[Leica] (was Coenen) now: buying Leica new vs. used

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 1:58 PM -0700 4/25/05, Mark Rabiner wrote:

>But if you get one with a mirror lock up its pretty usable.
>Although Luminous Landscape head honcho and Leica nut Michael Reichmann says
>the SHUTTER itself is a big problem.
>Mirror aside. Or locked up.
>http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/pentax67ii.shtml
>
>But with no mirror lock up it's a paper weight landscape wise
>
>And the most bang for the buck of any optics system ever.
>Just about any lens cost a couple hundred bucks.
>
>Still if you put two 24x30 inch prints side by side one with the Pentax 6x7
>and cheap but "sharp" monster Takumar and one with a Hasselblad square
>format Zeiss optics..
>And cropped the same so they look the same
>That means the Hassy shot is cropped so it might just as well have been 645.
>And you'd shot slow film. Or medium speed.
>
>I bet the Hassy shot would look better. Even at its slightly higher
>magnification.
>
>Lets see. With the 6x7 a 24x30 would be a 10.5 magnification.
>With the Hasselblad it would be about a 13.5 magnification.
>Not much of a difference mag. wise.
>I say the Hassy would win.
>And sure does on a lot of other accounts, design wise unless you're hand
>holding and wed to the 35mm configuration.

I've seen a number of large Pentax 6x7 shots along with Hassy 6x6 
shots side by side, both in rectangular format. Pentax lenses are 
quite good enough that the extra area (over 50%) will win out, and 
are a definite step up in detail and tonality.

Of course, if you crop to square they would be on equal footing...

If it weren't for that damn mirror and shutter, I would have gotten 
one years ago. As it is, you are best off handholding it, as that 
dampens the shocks better than most tripods. I've tried a 6x7 on my 
Gitzo 509 unextended with Sinar head, and with a 300 it was still not 
enough in the critical speed ranges. I'm never going to carry a 
tripod bigger than _that_.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
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