Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/02/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Frank, this does not agree with my experience, such as it is. I would have partly agreed with you until last November, now I disagree completely. Firstly the area I was in agreement. I always thought the resolution of a lens was an overrated aspect of its appeal for digital photography, simply because of the limited and fixed resolution of the sensor. I have a Canon 16.7 megapixel camera now and did, for the sake of self satisfaction, a series of photographic tests on various Canon and Leica lenses. There were marked differences, maybe due to sample variation etc, but the differences were quite obvious. The area where I was not in agreement applies to film just as much as digital. The flare resistance of lenses is an extremely important characteristic, when it affects overall contrast. Certainly software can easily compensate for distortion, if the distortion data is known of course. I understand all the Olympus 4/3 lenses have this data in their chip and their software automatically compensates. It can increase apparent sharpness but at the expense of resolution. Colour modification is easy but getting each colour correct relative to the others requires the lens to be balanced in the first place, colour adjustments in the software I have seen are too interrelated to correct for offsets in lens colour balance. The character of the Leica lenses I own are clearly distinguishable on files from an Epson RD1, I have tried a few for fun including 1930s Elmar and a Summar which has been coated at some time. I have a few Nikon screw mount lenses which I fancy trying, including an early 50 f1.5. These are all clearly different. I am not a digital manipulation expert but I would be staggered if all these lenses could be made to be all the same by software means. The superiority of the best lenses is clearest at maximum aperture. Here lenses differ to an extent that I would have to see a "before my eyes" demonstration of the poor being made equal to the excellent! That would be really something. Frank On 6 Feb, 2005, at 04:37, Frank Filippone wrote: > The lens is one of the least important parts of the > image capture/ image creation chain. Super optics or just plain good > optics > could look the same.