[Leica] Auto vibration reduction

[passaro.vince at gmail.com (Vince Passaro)]

Rabs you confuse me because often you say "Face facts Leica lenses are
better than everyone else's, quite noticeably so when you're printing in
large format, etc. Get inside that darkroom and print at 21 by 24 and you'll
see that Leica glass makes Nikon look like yesterday's snot on a ripped
tissue grrrrrrr." (That's really what you say.)

Then you got your Nikon head on and you say (or appear to be saying) "Well
the pros who are out there every day are using Nikon and Canon and these
guys know what they're doing so it's not up to the likes of us dweedleheads
with our element counts to question them they're bringing home the bacon
after hitting the pig over the head with the Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor
70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED."

As part of the latter contention you also said that people who argued the
merits of these newer coffee can sized lenses are "purists" meaning in this
sense Luddites who don't know the world is changing.

So my argument was: yeah, somewhat true, but do keep in mind that many of us
are not kneejerk purists we have a real aesthetic rationale or two behind
why we like Leica lenses and uphold the values (like keeping things solidly
attached unlike in VR/IS technology) that make those lenses so historically
great and unmatched in performance.

See? You're two mints in one baby.

But that's okay we all are. If I went out today to buy me a Nikon 55-200mm
for my D40x believe me I'd get the VR version. I just love Doug's argument
because this is a guy who sits there with the giant lens on the tripod or
not but as he remarks, 1/250th isn't always fast enough and the thing he's
looking at is like a mile and a half away and weighs less than two pounds.
And if he says one thing works better than another then I'm like, OK you
know what you're talking about.

For a schmuck like me if I'm going to have a $200 Nikon DX lens nothing is
going to suffer by having it with VR. And a few things might well improve.

Vince

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 2:35 AM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> 
wrote:

> > Mark --
> >
> > I agree with you except in two regrads:
> >
> > 1. Many of us came to Leica and hold its aesthetic and photographic
> values
> > dear not out of low-tech purist convictions but because of the elegance
> of
> > the thing, and especially the elegance of its traditional size, \\\\\The
> > first time I picked up a Nikon D90 in B & H -- a D90 is on the smaller
> end
> > of the Nikon DSLR range -- with an 77mm filter thread 85mm 1.2? 1.4? lens
> on
> > it, it felt so unpleasantly huge. I kept thinking it was something I
> could
> > use to sand my walls. Barnack invented the thing to be small and so it
> > should be, I often think.
> >
> > 2.  It's Doug who's expressing considerable skepticism about the effect
> on
> > sharpness of IS in the lens. Just as you say the techs at Nikon and Canon
> > know their jobs, so much does Doug (I believe) know his. You can count
> head
> > feathers at hundreds of yards in some of his pictures. So if he says it
> it's
> > probably got some merit, I think.
> >
> > Some of those IS lenses are real big and real ugly, unfortunately. too.
> Is
> > what I'm saying.
> >
> >
> Doug knows he likes shooting non auto focus glass (and non VR or IS) like
> many of us like you would think here on the Leica users group.
> The bulk of the working photographers out here do not.
> They use Nikon Canon class of the most recent vintage they can  lay their
> hands on and nobodies rolling their eyes upwards at their cutting edge
> results.
> So its they that are disagreeing with Doug not me.
> Just became Doug us in the niche minority does not mean he's wrong in his
> choice of glass. But it sure does not mean the masses of top pros out there
> are wrong either. We can chose the low tech road and hope its the high road
> but I think its not wise to put down the techniques of the top pros out
> there who are making a living and are committed to their work hitting
> deadlines and when Nikon and Canon come out with their latest offerings
> believe me its of interest. They could give a flying fig about how many
> elements are in them.
> I may be interested in compactness and light weight and minimum elements
> but
> I do respect the bulk of the top shooters out there who are context to
> carry
> a very large heavy piece of glass which takes batteries to operate. If I
> didn't I doubt they'd care.
> The bulk of the images we see every day are made by them. To say their
> images are not viable does not quite add up.
>
>
> [Rabs]
> Mark William Rabiner
>
>
>
>
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