Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/04

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Subject: [Leica] Two sets of aperture blades?
From: telyt at earthlink.net (Douglas Herr)
Date: Tue May 4 12:59:15 2004

Karen Nakamura <mail at gpsy dot com> wrote:

> OK, am I on drugs or does Leica use two sets of aperture blades? It 
> seems on many of my lenses, that looking from the front, there is one 
> set (main set?) that closes down, but from the rear, there's another 
> set that gradually closes down and catches up at f/22 or so. It's 
> very odd.
>
> Is this to smooth out bokeh? Or am I seeing an illusion?

Some lenses do have two sets of aperture blades.  One I know of is the old 400mm f/5 Telyt.  Methinks the purpose is to provide a nicely rounded aperture at all settings - in contrast to the typical auto-diaphragm lenses for SLRs, R lenses included - which degrade to a polygon at smaller apertures.



Doug Herr
Birdman of Sacramento
http://www.wildlightphoto.com

Replies: Reply from philippe.orlent at pandora.be (Philippe Orlent) ([Leica] Two sets of aperture blades?)