Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/08/30

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Subject: Re: Marc Riboud Show
From: John_McLeod@designlink.com
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 03:51:24 GMT

Welcome back to the Leica list Eric (Welch).  I have not forgotten your great
contributions and even better bylines since you left the list with your
then-new F5.

Great thread, by the way, re whether images produced by Leica lenses really are
different.  I have owned old Nikons, a Canon EOS-1n, and Leica M and R.  Based
on my experiences over the past 20 years, I'm still confused!

The color cast of the old Nikon glass was clearly different than an old 50
Summilux I then owned.  The Leica was much warmer and truer to color.  The old
Nikon 50/1.4 turned some pastels into an almost harsh, blue tone.

The new, very plastic Canon lenses are very sharp.  Sometimes sharper than
Leica, sometimes not, depending on the individual lens in question.  I did a
lot of side by side testing of the Canon and Leica.  I wanted to see a
difference.  Many times I could not.  The one difference I could see with Canon
was more wide aperture vignetting -- more than with Leica M, R, or Nikon.

Donal, I think I know what you mean about Canon's brittle sharpness.  There is
clearly more to an image (e.g. depth, the layering of tones, etc.) than
resolution.

This whole question of the "Leica Look" may never find an answer, right folks? 
For each LUG member convinced that Minolta/Nikon/Canon/Leica images are
indistinguishable, there is an equal number of members that swear to seeing a
difference.  Interesting.

John McLeod