Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/04/29

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Pictures taken with SOOKY-M
From: Chris Bitmead <chrisb@ans.com.au>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 15:55:47 +0000

Eric Welch wrote:

> >I've got a standing challenge open on this issue. Basicly "prove
> >it". What experiment should I do that will prove this to me?
> 
> I don't have to prove it, you have to prove your assertion is true against
> the vast majority of experts who over the years have said so. 

Puh-lease. Things don't become true simply by being repeated
often enough. No "expert" has ever showed that this is true that
I am aware.

In any case, all the experts on the human eye say otherwise. It
is only the photograhy experts working outside their field of
expertise that make this claim.

> But a good
> exercise is look through the viewfinder of an M3. That's a known amount of
> magnification, and dang close to what a 50mm lens has. The open both eyes.
> Well, whadda ya know, both eyes see dang near the same thing.

So what? All that does is prove something about the M3. Every
camera I own has a different result, none of them anywhere near
50mm. All that proves is different cameras have different
viewfinder magnifications. What of it?
 
> Magnification and angle of view are independent.

and...? 

> You make all sorts of assertions, but when I talk to people who know the
> manufacturers intimately (say like Arthur Kramer, former editor/writer at
> Modern Photography and other more prestigious publications) they have said
> that the short teles are easiest to make. 

Short teles are the easiest lenses to make with _really excellent
optics_. Various other problems come into play with wider and
longer lenses. It's near impossible to make a really wide lens
perform well. Really long lenses can be made to perform well but
it costs a bundle.

But I'm talking about which lenses are easy to make cheaply. No
lens will outperform certain 200mm lenses. But not at such a
cheap price. A 50mm f/1.8 has so little glass in it it's absurd.
Pull apart a 50/2 and a 90/2 and you will see the difference in
the quantity of glass is the reason.


> Well that was just plain late night thinking. Doesn't apply to this
> situation, which only new prices are relevant, so you're right on THAT
> point. 

THAT point, is the only point I want to make. A 50mm f/X will be
cheaper than any other focal length mm f/X. The reason is they
are cheap to make because they contain very little glass compared
to other focal lengths.

- -- 
Chris Bitmead
http://www.ans.com.au/~chrisb
mailto:chrisb@ans.com.au