Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/23

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Subject: [Leica] R Zoom questions
From: InfinityDT@aol.com
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 19:16:22 EDT

Pardon if this has been hashed over before, if so anyone can e-mail me 
privately.  I'm asking this for a family member who asked me for advice and 
I'm not qualified to answer.  She has the opportunity to purchase a 
second-hand set of 28-70 3.5-4.5 and 70-210 f4.  (I know that the newest 
80-200 is a better-performing lens than the 70-210 but it's 300g heavier and 
even used it's out of her price range.)  
The questions:
1. Do the 70-210 images have the "Leica look" re. contrast and color 
rendition or is the fingerprint more like Minolta's who designed and produced 
the lens?  Also, I know that the 70-210 was produced up until just a couple 
years ago, long after the Leica-Minolta alliance ended, so were *all* the 
70-210's made by Minolta or were later ones made by someone else? 

2. I have the same question re: "Leica-look" about the 28-70 (which I believe 
was designed and produced by Sigma), plus I notice that in the current Leica 
catalog there's a new stock number for the 28-70 and comparing pictures of it 
with an older brochure it is a different mount also (the new one has a 
screw-on hood while the older one had a pull-out hood).  The specs still give 
the same # elements and groups, but I'm wondering if anyone knows if the lens 
is optically different or just the mount has changed.

TIA

DT