1st Slides from 35-70 Macro Zoom

[Richard Clompus <rclompus@voicenet.com>]

Dear Fellow LUGnuts,

I just got my first set of Fuji Astia slides returned from a local
professional photo lab.  Upon first inspection, the colors are magnificent.
 The skin tones and yellow flowers are the best I have seen to date from an
E6 film.  

The exposures are right on with some difficult lighting situations.  I went
to a local flea market to take pictures last week.  You have to deal with
high contrast of bright light on fruit and people's faces shaded from the
sun under a tent overhang.  Darn if the integrating meter measurement of
the R8 nailed the exposure for each of them.  I put the camera on aperture
preferred, set the zoom lens to f5.6 and shot away.  Results are quite
spectacular - even for me.  

The macro or close focusing function of the new 35-70 aspheric zoom is very
good.  I did a series of flowers around the backyard of our house and they
turned out great.  I can even hand hold the R8 down to 1/15 without blur.
I wasn't sure what to expect from a Leica designed zoom that was made in
Japan.  This one is clearly a winner. Much better than my Vivitar Series I
zoom.

With such a good zoom, I should probably look at the 80-200 range as a
second zoom lens.  The Apo is out of my league but perhaps the older
non-apo in the same range might be an option.  Has anyone used one of
Leica's older zooms in the range of 80-200 f4?

Happy shooting,

Richard (a very happy Leica R 8 user)
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Richard Clompus, OD
West Chester, PA, USA