[Leica] Photographs are to look at

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

> yes, more fact finding is needed. That is why Mike advised photog interested
> in
> the subject to test their own lenses and come up with their own conclusions.
> What you, or I, or Mike, think about bokeh of OTHER  photog's lenses is
> unimportant.


It's really gotten to a ludicrous level when we start arguing about bokeh in
words and pseudoscience. For heaven's sake, this stuff isn't brain surgery.
Just take a bunch of pictures with blur in them and look at the blur. We
don't have to _quantify_ what's going on; it's enough just to _look_ at it.
It's there to see.

Readers used to call me up and ask me what I thought of a certain lens. I'd
give them my opinion, and then (to my astonishment) they'd reveal that
they'd owned the very lens in question for a month or a year or whatever.
That's really silly.

I'd tell 'em: use the darn thing and trust your gut. If you like what it
does, bully; if you don't, get rid of it. Believe the evidence--not the
experts.

- --Mike

P.S. Stephen, let's do a section on bokeh at your CameraQuest website, want
to? I could write it up and we could illustrate it with pictures that people
could actually see. I've got plenty of good illustrations.