Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/03/24

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Subject: Re: [Leica] G system and Leica
From: "Jean-Claude Berger" <jcberger@imaginet.fr>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 23:28:03 +0100

>I had a G1 with the 45, 28 and 90 - which I dumped to get my M6. I did this
for
>only two reasons: the G1 autofocus sucked - sorry, but there's no other
word for
>it. It was slow. It wasn't particularly accurate. And in dim light?
Fagetit!

I had the same kind of experience and since I had no problem with autofocus
speed, I had a lot with accuracy.


>The second reason I got rid of it was that the "manual focus" was nothing
more
>than a hand adjusted auto focus.

Same conclusion here too.

>Now, having read a fair amount, and having played with a G2, I gather that
the
>autofocus is much better - although the "manual focus" is still not manual.

I played too with a G2 and since AF was faster, it was as unrealiable than
the G1 one. _This_ was the reason why I sold my G1 set.


>As to the lenses - Sorry Mark, but they were terrific. To my eye they were
every
>bit as sharp as their M counterparts.

This time, I beg to disagree. I often tested my Zeiss 45 and 90 vs. Nikon
lenses (I don't have a Nikon 28 and compared the Zeiss 90 against Nikon
85/1.8 mm). In no case, at no aperture, the Contax Zeiss even  approached
the Nikons performances in terms of sharpness or contrast. In particular,
the full aperture results were far inferior. In the same time, the Leica M
lenses I tested were better than Nikons at full aperture to f/4. Then Nikon
takes the edge again.

IMHO, the G system is the most pleasant I ever used but the lenses were not
that terrific though good enough.

Best regards.


 ---
 Jean-Claude Berger (jcberger@jcberger.com)
 Systems and RDBMS consultant (MCSE), Lyon, France
 http://www.jcberger.com