[Leica] new 50/1.4 M lens

[banacloj at mac.com (Juan Gea-Banacloche)]

Perfectly articulated. I could not agree more.

Juan

On May 28, 2004, at 12:35 AM, Mark Rabiner wrote:
>>
>
> 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
>
>
>
> New-improved
> http://rabinergroup.com/
>
>
>
>
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