[Leica] Monster High-tech 50mm 1.4 from Sigma and everyone else - distortion now Nikkor 28/1.4

[freakscene at weirdness.com (Marty Deveney)]

With due consideration for the acknowledged (including by me) greatness of 
Andreas von Bechtolsheim, he does not supply free drive space, user-friendly 
gallery software and Leica-friendly bandwidth.  Additionally, some of my 
most personally frustrating professional time has been spent with a Sun 
Computer, trying to make it do complicated multivariate statistical analyses 
from very large data sets, prior to other computers having the horsepower to 
do this.  Of course I only half understand statistics and I do not 
understand computers at all.  Irrespective of all of this, due thanks to all 
who bring us the computer and the service.  Brian, I will defer to your 
deference to Andreas on this matter.

As for hand-ground aspherical elements, etc:

>The original f1.2 Noctilux and 35 f1.4 aspherical each had two hand  
>ground aspheric surfaces. I have a 35 and prefer the look to the later 35mm 
>f1.4  
>asph which has one moulded aspheric surface. I have read that the  
>difference in sharpness is minimal. The difference in look is not,  
>IMHO. It is my most used lens by far and most of my favourite pictures  
>were taken with it.

Individual preferences differ.  I have used the both aspherical and the asph 
35/1.4 extensively.  I retained the latter only because of the value of the 
former to a collector.  I prefer the aspherical for its lower flare and 
contrast, but don't like either of those Leica 35s that much.  The 
Voigtl?nder 35/1.2 seems to suit me better.  I think the way that Leica 
lowered the transmitted contrast in the 50/1.4 asph, 75/2 asph and 0.95 
Noctilux in comparison to the 28, 35s and 90 asphs shows that they, at least 
for a moment, thought so too.

One of my good friends here on the LuG has a 1.2 Nocti.  I am waiting with 
great anticipation to visit him, hoping that I can borrow the lens and try 
it out.  I have never even seen one.  To try to build it commercially in the 
1960s shows how dedicated and/or insane Leica really is.

>Apparently the scrap rate, and presumably the inspection cost, was 
>horrendous. They made very, very few of each  
>apparently. 

I know enough about lens making to understand this issue.  The problem is 
exascerbated by time.  The scrap rate is much lower if you allow several 
days work time per element, but this is uneconomical.  This is why designs 
that include pressed elements prevail and why designers include aspherical 
elements in fast lenses with very wide apertures at points in the design 
where the lens elements are narrow enough to permit the elements to be 
pressed rather than hand ground.

Inspection costs in the late 1960s would have been horrendous.  They 
probably would still have been in 1993.  Screening QA at higher tolerances 
than manual QA ever could have achieved in the 1960s can now be performed by 
a computer attached to an optical measuring device in a few tenths of a 
second.  This is part of why lenses keep getting better.

The aspherical elements in Leica and other branded lenses that we enjoy are 
a triumph of technology, brought to us by people who know that these 
elements do things that make a difference to us photographers.  I like the 
35/1.4 pre-asph and the Voigtl?nder 35/1.4, but in comparison to the best 
fast 35s, they are both arguably poor performers.

Marty



Gallery (New! Computer architecture designed by Andreas von Bechtolsheim!  
Supplied by Brian Reid!): http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene

I promise to stop this soon . . . 


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