[Leica] new 50/1.4 M lens

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

> I figure the only people who really care about the differences are anal
> retentive types such as myself who occasionally photograph newspapers stuck
> on the wall.   Yes, at one time I may have been guilty of that....
> 
> oh, in case this isn't obvious, I think I agree with you!   :)
> 
> 
> -dan c.
> 

IN the last 11 years coincidently since I went Leica M - Leica broke off
from Leitz somehow and quickly after started on a path which put their lens
lineup clearly at the top of the 35mm heap. There are those who don?t think
so that that is certainly part of what makes the world an interesting place.
Before that that was not at all clearly the case. And perhaps wasn't.
You would have been doing just fine going Nikon or Canon glass wise.
You'd be doing Leica because of the rangefinder viewfinder perhaps.
Or you'd like the soft Bokeh and soft other things in your quaint Leica
older and not so older glass.

With every modern ASPH APO whatever modern upgrade to the Leica glass
pantheon there was a decision to to invest in it or if your existing optic
of perhaps the same exact speed was what you needed more.
...It wasn't the best for YOU.
...Or you really didn?t need the best; it just want WORTH IT to get involved
with the new lens.
You're perhaps not in it for the glass you're in it for the rangefinder. A
lens just has to put an image on a film plane.

I got into it for BOTH the glass and the rangefinder manner of shooting..
AND the fact that this rangefinder camera was the famously superiorly made
Leica.

I got into it because I wanted my glass to be nothing less than the best and
I realized it was not going to cost ten percent more for that distinction
but more like twice or three times and that I'd not be able to get a lens to
do my next shoot which it seemed ideal for like I did with my Nikon system
but that I'd perhaps have to save for most of a year for it.

And I wanted all the advantages of rangefinder shooting over SLR shooting;
and just keep a macro and longer focal lengths for that system when needed
which for me which was seldom. (this changed a bit in the last year with
digital)

Right now I feel the picture I can take of just about any subject will be
superior optically to what a close to equal photographer would take with his
more obvious standards of the industry. I believe that a zoom can not do
everything as well from 24 to 85 as a Summicron can do fixated on 50.
It doesn't have to do 51.
It doesn't have to do 77. All it has to do is 50.
How dumb does it have to be to excel over an optic trying to do the world
without a rocket ship? And a rube Goldberg interior with myriads of little
precious chips of glass suspended in plastic brackets? precious precious!
All it has to be is a classic formula done with precision and do what it was
meant to do with a decades long record of having done it.
It may be tweaked, but the formula could easily stay the same. IT may NOT
need floating elements or asph's but it WILL be the 50 I will most want to
shoot with most of the time. And I typically have an assortment of 50's to
choose from.

Some who got into Leica M a decade before I did held on to their existing
non ASPH systems and I might have in their place there is not way of knowing
for sure. I DID get the APO ASPH 90 already owning the Elmarit current. The
idea of shooting a good deal of my work with unquestionably the best optic
in the modern universe had a certain appeal to me.
As photography for me is the most of it.
There are plenty of people who have the mindset that they prefer to shoot
with the best and nothing less than the best and they will do whatever it
takes to do that.
And people who think less than the best is not much of a difference.
I think of those people as Nikon Canon shooters.
The former I think of as being Leica people.
Hand held or tripod, high rez film or high speed film, flash or no flash,
beach or dark alley, film or digital... I'm going to start with the best
glass. 
Then let it be human era which screws it up.

Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon



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