Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/12/22

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: RE: Re: [Leica] Where's Joe?
From: Félix López de Maturana <fmaturana@euskalnet.net>
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 15:26:12 +0100

<Hi Mark...Well, the 15mm lens is almost 5,000 bucks.  Must either be a
<tremendously fabulous piece of glass, or Leica thinks they will sell only a
<few of them, or both.  There really comes a time when the cost of using
<Leica lenses is prohibitively expensive.  I know all about used items, and
<many times such items are fine.  Nevertheless, hard to justify sometimes.

<Have you used the 12 or 15mm from Voightlander on your M Mark?  Wonder how
<inferior the lens really is at hundreds/thousands less.

Well, I am a user of the Voigtländer 12mm with a M6 and is a nice lens, with
the normal problems you can get with so wide lenses: strong vignetting,
horrible point of view if you lose the strict horizontal and not so open
lens: 5,6. But I can speak about "my" experience with other wide lenses. The
best, again my opinion, is Carl Zeis Hologon which can be found in M mount,
horrible price in Ebay, and can be used, at a rather moderated one as I do,
in a Contax G. The filter for avoiding vignetting is a must in some kind of
pics but the lens is really sharp; on the other side is aperture fixed f1:8.

I use too, two more extreme wides, Nikkor 15mm f1:3,5 that is trully sharp
after two stops but has a huge flare and severe vignetting too. I never
found an sensibly affordable Nikkor 13mm. The Canon 14mm f1:2,8 EF L is,
again IMHO, a little bit less sharp than Nikkor, but overall is the best one
as it's a trully usable 2,8 lens with nice AF, with my EOS 1V you see what
you get, and is the less prone to flare in vignetting. For M users both
Voigtländer lenses are great. Hologon for M3 is a madness unless you are a
collector and, up to now, Canon is the best choice for SLR users ( I don't
know Carl Zeiss 15mm for Contax and R Leica that surely may be at same leve
or probably eve better, I'm speaking honestly about tha gear I own).

For sure the new Schneider lens has to be the best. Does it worth? This
question has to be replied for every user. If I get a R for sure I'll get
one. But not for the moment.

Kind regards and happy Xmas.

Félix



- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html