[Leica] 80 Summilux R (was 'Am I being stupid? (R content)')

[tgray at 125px.com (Tim Gray)]

On Nov 07, 2010 at 09:43 AM +1030, Marty Deveney wrote:
> The 90 APO is very impressive, but at portrait distances it is less
> impressive than further away - the absence of a floating element
> starts to show and there is noticeable curvature of field.  This was
> the motivation for the design used in the 75 Summicron, which focuses
> to 0.75 m and gets you a tighter crop, and is the M lens I'd recommend
> if you'd like a very modern rendering lens for portraits.

The 75 Summicron is too close for me to my 50 ASPH.  And too expensive.  I'd 
never be able to figure out which one I wanted to use at the moment.

While 80 is close to 75, 1.4 is faster than 2 (useful at times) and I would 
imagine 80/1.4 is easier to focus on an SLR than is the 75 Summilux on M 
(which is also too expensive for me).

One other thing I hadn't mentioned.  I would imagine my girlfriend will be 
using this a bit if I get it.  And she doesn't get along with rangefinders 
at all.  I think she takes good pictures with them, but she much prefers 
using SLRs.  Go figure.

> I kept the Nikkor but returned the test sample 80 Summilux because I
> like the F3 better than any of the R cameras and I already have a
> bunch of other Nikon SLR lenses.

Very nice pictures.  Thanks for sharing those.