RE: [Leica] lens heresy

["Rodgers, David" <david.rodgers@xo.com>]

Felix,

Before we totally write off the importance of the camera body, let's not
forget that film plane tolerances are pretty critical. Cheap bodies don't go
overboard on anything, much less film rails and the back plate. I recall
some pretty interesting discussions years ago regarding research into the
value of the vacuum back on the Contax RTSIII. Somebody even posted some of
the research peformed by the engineer who designed the vacuum back. 

From memory, some of the highlights form that thread included the following:

- --Film flatness is extremely important to overall image quality. The better
the lens (i.e. the more you're pushing the edges of the envelope) the more
important the camera body becomes. 
- -- Not all camera bodies are equal when it comes to film flatness. 
- --Factors such as whether or not film has been in the gate for a while --
i.e. did you just advance the film, or did you advance the film yesterday
and has it been sitting in the film gate for a while -- can make a
difference in the image.   
- -- One reason Leica Ms perform so well is that the bodies are milled from
solid steel. They're extremely rigid. They're machined to exacting
tolerances. Therefore they tend to hold the film pretty darn flat.

The thread probably took place 6 or 7 years ago. There was a lot more to it,
which I can't recall. The bottom line is that the camera body is important.
It certainly opened my eyes to some things. Photography is a system. The
camera body is as important as the lens. 

Dave 


- -----Original Message-----
From: Félix López de Maturana [mailto:fmaturana@inicia.es]
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 6:48 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] lens heresy



"Speaking of Earth does it make sense to put a Soligor 90-230 f4. 5 on a
Leica?
to me that makes of course no sense. To me it makes sense to get a dirt
cheap
Yashica camera body and put a quality Zeiss lens for it.  Not the other way
around. That's what makes sense to me. Glass. The body stops the film from
fogging. Gives you a place to keep your film between exposures. Your glass
is everything."


I strongly agree with you Mark and I wonder why Leica cannot supply lenses
in other mounts! There are over there some very nice bodies with the last
technology available, and I do not mention any of them avoiding flames,
which will excel with a Leica lens! Specially in SLR field. This could be a
huge opportunitty for new busines fro Leica. I always thought the same
referring Carl Zeiss. Just the opposite people generally does: buying a nice
body and complementing with rather poor third manufacturer lenses. I do not
know Soligor, some supplier than Cosina but I thinkt some lenses from Tamron
are rather good, specially the macro one and the 28-105 mm f1:2,8 which I
tested with very good result.

Kind regards

Félix