[Leica] Bokeh - proven myth ?

[Henry Ting <henryting10@yahoo.com>]

This is going to be controversial. 
I read about a lot of Leica lens offering a distinct
"Bokeh" image that's missing from lens of other makes.
I was confused as to how could this be possible,
unless outside of physics' existentialism, Leica lens
have a metaphysical spirit that the likes of Nikon or
Zeiss lack. 

To prove my point, I did some experiment.
I used my Leica M6 with the 35 Summicron and a Nikon
F2 with a 35mm lens. I set them up both on tripods
with the same camera to object distance in shooting my
car head on at a range of only 5 feet. The background
was a cul-de-sac of our neighborhood with florals and
houses and images that I am familiar with.
Then I shot the pictures with Ektachome 64 with the
aperture of both these cameras wide-open. I controlled
the session with everything identical from the 2
cameras except the lens (Leica vs Nikon).

I got the slides back right before X'mas and here are
the results :

I setup my projector against a white screen at 15 feet
distance, the image of the Leica lens show a hint of
warmth and the same amount of details from the
highlights to the shade compared with the Nikon. The
area of the car's hood which were the focal point,
both images are tack sharp. The Nikon image shows a
bit more contrast, but very minor when everything is
in sharp focus. However, the image behind the car's
hood, extending further back from medium distance all
the way back to infinity, the images get progressively
blurry as the distance increase. Using some florals
and our neighbors front yard, the out of focus image
from both the Nikon and the Leica were 100 percent
identical. Even the sizes of the Bokeh images were of
the same size (we all know the image gets
progressively bigger as it comes into focus). At least
from my eyes, I cannot see any differences from the
highlights to the shades. Both these pictures were
taken at F2, 1/1000 sec with the same subject to
camera distance and the same film used.

The result?   No differences whatsoever. I think the
reverse is true. If both lens are of the same focal
length, the graduality from sharpness to blurryness
should not be different at all. Based on the law of
physics this should apply to every lens. 
I for once proved to myself there is no difference and
for anyone that claim there is a "Bokeh" difference
between Leica and Nikon lens, my only comment from
here onwards is "More power to them".

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
http://greetings.yahoo.com
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html