Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/04/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Eric Welch wrote: > >I've got a standing challenge open on this issue. Basicly "prove > >it". What experiment should I do that will prove this to me? > > I don't have to prove it, you have to prove your assertion is true against > the vast majority of experts who over the years have said so. Puh-lease. Things don't become true simply by being repeated often enough. No "expert" has ever showed that this is true that I am aware. In any case, all the experts on the human eye say otherwise. It is only the photograhy experts working outside their field of expertise that make this claim. > But a good > exercise is look through the viewfinder of an M3. That's a known amount of > magnification, and dang close to what a 50mm lens has. The open both eyes. > Well, whadda ya know, both eyes see dang near the same thing. So what? All that does is prove something about the M3. Every camera I own has a different result, none of them anywhere near 50mm. All that proves is different cameras have different viewfinder magnifications. What of it? > Magnification and angle of view are independent. and...? > You make all sorts of assertions, but when I talk to people who know the > manufacturers intimately (say like Arthur Kramer, former editor/writer at > Modern Photography and other more prestigious publications) they have said > that the short teles are easiest to make. Short teles are the easiest lenses to make with _really excellent optics_. Various other problems come into play with wider and longer lenses. It's near impossible to make a really wide lens perform well. Really long lenses can be made to perform well but it costs a bundle. But I'm talking about which lenses are easy to make cheaply. No lens will outperform certain 200mm lenses. But not at such a cheap price. A 50mm f/1.8 has so little glass in it it's absurd. Pull apart a 50/2 and a 90/2 and you will see the difference in the quantity of glass is the reason. > Well that was just plain late night thinking. Doesn't apply to this > situation, which only new prices are relevant, so you're right on THAT > point. THAT point, is the only point I want to make. A 50mm f/X will be cheaper than any other focal length mm f/X. The reason is they are cheap to make because they contain very little glass compared to other focal lengths. - -- Chris Bitmead http://www.ans.com.au/~chrisb mailto:chrisb@ans.com.au