[Leica] Lens & Film Contrast

[John McLeod <johnmcleod@worldnet.att.net>]

LUGgers -

As many of you know by now, I uses Leica R6's and a Nikon F5.  I only have
one Nikon lens (the 50/1.4 AF-D) and have found this lens to yield "too
much" contrast (relative to my Leicas), at least with Kodachrome and Kodak
E100SW.  The lens is very sharp, by the way, but compared with Leica R
lenses, the tonal gradations are not as subtle -- dark greys have a tendenc=
y
to go black and light greys tend to go white.  A good example would be some
KR64 "shots" I "took" of my yellow lab Ollie, who has brown eyes and yellow
fur.  With the Leica, his eyes are dark brown and his fur looks yellow (it
was a nice, evenly lit overcast day after an El Ni=F1o rain).  With the 50/1.=
4
Nikkor, the image is very punchy and saturated, but his eyes look black and
his fur yellow-white.

Eric Welch (if I may speak for you for a moment Eric  ;-)  ) would say Leic=
a
lenses are simply better at tonal gradation and subtle changes in
micro-contrast.  Others would say the "problem" I'm seeing is really not a
lens problem, but a film problem.  This argument suggests that a lens canno=
t
ADD contrast to an image, it can only allow as much light to pass to film,
thanks to better coatings and flare control.  In other words, a high
contrast lens is a "good" thing.  Of course, a "good" thing in theory may b=
e
not so good in practice with high contrast slide films, right?

I am very interested to hear comments from the group on this issue of lens
vs. film contrast.  While it is clear that we should all buy the camera and
lens system that we like best with the films we like best, I remain
interested in learning more about whether, all other things being equal, a
lens that yields images of higher contrast has better coatings or control
over flare than a lens that produces images of lower overall contrast. 
Thanks.

John McLeod