Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/03/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 04:53 PM 1999-03-15 -0800, Mark Rabiner wrote: >Perhaps we should give the world of fast Teles to the Slr people. I >think of the 75 as a fast very short tele. The 135 focal length is a >definite tele lens if you're me. Neither Leitz nor Leica have really liked "telephoto" lenses: what they have traditionally produced, for the most part, are "long-focus lenses", at least for the RF cameras. A "telephoto" lens is optically compressed: that is, it is shorter physically than its focal length, while the 2.8/135 or the 2.8/90 ARE that physical length, 135mm and 90mm long. This was a philosophy which began under Berek in the '30's, as it is far more challenging to design an optically satisfactory telephoto than a long-focus lens. Thus, Zeiss produced their 4/135 telephoto Sonnar while Leitz produced the 4.5/135 long-focus Hektor. A minor quibble, but a significant one. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!