Re: Leica 50/2 vs. Contax G 45/2

[Krzysztof Szecowka <szecowka@ch.wssk.wroc.pl>]

Bravo Charlie ! You' ve got the point.

My experience with Contax G lenses (28/45/90) is the same; no serious
testing though, 
but the feeling is comparable to Leica R lenses (28/50/70-210).

Chris


At 14:19 16.06.97 -0700, you wrote:
>G lenses are reputed (by others on the net, my local camera store,
>magazines) to be as good as Leica M lenses of equal focal length and max.
>aperture. I'm not out to prove that they are or aren't, but I got curious
>and for my own amusement compared my Leica 50 Summicron to a Contax G 45/2
>in a simple walk through Palo Alto, California. The approach was practical
>and was not controlled enough to be conclusive. If you're interested in
>what I saw in my slides then read on. If you're rubbing your hands over the
>chance to skewer me for my subjectivity, please spare me.
>
>The photos were taken on two successive Saturdays. Both days were sunny and
>cloudless; the photos were taken between 2 and 4 p.m. I photographed detail
>on a mural, several buildings, and some store front displays. I used Kodak
>E100S transparency film. There are a dozen things I could have done to make
>the conditions more rigorously identical. Some shortcomings in the exercise
>are that 1) the slide film was not processed at the same time (but was at
>the same lab) 2) the time of day was slightly different in each case 3) The
>cameras were hand held and 4) the apertures were ca. 5.6 to 8, not wide
>open.
>
>The resulsts were remarkably comparable. Under an 8x loupe I couldn't find
>a bit of difference between the slides in terms of contrast and sharpness,
>center to edge. The biggest difference was the slightly warmer, richer
>color in some of the Contax slides (noticeable when the exposures were
>identical). This was subtle, and most noticeable in a building with a light
>peach hue: the Contax lens produced a "sunny" peach color, while the Leica
>"chilled" the color (made it dingy, made it grey, not exactly bluer,
>though).
>
>Since the 8x loupe showed me no differences I looked at the slides under a
>100x loupe: a $250,000 Leica research microscope. All I saw were subtle
>differences in focussing between G and M slides. The G slides seemed to
>preserve more detail in some cases, less in others. To make such a judgment
>was splitting hairs and there was no systematic difference in the level of
>detail shown (corner vs. edge). In one slide of a building with several
>storefronts in the shadows at street level I found that the sharpness on
>the neon "OPEN" sign, at the edge of each slide, was identical. This level
>of enlargement corresponds to a print of 4.3 meters measured along the
>diagonal.
>
>
>My conclusion, therefore, is that under normal use the two lenses will
>produce results that are indistinguishable, with the exception of slight
>differences in color.
>
>This doesn't mean that one lens might not test differently than the other
>on an optical bench, but in practice they seem quite comparable.
>
>Does this matter? No, I might have gotten the same result with the
>Summicron and another prime lens. The lesson I take home is that, as much
>as I like my equipment, it's not the limiting factor: my creativity and
>emotional response have much more to do with taking good photos than the
>name on the camera and lens.
>
>I hope everyone is enjoying the late Spring sunlight.
>
>-Charlie
>
>
>
_____________________________

Krzysztof Szecowka MD
Dept. of General and Vascular Surgery
Wojewodzki Szpital Specjalistyczny
Wroclaw, Poland
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