Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/06/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>On Mon, 29 Jun 1998 06:55:33 +0200 Alan Ball wrote: > >BTW, this week-end at the Photo-Puces event in Brussels, I got the >opportunity to fiddle around with most of today's and yesterday's photo >hardware. The setup which impressed me the most in there was a EOS1n + >200mmf2.8 EF: great balance, instant (really instant) reactivity, relative >silence (I found it less noisy than a R5 I tried at the next table), nice >finish. That whole (mint) setup was offered at 50 pct of the price of a new >non-APO 180mm f2.8 R lens. Did not shoot film, so I won't elaborate on >optical performance, but my preconceptions make me quite sarcastic towards >the Leica R marketing logic. I use the Canon 200 2.8 EF regularly. In fact I shot with it alongside my M6 Saturday before last (20th June) and have the results back now. I was shooting the local Church fete and used the M6 with my 20mm Russar for close-in shots of the stalls, and the 90 Summicron for longer shots. I used my EOS with the 200 for other longer shots to get candid portraits. On the roll from the Leica with the 90 Summicron there are several shots that are not critically sharp. On the EOS there's one, and that was my fault not the camera's (as with the Leica of course). I prefer the shots from the EOS 200mm lens to those from the 90 Summicron, perhaps because the DOF is shallower with the longer lens, or perhaps because of the perspective compression - I'm not entirely sure why. Both films were developed by the same lab and printed to 7x5 prints. OK, I know print film is not the medium to use for lens comparisons, but this is what was required in this instance, and I would say I had more successful results from the EOS than the Leica. Perhaps if I was using all the lenses wide open, and shooting on slide film I would have come to a different conclusion. I'm not writing this to denigrate the Leica by the way. I suspect the higher failure rate with the Leica is mostly because I am still more familiar with the Canon and can therefore concentrate more on composition than I can with the Leica. Hopefully when I've used the Leica for as many years as some of our distinguished company here have, my success rate will be higher! However, the 200mm EOS lens is a gem in the Canon line-up and compares well with some Leica glass in my experience. Simon.