Re: [Leica] the Novoflex 400/5.6

[Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>]

Great story Patrick. I'm happy the LUG is back. I have a 350 and have
extolled it's virtues many times. Ernst and Gisela Hartmann (Leica Service)
have a 16x20 Cibachrome of mine (actually theirs since they bought it)
hanging on their wall, that I took with my 350. A sunset over Drakes bay
(Pt. Reyes National Seashore). As far as I am concerned, it is one of my
favorite lenses. I had my first one stolen and immediately replaced it with
another. It is very sharp and stays sharp with the 2x extender as well. Got
both from John at KSP.

Jim


At 12:51 AM 6/21/98 -0700, you wrote:
>I had the opportunity last week to make extensive use of my Novoflex
>400/5.6 for the first time in quite a while.  I came away once again
>impressed by what an excellent lens this is.
>
>My wife and I went to the San Diego Zoo last weekend.  I had been there
>some years back, when I was in San Diego for a scientific conference and
>found myself so desperate when I looked over the program for the last
>day that I headed to the zoo instead.  I was enchanted -- I spent 8
>hours walking around and came away with sore feet and no photographs,
>because I hadn't brought a camera.
>
>This time my wife and I had two days to spend there, and so I loaded up
>my backpack with two R6's, a 135/2.8 Elmarit, a 50/2 Summicron, a 21/4
>Super-Angulon that I never used, the Novoflex 400/5.6 with follow-focus
>grip, and a Motor Drive R4 to balance the weight of the long lens.
>
>I anticipated trouble at airport security, because the 400/5.6 looks
>like a weapon, but in fact I didn't have trouble leaving San Jose -- it
>was when I left San Diego that I was treated to five minutes of mumbling
>by a security guard about how this lens might be the new missile gun
>she's been hearing about.  This after I took it apart and let her look
>through it, operate the diaphragm, etc.  Yes, American air security is
>in the hands of people who cannot tell a telephoto lens from a bazooka.
>
>The Novoflex 400/5.6, for those of you who don't know it, is a
>two-element doublet that is not a true telephoto.  It is every bit as
>long in body as its focal length, and in the follow-focus form it has a
>pistol grip underneath the lens that one squeezes to focus.  It doesn't
>weigh very much for its size, because its simple two-element design
>doesn't have all that much glass in it, but it is big and long.  In this
>it is similar to its cousin, the Leitz 400/6.8, but the latter has three
>elements to provide less curvature of field.
>
>With the motor drive on the camera, the whole package feels pretty good
>in the hands, but if you aren't used to hand-holding such a long lens
>(as I was not), it's a little alarming how much things jump around in
>the viewfinder.  I was using ISO 400 film, which meant that I had
>sufficiently high shutter speeds that I wasn't too worried about camera
>movement blurring the image, but simply depressing the shutter was
>enough to change the framing.  Also, one has to concentrate on
>maintaining the position of the focus grip -- at f/5.6, focused on
>something 20 meters away, a 400mm lens has quite shallow depth of field.
>
>But when the results showed up, my misgivings about using this lens
>handheld vanished.  This is a nice lens.  I'd used it some on a tripod
>when I bought it a couple of years ago, but one doesn't have call for
>400mm lenses very often, and so it's languished in the closet.  But if
>you want a head-and shoulders shot of a lion, or a portrait of a gorilla
>mother and child cuddling and they're a long way away, you need a long
>lens, and this one does not disappoint.  Very nice color rendition, and
>nice and sharp.  It's slightly less contrasty than, say, the 135/2.8

>Elmarit-R, but for the subjects I was photographing, this was a bonus. 
>Of course "nice and sharp" with ISO 400 film is not necessaily all that
>sharp, but I've also used the lens to photograph bits of refineries on
>Kodachome 25, and it is sharp.
>
>There are some things about the lens I don't like.  First, getting it
>through airport security.  Second, the stares I get when other people
>see me using it.  Third, it's bulky, although it doesn't weigh much.  I
>think these disadvantages are probably enough to convince me to look
>into something else, like the 350/4.8.  Still, it's a cool lens.  Bulk
>alone would not convince me to get rid of it -- it's the interactions
>with people over it that are a real problem.
>
>I know that other people on the list have used Novoflex 400's -- can
>anyone compare the 350/4.8 Telyt-R to the Novoflex, or tell me anything
>about the 350?
>
>-Patrick
>