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Leica Compendium 2nd Edition announced


veraikon

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All I know is, I'm not going to miss the next edition like I did this one. Typos or not. It's worth a read (as I've enjoyed his previous online version) and seems like a pretty good value consider the heft of it.

 

Certainly more so than Osterloh's book. It's a good book, but also filled with typos and editing oversights - but it doesn't have lasting reference potential like the Compendium.

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...

 

Certainly more so than Osterloh's book. It's a good book, but also filled with typos and editing oversights - but it doesn't have lasting reference potential like the Compendium.

 

I don't know the English edition of Osterloh's book, only the original edition in German, where I don't find typos (though that is no proof there are none).

 

When I tried to read the chapter in the Leica Compendium about the M rangefinder I was overwhelmed by many mathematical formula and many drawings which i didn't understand. I just didn't know which illustration belongs to which information and what all the drawings and formula wanted to tell me. Then I looked into Osterloh for the same topic: it was concise and clear.

 

Same for lenses in comparison to the Leica Pocketbook (7th edit in German), whose co-author was Erwin Puts:

 

Half of the description for the 135mm Hektor in the Compendium on p. 512 belongs to the 1:2.5/125mm Hektor (p. 588). If you read only the text for the 135mm Hektor in the Compendium and not its half-twin 76pages later, you can only guess what is meant, and you need the Pocketbook to get basic information about the 135mm lens.

 

Texts for the Telyt 1:4/200 (p.590) and 2. version of Telyt 5/400 (p. 592) are identical in the Compendium; I can't decide which lens is meant by the text used two times. There is a MTF-graph for the 4/200 which differs from the MTF in the Pocketbook for this lens. Maybe Puts was wrong with this MTF in the Pocketbook; though I can't believe it, when I read the Compendium.

 

The text for the 1:3.5/65 Elmar in the Compendium is only a fragment of the text for the same lens in the Pocketbook. No single information in the Compendium that there have been two different versions of this lens, which is explained concisely in the Pocketbook.

 

I paid for the Pocketbook and I don't regret a cent spent on it. In the Compendium I get less.

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It would be easy enough to put an errata sheet on a website somewhere.

 

I'm not sure what you expect from a "vanity printing" from an uncredentialed writer. I would expect it to be a little bit slapped-together. But I am going to buy the book because the coverage looks interesting.

 

I read about 50 pages of the first English ed. of Osterloh, and thought the book was very professional. The book is not completely detailed as far as technical discussion of the rangefinder.

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.....Texts for the Telyt 1:4/200 (p.590) and 2. version of Telyt 5/400 (p. 592) are identical in the Compendium; I can't decide which lens is meant by the text used two times.....

Me too noticed this oddity (acquired not much time ago a Telyt 400 v2...) ... I think it probably refers to 200... comparing the IQ with the one of a "Hektor" (135 or 125) is someway strange for a 400,,, :o

 

Personally, I have also some doubt about Puts' statement of the Elmar 4/90 3 elements as a "Canadian design" ... they are from Wetzlar as production... but he could be right...

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Mr Puts has listed more specifics and a publishing date at Blog. It will include this month's product announcements, an appendix and more. Again, it will be a limited edition.

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See the post for 16 Jan 2011 Blog.

 

 

That was the ordering information for the earlier edition, and I imagine it still holds.

 

 

If that doesn't work, try contacting him directly at the "Contact Me" link at the bottom of each page of his site.

 

 

And do let us know what works! :) I'm sure you're not the only one wondering. ;)

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From Mr. Puts' site:

"The new version is almost identical to the previous edition, but I have the chance to add the information about the new products (Super-Elmar-M 21mm and M9-P) now that is available"

He also notes that the book is "SOLD OUT"

IMHO unless you need the above information the immediate previous issue should suffice.

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No. I was not able to obtain a second but as it was just a minor revisions and two additions it is not important for me at this time. I will wait for another down the line.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've read two things

 

[1] Leica Compendium 2011 by Erwin Puts

 

[2] This thread

 

It is just amazing what Erwin has managed to put in this book. It is wonderful to read the stories and go through the rich field of information on Leica and their products. This is a monumental work.

 

If you listen to a piece, played on piano by Vladimir Horowitz from the eighties, you can start to count the wrong notes, but you can also listen to his amazing romantic interpretation, which makes the wrong notes completely irrelevant.

 

I also found strange mistakes in Erwin's book, like html codes for special characters, rather than the characters themselves, but if you really like what you read, that is not important.

 

Thanks Erwin Puts for finishing this book and bringing it to the public. I like the lovely combination of exactness and romanticism with which you have created it.

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  • 1 month later...
I ordered this ... it has all the lens diagrams, right?

 

No, not all of them. In some cases diagrams which were in the Pocket Book are left out in the so called "Compendium". In other cases, you find diagrams illustrating entries for lenses which were shown for other lenses in the Pocket Book.The so called "Compendium" has almost the triple price of the Pocket Book.

 

One may call this "romanticism" as well as one could compare Horowitz to html-codes and diagrams.

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I have both of the new Puts books and feel lucky to have obtained them. Many great pieces of literature have first edition issues called points. I was just looking at a Pulitzer winner Ford's "Independence Day" which had a missing word. Sometimes, when I am reading a book by an alleged knowledgeable author I do not understand the material. Is it possible that he or she failed to be grammatically or synthatically be correct. Returning to Mr. Puts who else is an expert in this field? Experts are often disagreed with by others. We read their books and make our own decisions. The positive point for Mr. Puts is that he included all the material as a ready reference.

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...In other cases, you find diagrams illustrating entries for lenses which were shown for other lenses...

 

!

 

Thanks for the comments.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Got mine today; a wonderful addition to the library.

 

Mine arrived today - I actually had put my order in on the date of your post, August 11th. Haven't check to see whether any of the glitches cited above were changed. This edition is probably 3x the thickness of the first edition.

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