[Leica] Re: Leica, Zeiss and Zuiko

[Doug Cooper <visigoth@echonyc.com>]

> Almost went back to the Olympus OM4 (which I owned prior
>to the Leica R). I think both the Leica lenses and the Olympus Zuiko
>lenses are superior (sharpness, contrast, bokeh) to the Zeiss.

My system immediately before moving into Zeiss and Leica was Olympus.  I
had an OM4ti, with an assortment of (admittedly) cheaper Zuikos.  The
50/3.5 macro, 200/4, 24/2.8.

Regarding bokeh, the Olympus lenses(even the maligned 50/3.5) may well be
superior to Zeiss.  Regarding sharpness and contrast?  Nowhere near.  I'm
told that certain more expensive lenses -- the 50/2 and 90/2 macros, for
instance -- are exceedingly sharp, but the run-of-the-mill Zuiko tends to
be on the soft side.  The 200/4 is not that wonderful.  And the Zeiss
28/2.8 Distagon leaves the Zuiko 24 looking like a Softar; it's also
considerably better corrected for distortion.

The OM4ti is an interesting body.  I have mixed feelings about it.  The
metering system is the most intelligent devised by man (although I never
understood the point of averaging multiple spot readings) -- if you're
even slightly inclined towards Zone rigor, the OM4ti makes that system
ludicrously easy to work with.  These days I tend to prefer incident
metering, but I miss the shadow and hi-lite buttons on the Olympus.

On the other hand, I always found that the body felt flimsy.  I know that
it's *not* flimsy -- those bodies do very well in torture tests -- but the
rewind lever, for instance, felt poor:  neither solid nor smooth.  Give me
a Contax S2 (or an M6 TTL!) with the OM4ti's metering system, and I'll be
in heaven.

Now for that Distagonal review I promised.  In fact, this is a revision of
my Zeiss thinking in general; I also put the 35-70/3.5 through its paces,
with specific regard for bokeh.  (And I took out the old Tamron SP 90,
along with its 2x converter, to see how it came out.)

The 28/2.8, as you approach infinity, is about as sharp a lens as I've
ever worked with.  Silly sharp, especially stopped down a notch (which
accords with the MTF tests -- the Italian tests on the Web, and photodo,
both place this lens first among 28's.)  The colors are spectacular, and
the distortion negligible.  On the other hand, the out-of-focus areas seem
noticeably busier than I've found in my smoother lenses:  the Summitar,
the Color-Heliar, and the Canon 50/1.4.  The dreaded ni-san bo-ke rears
its ugly head (a nicely mixed metaphor, as ni-san bo-ke, I'm told,
literally means "cross-eyed senility):  in certain shots, distant O-O-F
lines get doubled.  Not all of them, but still.  This, however, is for
distant bits, considerably blurred:  the medium-ground bo-ke seems pretty
nice.

In short:  a spectacular landscape lens.  (Which, as a travel
photographer, is what I bought it for.  I used to carry a Ricoh GR1, and
foolishly gave it to my father.)

The 35-70 Vario-Sonnar seems to change in bokeh depending upon the focal
length.  Specular highlights range from nice Gaussian discs, to appalling
donuts.  Again, however, the bokeh is more distracting than I've found in
my Leica and Leica-cloned lenses.  The sharp bits, on the other hand, at
*every focal length* are as scary sharp as they are in the Distagon.

The Tamron seems a bit smoother out of focus, but the difference in color
between the image thrown by the Tamron and the Zeiss lenses really took me
aback:  the Tamron seems dull and dingy by comparison.  The contrast,
while good, is just not in the same league.  (Mind you, this was a quick
test; I've yet to really spend time with this lens, which does have a very
good reputation.  Mine is the first version of the SP 90 -- the one that's
built like an armored truck.)

All this to say:  perhaps Mike is right after all.

Not that any of this is sufficient to put me off Zeiss:  what's good about
these lenses, is spectacularly good.  (I doubt, for instance, that many
contemporary lenses are built as well as that zoom.  It's a marvel of
engineering.)

Leica simply does something different.  And about as well as such things
can be done.  I can see uses for both systems.


(I do apologize for all these long posts.)