Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/02/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]While I was a working commercial photographer, I had a 120/5.6 C lens that I used for studio set-ups of small items. It worked, of course, perfectly. We now have (my daughter and I) a 120/4 CFi lens. Jillian has been using it in her school assignments (medium range to close-up and real close with a 55mm tube) and printing reasonably large (up to 16x16) prints and after looking at the prints and looking at the transparencies with a 10x loupe, I have to say that this lens is stunningly sharp. Some of her portfolio prints are of the veins in leaves and they look like you can see the protoplasm working (obviously not). But I have to admit, that it is producing results that are better than what she used to produce with the 150mm lens. At these close ranges, of course. My feeling is that the new 120/4 lens is, for a working photographer, every bit as good as the 120/5.6 lens and will produce medium to close images that stand alone. With an Accute Matt screen, the f/4 gives a really nice bright image for critical focusing. If Erwin put a 120/5.6 and a 120/4 on a optical bench, I'll bet dollars to a donut that the difference, if any, would only be detected under laboratory/electronic lens testing. Detectable only by a microscope and oscilloscope. And I wouldn't hazard a guess as to which lens would come out a nanometer better. If either. Anyway... the 120/4 Makro-Planar lens that we currently own and use produces results that can only be labeled as stunningly perfect. Do I know what sharp is? I owned and used a 100/2.8 APO Macro Elmarit for many years. The benchmark of sharpness. I own and use a 120mm Super Symmar HM LF lens which is criminally sharp. I have 48x60 prints proving this. The 120/4 Hasselblad lens is easily in this league when used in its intended range. Medium to close-up. The truth of the pudding is in the tasting. I've tasted and it is the truth. Buy that lens Mark! You will not be sorry. Jim >At 05:28 PM 2/5/2001 -0800, Mark Rabiner wrote: >>Not on topic but this is the first bad report I've ever heard of the 4/120 >Makro-Planar!!!!!!!!! >>What on earth did you not like about it Marc!!!??? > >Mark > At 09:25 PM 2/5/01 -0500, Marc James Small wrote: >You are on the Hasselblad List. My experiences tack others on that List. >The 5.6/120 just seems a more satisfactory lens, with better general >optical performance. > >Marc > >msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 >Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir! >