom. I'm actually thinking of getting rid of  
all my Canon gear, except for the 20D I use with the 560 Telyt, when  
the Nikon D3 comes out.

Len


On Nov 4, 2007, at 8:32 PM, Mark Rabiner wrote:

> Barrel distortion, the heartbreak of BD can be easily remedied now  
> a days in
> Photoshop. You can not read a lens review anymore without the guy,  
> Thom H,
> or Ken R. telling you the exact coordinates to punch in to take out  
> the
> barrel distortion that a new nikon zoom will have at a certain  
> focal length
> (FL).
> The time will come soon that lens designers will just say "we'll  
> just let
> them fix the rest in software" and go home for dinner and give you  
> a CD or
> URL so you can more easily punch them in. or they will be punched in
> automatically as part of the way the raw file thing works.
>
>
> I just shot a thing which came out today in the NYTimes in which I  
> used
> instead of the blissful no stress 12-24 f4 zoom I'd been using for 5
> different things. I used an:
> AF NIKKOR 14mm f/2.8D ED
>
> Quite a chuck of high tech glass. Leica priced almost.
> http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/lens/af/wideangle/ 
> af_14mmf_28d/index
> .htm
>
> :
> Hybrid aspherical lens elements and ED glass elements for high- 
> resolution
> and high-contrast images
> Used as 21mm (converted to 135 format) wide-angle lens when  
> attached to the
> Nikon DX-format digital SLR's
> RF (Rear Focusing) system for fast and smooth optical performance
>
>
> I think it made a difference. It doesn't even look all that wide  
> angle at
> all in many of the shots I've been repeatedly told I assume since  
> it was so
> well corrected.
>
> I wonder if the fact that it was meant to work well as a 14mm lens  
> and then
> we're chopping off the outside 1.5 edges of it to make it a 21 is a  
> big plus
> in its performance. Like a baseball batter swinging with two bats then
> taking one away and stepping up to the plate.
> Its a heavy lens. A TCP Tunnel Carpel protagonist.
> A Tylenol is needed before and after heavy use.
> And or well placed helium filled balloons.
> Gary Fong makes one I think. A frosted one you can flash through. And
> lightens any load.
> LumiQuest makes one with a built in pump works with Hydrogen if you  
> know
> where to get it.
>
> Pump it up too big on a windy day and watch your camera fly over a  
> tree and
> get caught in a telephone wire.
>
>
> My spell checker suggested "LumiQuest" was really "Cumquats" just now.
>
> I'd call that fuzzy logic.
>> From the fuzz in someone's navel.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Mark William Rabiner
> markrabiner.com
>
>
>
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