[Leica] Friedlander & Leica 21 mm lenses

[Mitch Alland <malland@mac.com>]

As I read through the interesting parts of the recent Eggleston threads -- the ones in which people wrote why they liked or disliked about him -- I thought about the fact he is extremely difficult to imitate successfully. This made me think about Friedlander's photographs in "Viewing Olmstead," which I think are also extremely difficult to imitate well. In the back of this book, which contains Friedlander photographs shot with a Leica M and with the Hasselblad Superwide, there is an interview with Firedlander in which he explains why he started using the latter:

"The reason I stared using [Hasselblad superwide] was that I was having some kind of congenital problem with wide-angle lenses [on the Leica] in the desert, probably because of the light, and probably because those lenses were designed for flat surfaces. Those lenses are usually used by people who do architectural work, which deals with flat surfaces, not so much with a large area with lots of details. I don't know what the reasons were. It looked as is areas were out of focus and they wouldn't be the same every time. I call it congenital because it comes with lens; it's not something anybody can fix and it's not that anybody even knows why. I've talked to technical people and they don't know. So every time I saw a photographer who I knew was good technically, like Frank Gohlke, I would ask, 'Hey, Frank, what's the best wide-angle lens you know of?' The common denominator was the Hasselblad superwide...reluctantly I went and bought it and then fell in love with it."

The above was published before the M-21 ASPH came out. I assume that Friedlander was speaking about Leica M 21 lenses. Three questions:

1. Has any noticed the problem that Friedlander is talking about?

2. What is the likely reason for this problem? (Perhaps this can be inferred from the characteristics of the lens on the Hasselblad Superwide camera).

3. Does the new M-21 ASPH solve this problem?

- --Mitch