Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Pascal: Two quick comment: You got to dry-shoot the Nikon. Take it and your R8 and shoot some chromes using the zooms wide open. Develop them and then compare. I doubt if the love of the Nikon will as strong. Your typical shots I have seen on your web page don't require autofocus anyways. A person I shoot with regularily uses Nikons, but he has lost the hoods off his lenses. Bayonet hoods fall off when you least expect it. He said he lost the hood for his 105 macro in a field and tried for hours to find it. Never did find it. He lost his hood off the 80-200 2.8 zoom while walking in the woods. It too is gone forever. Finally, while shooting University Basketball Championships last fall, I saw a lot of Nikons used by the kids that shoot for the University and none of them had hoods. If a hood is not included with the lens, a lot of people won't buy it. Some of these kids had F5's with the 80-200 2.8 with no hood and a UV filter on! Too much glare in an arena for that. I was using my R8 and my M6 and when they asked about it said that while they were using 2.8 lenses, I was using F2 and F1 lenses! Regards, Robert At 05:03 PM 8/21/99 +0200, you wrote: >I do not want to start another Leica vs. Nikon debate, but wanted to >share my short experiences with the F5 vs R8. > >Yesterday, I had the opportunity to dry-shoot with my brother's Nikon F5 >and new AF-S lenses: 28-70/2.8 and 80-200/2.8. > >I must confess I was favorably impressed with everything. > >Size and weight certainly much less than my Leica R8 plus winder plus >70-180/2.8 APO. Easier to take pictures with the F5 plus 80-200 than with >the R8 plus 70-180. Better grip (due to the really good handgrip) on the >F5. > >The Nikon lenshoods are really impressive - massive and big (luckily they >are of the bayonet type, you can put the on the lens on reverse when not >in use) but offering maximum protection against direct light. >Comparatively, the Leica hoods, while being extremely convenient >(built-in), are much shorter and hence appear to be less effective. > >Viewfinder nice and bright (difficult to compare the Nikon at f/2.8 with >my R8 at f/1.4 obviously). The LCD indications on the bottom in the >viewfinder are more readable than those of my R8 in very bright light. >The Nikon has the indications in black on a green illuminated backlight, >while the R8 displays are in green - this is probably the reason. Nice >touch. > >Autofocus is, well hum..., impressive ! Jeez, I had never thought >autofocus could be that fast and accurate. Extremely helpful in low light >compared to clumsy manual focusing with the R8 in those instances (where >is that electronic focus confirmation ?). > >But the thing that surprised me most of all were the AF-S lenses. My God, >are these a joy in use. Built quality is certainly excellent, no >sloppiness or whatever compared to the cheapo normal AF lenses. Manual >focusing is as easy as with Leica lenses, even more so because they are a >bit less hard to turn than my Leica's. AF focusing is internal, the ring >does not turn with it. >And virtually no noise while focusing !!! Just a very short kind of click >and that's it. > >I must admit this was kind of a little "culture shock" to me... >Now if only the optics had been Leica's... Where is that Leica R9 with AF >??? > >Pascal >NO ARCHIVE > >-------------------------------------------------------- >See my photo pages at http://members.xoom.com/cyberplace/ >------------------------------------------------------- >On the Eighth day God created Macintosh >------------------------------------------------------- ><<< PGP public key available on request >>> > >