Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/07/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 12:28 PM 7/10/96 -0400, you wrote: >I'm not so pleased by the prospect of adding more Japanese lenses in >the Leica R line. The reason is that, in addition to black and white >photography, I also do color, and I don't much like the warm and >over-saturated color rendition that seems to appeal so much to the >Japanese photo industry. You've got to judge lenses by their individual characteristics. Just a note, Contax makes lenses that are "less yellow" than Leica lenses. That's a design goal of Zeiss, and as a matter of fact, in the pre-press industry it's a known fact that cyan can give a picture a sharper appearance. And sky blue is actually cyan. So one of the reasons a "bluer" lens has a bit of an edge might be that fact. Blake Ziegler, father of the Contax G-1 and top rep. for Contax in the U.S. will tell you Zeiss lenses are more neutral than Leica, which he says is more yellow. >Now, maybe I'm unfairly pre-judging the Japanese lenses in the Leica R >line. The truth is, I haven't tried any of them. I haven't found a >place that rents them and so it would be an expensive experiment to Actually, some of the older Leica literature will tell you the color rendition of the 70-210 zoom is warmer than other Leica lenses. All that being said, I think choice of film can greatly influence how your pictures will turn out. I'll use Velvia for very flat light, or in other situations where it's appropriate. But I would never use it with portraits. I saw some available light portraits taken with the 80 Summilux R and Velvia inside a barn. The skin tones were absolutely yellow! But they were sharp. <g> =================== Eric Welch Grants Pass (OR) Daily Courier NPPA Region 11 JIB chair You'll get what's coming to you ... Unless mailed