[Leica] The Zeiss Choice

[i.watts at virgin.net (Ian Watts)]

Bill Marshall wrote:
> 
> Overlooked IMO has been what's different about this product line. What's
> overlooked is the fact that all of the lenses wider than 35mm close focus 
> to
> 0.5m (18") & the 15/2.8 close focuses to 0.3m (12"). No other RF lenses on
> the market to the best of my knowledge do this other than the Leica
> Macro-Elmar 90/4 - & this lens needs a special Leica Macro-Adapter-M to
> enable the body to focus down to 0.5m. Unless I'm missing something, then,
> Zeiss is correct when it says that it needed to design its own body to take
> advantage of the capabilities of these lenses. While there has been much
> discussion to assert that Zeiss has made only one lens that will benefit
> from the long base line, the Zeiss literature stresses the advantages of
> this camera for use with wide angle lenses. I believe that it is the close
> focusing capability that they are talking about.


Bill, do you know for a fact that the camera body will be rangefinder
coupled down to 0.3m? This isn't clear to me in the literature and I wonder
whether the close focussing ability of the wide lenses is on a 'guesstimate'
basis below the 0.7m mark. If I recall correctly one of the earlier Leica
21mm lenses can be focussed down to around 12 inches even though the
rangefinder is only coupled down to 0.7m.

Ian Watts.

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