Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/07/08

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Subject: [Leica] Possible lens and camera improvements
From: Erwin Puts <imxputs@knoware.nl>
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 23:12:09 +0200

You wrote:

>I have the latest 50mm Summicron.  It is incredible!  I can't imagine any
>further improvement to this lens!

Well, I definitely can!

On the subject of the Mx and CLx speculations: cannot we stop this for a
while.

On the subject of lens performance: it does not make sense to single out
one topic (coating, number of lens elements, Refractive Index, Noctilux
glass, ASPH or APO or whatever) and assume a discernable influence on
performance. Any optical system has been computed as a 'sensitive system of
interdependent components'. The upshot is that an optical system is a very
balanced whole and where a certain design will improve with coating, some
other design will be relatively insensitive to such a treatment.
Maybe we should be more concerned about our capabilities of extracting all
the potential performance out of the current crop of state of the art
lenses. The Zeiss people have very interesting thoughts about this topic.
They assume most users of current Zeiss lenses at best exploit 80% of its
potential.

Erwin