Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/11/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 10:43 PM 11/22/96 -0500, you wrote: >At 08:34 PM 11/22/96 -0500, Charles E. Love, Jr. wrote: >>> >>Well, it may be some ancient Zeiss design, but it sure isn't Zeiss quality. >>Is a FED a Leica camera? > >Marc wrote: >One side issue is that we will now be able to interview the few survivors >who were exported from Jena in '45 to set up the Kiev and KMZ plants and who >worked them for a decade or more. > >Oh, these lenses ARE Zeiss quality, perhaps more so than some other opticks >bearing that name. > >FED's are interesting in their own right, but the Jupiter lenses are a whole >different category. > Well, given the extremely low mechanical quality of Russian/Ukranian gear (Kievs, FEDs, Zenits, etc.), why should we believe that they could achieve high quality in the manufacture of glass and the mounting of it in (presumably) low quality lens mounts? I know they took some German technicians, which does get the designs of the day to the Soviets, but, to me, that's not enough to produce quality. This point does not even mention that the lenses in question are of ancient design, and,based upon my own experiences with many different Leitz lenses, it's clear that, say, 1996 lenses are far better--using any reasonable criteria--than 1940's ones. Charles E. Love, Jr. CEL14@CORNELL.EDU