Bi-elmarit

[hankg]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Now that the tr-elmar 28-35-50 is gone I wonder if it would be feasible to produce a bi-elmarit 28/50 along the design lines of the new summarits. No ASPH, no super expensive unobtainium glass. Something that might match the performance and look of the last gen pre-ASPH lenses. Optimized for size and price.

 

I find f4 to slow for a general purpose lens. The problem with sunny day lenses is even on sunny days I'm always finding myself in a dark cafes/ bars/interiors/alleys. f2.8 is my limit for a single walking around lens.

 

28 and 50 would make an attractive combo for film or M8.

[guy]

Nice idea! And agree completely about 2.8 being a sensible limit.

[ChrisC]

So why would you want a 'Bi' lens which skips past the mid focal length that was available with the 'Tri'? Seems a bit odd. Why not ask for an f2.8 Tri-Elmar [or Tri-Elmarit]?

 

.............Chris

[Guest tummydoc]

Why not ask for a 28-35-50/2.5 made with less-specified glass and some internal corner-cutting? A Tri-Summarit.

[dpattinson]

+1 to this idea.

 

I have the tri-elmar, and at first I was a little dubious about the 35-28-50 ordering of the focal lengths. Subsequently I noticed that I really use the 28 or 50 most often (rather unsuprisingly since that seems to be the experience of most zoom users as well). So in fact having 28 and 50 next to one another is much more usable after all.

[AGeoJO]

Yup, I would go for this lens, too. But the idea of corner-cutting to make it less expensive somehow doesn't sit well with Leica's philosophy....

[dpattinson]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I assumed the idea was that by making it only cover two focal lengths, the cost/complexity would come down and the possiblility of 2.8 might arise.

[Guest tummydoc]

Yup, I would go for this lens, too. But the idea of corner-cutting to make it less expensive somehow doesn't sit well with Leica's philosophy....

 

True, until now Leica's corner-cutting was always done to lower their cost, not ours*, but that could change in our favour with the Summarits If they can be made, in Germany, for half the cost of the "L series" without some corner-cutting, I will be most pleasantly surprised.

 

 

 

 

*Corral one of the aftermarket Leica service technicians sometime and they'll tell you all about the internal cheapening throughout the product life of the M6

[hankg]

Yup, I would go for this lens, too. But the idea of corner-cutting to make it less expensive somehow doesn't sit well with Leica's philosophy....

 

I don't think of it as corner cutting. Every lens has a design brief and set of priorities. Every lens is a set of compromises. The compromises you choose based on your priorities. You can be sure you a $20,000 lens the size of a house would beat anything out there in the lab, but would not be particularly useful in the real world. There really is no absolute best there are only appropriate compromises for various applications.