Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> Perhaps you should do another comaprison. Take your > Nikkor zoom, set it at F2.8 and 35mm and take a picture. > You should then take the M6 and Summicron at F2 and take > the same picture. I am sure you will see a difference. I'll try it sometime. It sounds like you haven't tried it, either. > The next thing you should do is take a trip to Maison > du Leica, mount a Noctilux on your M6, set it at F1 > and take a picture of the shops accross the street. Next > take your Nikon and set it at F1, oops, I guess we can't > do that comparison. I'm thinking about its performance at f/2.8 and above. My guess (and intuition) is that the Noctilux will do somewhat better than the AF-S zoom even at smaller apertures. After all, it's a prime lens, and it's a Leica. Whatever the special features incorporated for low light, I doubt that Leica would sacrifice the performance at other apertures enough to bring it down to the level of a zoom lens. But I don't really know, which is why I was asking here. > I could shoot slower slide film because my lens was > three stops faster than his. That's what seduces me about this Noctilux. I hate flash, and I also dislike having to use very fast films. And being able to use higher shutter speeds is nice, too. > This is why we say the Noctilux is a specialized lens. But it seems to me that it should still be suitable as an all-around 50-mm lens, provided that the difference between it and, say, a Summicron is not significant for one's applications. I wanted a comparison with my zoom in order to see just where the lens stands. If it provides better images than my zoom even when stopped down, then it is pretty safe to say that it could serve as a general-purpose lens in addition to its low-light capability. Again, that would represent a substantial savings, since the same lens could work for low light and normal conditions. I just get the impression that the difference between the Noctilux and Summicron stopped down may be splitting hairs a bit, compared to many other lenses, but I'm not sure. > The resulting image was made into a bunch of 11x145 and 16x20 > Ilfochrome prints that were sold to the player and one that > resides at the organizing bodies' head office. I hope your name appears below the one at the head office. Publicity never hurts! -- Anthony