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Back to the Future for Leica Lenses


pico

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What is the problem?:confused: Take one of the new asphericals,plant a nice fat fingerprint on the front element,apply some CA and vignetting correction the wrong way around in PP,some Gaussian blur,and voila! There you have your Summarit image....;)

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arrrggghhh, I had visions of sticking my fingers into a blender...

 

But then again Zeiss and Voigtlander (?) launch classic coatings or single coated lenses?

 

I'm not sure how they would compare with my sold off Contax IIIa Biogons, but at times I really liked their look. I doubt if L would want to compete with these "heritage" lenses.

 

But I wish I could try the Zeiss 21/4.5

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Interesting. Can you account for the difference?

 

Unfortunately, I cannot, because I am a user only. :o

 

I only wanted to point out, that a flat surface of a lens does NOT necessarily means that it is cheap to make it. Probably it's the opposite way around.

 

Stefan

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For one thing, centering isn't an issue when one's grinding a flat surface on a lens.

 

Is it possible that you're thinking of workshop practice, where it's possible to create a spherical surface by simply by grinding two pieces of glass or metal together by hand with some abrasive, but impossible to create a truly flat surface that way (you have to work with at least three pieces).

The production cost of a lens is controlled significantly by rejection rate, it is more difficult to make a very small radius spherical, or a very large radius spherical, on simple lens grinding machines, with normal staff.

To use a lens in an optic both surfaces needs to be centered, & skewed, and of the correct separation, within production tolerances. Plane surfaces have fewer tolerance problems, the current cron is full of plane surfaces, that is one reason why it is still in manufacture. Triplets e.g. Elmars normally have two inner surfaces plane, too difficult to make the more optimal longer radius.

Lot of the modern lenses have moulded or CNC milled aspherical surfaces, they can save a pieces of glass by having one surface aspherical, lots of tolerances not needed when a gllss part is omitted, cheaper...

 

Noel

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Plane surfaces have fewer tolerance problems

 

I guess this is true only for centering issues, not for tolerances of the surface flatness itself.

 

Stefan

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Another stop of digital dynamic range could be had if lenses weren't made to comply with the 'nice and contrasty' mantra that seems to define a good lens nowadays. So lets have some internal shuffling of the light, not to take away detail, but to lift those dense shadows and dampen those harsh highlights.

 

Fogging the image doesn't increase any highlight or shadow detail. It's optical noise that reduces the S/N ratio. You will lose gradation when you restore a fogged image to proper tonal range.

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So you use only one grade of paper?

I'm sure this is mate in six moves, but ...

Variable contrast, burning and dodging highlights and/or shadows, with high or low contrast filters, stretching the midtones, (as you can do in Pshop I imagine) so they are spread over a wider range, of print density.

Then I need to spend aeons with the camel hair brush and dye with the spots.

 

Noel

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Instead of pfaffing around with re-creating the past, and indeed making special editions (Titan, Hermes etc) which divert precious resources away from standard production (why is there a shortage of a particular lens - 'cos the glass was needed elsewhere perhaps?) Leica should concentrate on producing their current lens line-up to satisfy the huge backlog of orders.

Anyone tried to get a 0.95 Noctilux of late?

 

Lots of the popular lenses are not in stock with dealers, but M9 are, they will catch up with lens demand soon. They diverted production staff capacity to making M9.

 

Noel

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I know Voigtlander did it with the 1.4/40 lens. But Zeiss? Help me out with this one, please.

 

Andy

 

Cosina with the CV 40mm f/1.4 and CV 35mm f/1.4, initially the 40mm in SC was done as a whim for the Ja home market only, lots more had to be made, for mono and pastel color market. The 40mm was a clone of a Leica lens from way back, so they thought it would be a back to the future syndrome. Their management person likes 40mm lenses. The 35mm is also a clone of a leica lens from past so they were prepared fo the customer demand.

 

The SC seem to flare more as well.

 

Zeiss did not get involved in this band wagon

 

Noel

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I'm sure this is mate in six moves, but ...

Variable contrast, burning and dodging highlights and/or shadows, with high or low contrast filters, stretching the midtones, (as you can do in Pshop I imagine) so they are spread over a wider range, of print density.

Then I need to spend aeons with the camel hair brush and dye with the spots.

 

Noel

 

This isn't jiggery pokery?

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...They diverted production staff capacity to making M9.

 

 

No.

 

Lens production at Solms is a completely different job than camera building. They are no amateurs. It has been clearly stated by Leica that delay of delivery by glass producers is the reason for the shortage of lenses.

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