Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/10/05
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Thanks for a response which will help bring some sanity to the discussion.
As for resolution tests, I agree. What do you think of Popular
Photography's efforts to improve lens testing with their method they call
"Subjective Quality Factor?" It seems to be an effort to respond to the
concern that the old resolution and contrast measurements were too narrow.
At 05:46 AM 10/5/96 BST-1, you wrote:
>In-Reply-To: <32559DAC.21B5@ecentral.com>
>
>This just isn't true, you can count the number of manufacturers of high
>refractive index and other specialist glasses on the fingers of one
>mitten, and the German lens manufacturers use the same sources as
>everyone else. Nikon in particular have been innovative in their use of
>such materials in their 'serious' lens designs (though I accept that
>these days they make a lot of price-driven crap).
>
>>I'm afraid this smacks of the same pseudo science which one finds at the
>'snake oil' end of the audiophile market, where claims are made for the
>performance of specialist cables (for example) which are not justified by
>the evidence (I had a client who was a specialist cable manufacturer, and
>I could tell you stories which would horrify you).
>
>{snip}...and in a world where the quality of a lens is
>measured by the kind of limited (*desperately* limited) 'resolution'
>results one sees in photographic magazines, it's not surprising that less
>satisfactory designs become the norm.
>
Charles E. Love, Jr.
517 Warren Place
Ithaca, New York
14850
607-272-7338
CEL14@CORNELL.EDU