Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/03/21

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Subject: Re: [Leica] veiling flare on 50/2
From: Mark Rabiner <mark@rabinergroup.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 17:36:04 -0800
References: <03412921-5B3E-11D7-9660-0050E42E6E0B@shaw.ca>

John and others! For some reason I have not heard of this veiling flare
on the 50/2.
More importunely I've not experienced it myself.
I thought the date was 4/11 but it's eleven minutes after four - It's
the first day of spring! I've got the flu, no big deal buy i've not been
sick for over two years and i forgot what you do. Type out long deals on
the internet for the LUG?!

I got my first Leica an M6 4/11/93 and with it a 5/2 which for a short
while will still have the separate lens shade.

Now the lens shade is built in - all quarter inch's of it and it
constantly retracts complestly exposing my friends UV filter when we
were out shooting last week. 
He told me he gets veiling flare I'd not doubt it.
My first LEica shooting in about a year.

My 50/2 lens was my only lens for 4 years but with a brief disastrous
interlude with a 90 Tele-Elmarit with REALLY had veiling flare to the
tune of the Hound of the Baskervilles. (slight exageration) woof*
My 50 was certainly clearer than that old 90 and just as clear as the
new f2.8 Elmarit - M I got in '97 and then the other lenses I've gotten
about one a year for the last ten years.

The 50mm f2 Summicron - M remains my favorite focal length and lens. The
lens which sold me on Leica. I understand it does not have the
resolution and this and that of some modern lenses even the Cosina
(Voigtländer). 
Looks DEAD sharp to me, clear as a bell at any F stop/ I think of it as
the flagship (I wish there was a better word) of the whole Leica M
system and the lens i recommend to anyone getting into Leica with older
versions counting and a 35 Asph a sure shot focal lengh and a close
second which I'm aware has better specks i just like the 50 focal length.
I've got a Noctilux and my next lense with be the Collapsible Elmar. My
Leica needs to be with me more. You cant have too many 50's.

The Summicron on the 50 is one of their older formulas out there now so
some day they'll get around to updating it. Probably by a nice young
German gal with a ring in her nose operating a complex computer lens
design machine… . Over at Leica a lens is designed by one person not a
huge network team of people like most anywhere else. 

Then it's specks will surpass the 35 Asph and even others as i
understand a 50 is the easiest lens to design and make excellent and
manufacture.  So it should also be the cheapest lens.

The 502 has a "look" which is just so Leicaly excellent no doubt due to
stuff in the design which is not supposed to be there. Curvature or what
not. I hear they'll not go Asph. But with that computer stuff they've
got going for them at Leica and their personal it will certainly be an
APO I'd think which they may leave off it as it's not a telephoto lens.

Quite a concentrated ongoing argument on the 50 Summicron and it's
various versions a year or so back in the Viewfinder and never did we
find out so much about the history of a lens than then. This version has
so many elements and that version had one less element and on and on. I
had it all charted out because I really wanted to figure out what was
right and who was right. 
They sure didn't mention anything about veiling flair.

I'm into "off 50's". And i just came up with that term!

An off fifty is a fifty (normal) which is not a fifty. But close.
Like a 40 Summicron which you can get for you CL or CLE.
Normal lenses darn close to wide or telephoto. But still normal.

A 65 which you can get for you Viso but need that Viso to make it work
on your Leica M.
The 65 Macro for the R I've heard is Sherry's favorite lens. That got my
attenntion. 

Also some dude by the name of Sebastião Salgado. He seems to favor the
65. Kind of a cropped 50.

But I just like the focal length.
I've been shooting with a 100 on a Hasselblad lately. Same thing. Less
shots on a roll. Square pictures. Easier to see contact sheets.

"veiling flare" is strong words for a revered hunk of Leica glass!
Who else says so?

*
"My God, what's that, Watson?"
"I don't know. It's a sound they have on the moor. I heard it once before."
It died away, and an absolute silence closed in upon us. We stood
straining our ears, but nothing came.
"Watson," said the baronet, "it was the cry of a hound."
My blood ran cold in my veins, for there was a break in his voice which
told of the sudden horror which had seized him.
"What do they call this sound?" he asked.
"Who?"
"The folk on the countryside."
"Oh, they are ignorant people. Why should you mind what they call it?"
"Tell me, Watson. What do they say of it?"
I hesitated but could not escape the question.
"They say it is the cry of the Hound of the Baskervilles."
He groaned and was silent for a few moments.
"A hound it was," he said at last, "but it seemed to come from miles
away, over yonder, I think."
"It was hard to say whence it came."
"It rose and fell with the wind. Isn't that the direction of the great
Grimpen Mire?"
"Yes, it is."
"Well, it was up there. Come now, Watson, didn't you think yourself that
it was the cry of a hound? I am not a child. You need not fear to speak
the truth."
"Stapleton was with me when I heard it last. He said that it might be
the calling of a strange bird."
"No, no, it was a hound. My God, can there be some truth in all these
stories? Is it possible that I am really in danger from so
dark a cause? You don't believe it, do you, Watson?"
"No, no."
"And yet it was one thing to laugh about it in London, and it is another
to stand out here in the darkness of the moor and to
hear such a cry as that. And my uncle! There was the footprint of the
hound beside him as he lay. It all fits together. I don't think that I
am a coward, Watson, but that sound seemed to freeze my very blood. Feel
my hand!"
It was as cold as a block of marble.
"You'll be all right to-morrow."
"I don't think I'll get that cry out of my head. What do you advise that
we do now?"
"Shall we turn back?"
"No, by thunder; we have come out to get our man, and we will do it. We
after the convict, and a hell-hound, as likely as
not, after us. Come on! We'll see it through if all the fiends of the
pit were loose upon the moor."

SACD


Mark Rabiner
Portland, Oregon USA
http://www.rabinergroup.com
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Replies: Reply from Jeff Moore <jbm@jbm.org> ([Leica] Re: veiling flare on 50/2)
Reply from Rolfe Tessem <rolfe@ldp.com> (Re: [Leica] veiling flare on 50/2)
In reply to: Message from John Collier <jbcollier@shaw.ca> (Re: [Leica] veiling flare on 50/2)