Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/04/21

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Alan's favorite photos
From: "Martin V. Howard" <marho@ida.liu.se>
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 14:31:27 +0200

John McLeod wrote:
>
> Of course, to me bokeh is all.  If I see any sharp portions in a photo at
> all, I cringe  ;-)

Ah!  Finally some sanity in this debate!  The reason we pay thousands of
$'s for Leica lenses is, of course, not that they produce sharp pictures,
something that any competent lens manufacturer can accomplish, but that
the OUT OF FOCUS areas are rendered true to life.

Independent tests in controlled environments have shown that photographs
taken with Leica lenses consistently trigger the same psychological
stimulus caused by areas outside foveal vision, something that other lens
manufacturers have so far failed to do.

Interestingly enough, this effect is substantially reduced above about
f2-f2.8, which is why many Leica lenses are of that speed.

M.

- -- 
Martin V. Howard, Application Systems Laboratory,     | Now fully
Dept. of Comp. & Info. Sci., Linkoping University,    | Y2K compliant.
SE-581 83 Linkoping, Sweden.  Tel +46 13 282 421,     +----------------+
Fax +46 13 142 231; marho@ida.liu.se; www.ida.liu.se/~marho