Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/07/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Yes,there are differences. Look at the older designs and you see relatively simple shapes. Now, and the 24mm is a good example, you see complex shapes. You also might notice that the frequency of using these lenses increases. (see the Summar 3,2/32 in the Leica compact). Two reasons: one is hat the use of thick and relatively soft glass now is possible because the time lag between polishing and coating is only a couple of hours. Tight production logistics are imperative here.Otherwise the polished surface would already be deteriorating. The other reason is that the availability of optical glass shrinks. Exotic glasses are scrapped from the catalogues because the demand is too low. Then the designer has to fall back on still available glasses and has to use unusual techniques to guarantee the desired performances. In this respect I think Leica and Zeiss are leading in the world. If the efforts and costs are worth it, is a matter of opinion and a discerning eye and technique. Many postings here have noted that in most circumstances you can not or hardly see any performance difference between the good Nikon and Canon and Minolta etc lenses. The classical 80:20 rule works here too. To notice the last 20% performance difference you have to put 80% of your effort into this task.On the oher hand: if you only put 20% of your effort in the optical performance you get 80% of the potential performance and on that level most topclass lenses are equal. This could explain why most test results do no note the differences that are still here. Erwin Puts