[Leica] widest lens used?

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

> Rabs, I said "BY ALL REPORTS" competitive since I have no idea whether it's
> competitive or not; just telling you about the *reviews* out there. Gandy
> for one but ok he has an interest in the matter. But -- since you've 
> already
> mentioned the technically knowledgeable though aesthetically wanting, often
> goofy, and I suspect on other fronts dumbass closet right wing, Ken 
> Rockwell
> , I offer first this:
> 
> *<<This Voigtl?nder 21mm lens is the best 21mm lens ever made for Leica
> cameras, regardless of price....This lens is tiny, and works at least as
> well optically as anything ever sold by Leica.....It is as sharp, and
> sometimes sharper, than the $4,300 Leica 21mm f/2.8
> ASPH<http://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/21mm-f28-asph.htm>to which I
> compared it directly.
> *
> 
> *How can this be? Probably because this Voigtl?nder lens is only f/4, which
> is far easier to design and manufacture than trying to push things with the
> modern f/2.8 ASPH lens from Leica, which has to be much bigger and much 
> more
> expensive just to retain the same optical quality. It costs a lot in many
> ways to add just one stop of lens speed. *


I've been harping on this for years on the lug what you just said. The
wonders of slow glass to the effect...
Every once in a while Leica gets smart and gives us a slow option. Instead
of listening to the marketing people and making us pay 8 grand for a huge
thing you'd not want to carry around all day and have a filter size which is
the same size as the platters at the Yankee pot roast family restaurant.
Traditionally  in the Leica catalog you got a slow medium and fast option
for about very focal length.
The slow lenes are slow.
But will have less flare and result at least as well as not better than the
high priced spread. Compact.
So there is a gap which Cosina has filled with the help of the typefaces &
fonts from  Voigtl?nder and Zeiss family heirlooms. And the power of mind
over matter on the part of their customers who want with all their might to
think they are buying a Zeiss lens for a few hundred dollars.
I do wish I had some of these options when I was getting my glass in the
90's
We keep forgetting that  we don't need 1.4 to see thought the darned thing.
It can be a 5.6 our viewfinder rangefinder is just as bright and sharp.
For many photographers they don't know it but that is their real speed
issue. They just want a bright groundglass.
Well we don't need no stinkin groundglass. We can get sharp as  tack
focusing with an f 11 lens. If anyone ever made one. If the did I'd buy it.
But I'm been using my twinkie light.

[Rabs]
Mark William Rabiner