Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/11/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 07:38 PM 11/29/96 GMT, you wrote: >Clearly, >it is unfair to compare a print enlarged 20 times from the negative (say >with a Leica) to one enlarged 4 times (say with any good 6x6). >...a negative printed many times larger than >another negative --not enlarged as much-- will lose something. It certainly >doesn't prove a thing about the relative quality of the optics. > There's nothing "unfair" about this. The question at issue is really whether a 35 mm. photographer would gain by switching to Medium Format. The answer seems to be "yes, with big enlargements," with some disagreements at the margins on how large the enlargements would have to be to see a significant difference. This is important--Leica used to claim, and many Leicaphiles still seem to believe, that Leicas are of such quality that they produce quality equal to MF. They don't, and can't--the difference in negative/transparency size is too great to overcome. None of this "proves a thing about the relative quality of the optics." But that never was the issue. I can perfectly well say that it's true Leica optics are of "higher quality"--more lines on the resolution chart, or whatever--than, say, Pentax 67 optics. But I can also say that where the enlargements are large the Pentax blows the Leica away--also true. Charlie Charles E. Love, Jr. CEL14@CORNELL.EDU