Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/02/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>>So in most practical >>situations you can not use the full optical potential of this lens and >>therefore not run up to its optical limits. >>Erwin >> >> >Huh? > >Erwin, could you please explain this a bit? I must confess I am not a >technical expert, so I do not fully understand what you are saying. > >BTW: it was mainly your excellent site that got me over from Nikon to the >Leica world. >:-) > >Pascal Well Pascal, Thanks for your kind words. It is however not my intention to have people change brands. My position is simple: all four brands (Leica, Contax, Nikon and Canon) procuse excellent and sometimes great products. The discussion about which one is the best, is bottomline just futile. What I try to do, is help people understand the characteristics of Leica cameras, in order to make intelligent and rational choices about the kind of pictures they can expect and the style of photography best suited to the Leica camera. Now then your question. I do agree that is a bit technospeak, excuse me for this. Sometimes I am too enthousiastic. In plain words: the contrast and resolution of a lens will always be degraded when shooting pictures handheld. This is even true if you use shutter speeds of 1/125 or even 1/250. At speeds below 1/60 the trembling of the hands and yes! your heartbeat will 'shake' the camera severely. The resolution and contrast will drop to quite low levels. At least to levels where it is impossible to record 30lp/mm with any decent degree of sharpness. Fine details will be blurred etc. If you would like to see the quality of any lens at ful aperture you have to use a tripod or shoot at 1/500 or use electronic flash. When I did practical tests with the Noctilux knowledgeable passersby laughed at me when they saw me taking pictures on a tripod with a f1 lens.I must confess that my pictures shot at 1/15 with the Noctilux do not reveal the same level of fine detail I can record when on tripod. (excluding chance factors: when my article in Phototechniques will be published you might see a 'lucky' shot at a full 1 second. Erwin