[Leica] Re: Old Leica lenses on digital Ms

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

When I  bought my first Leica digital, the Digilux Zoom (ne Fuji), six 
years ago, it came with a copy of Photoshop 5.0 LE with a Plug In that 
enabled me to download images to my old Mac computer. The same after 
the fact technique could be used to accommodate older Leica lenses. If 
a set of Plug Ins covering mapping of the older lenses were shipped 
along with each  camera, the user could select the appropriate 
correction. I'm sure Leica could negotiate a tie in with Adobe to 
include the software. It did once.

If Leica doesn't do it, it would be a great afterrmarket product. Any 
entepreneurs out there?

Incidentally Don, how do you mount Pen F lenses on a 330? I have a 
couple of old Pen F cameras with pretty good lenses. Or were you just 
pulling our chains?

Larry Z

Original message(s)

---------

> Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 5:51:42 -0400
> From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Digital Leica M
> To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
> Message-ID: <2561-SnapperMsg4EA12C31C0AC523A@[70.221.18.37]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> What Pen f lenses? Let me get this straight: the rational for a 5K 
> digital
> M, day before yesterday, was that it would use the closets full of M 
> and
> LTM lenses everyone's been acquiring, and produce images that will blow
> away those prodced with Japanese junk, right? But now it turns out that
> there will be image quality issues at the edges, even though there's
> already a 1.3 image crop. But that's okay, because Leica will use 
> software
> to fix that in the camera. But, in order to have that work, you're 
> going to
> have to pay between $100 and 125 per lens to have what amounts to a 
> sticker
> put on the mount? (AmI following this so far?) But now it turns out 
> that
> other than the new ASPH lenses, which many people haven't invested in
> because there are so many great, older, far less expensive lenses
> available, there are only a tiny handful of lenses, all manufactured 
> in the
> last 12 years, that can be retrofit. And your reaction is to make a 
> joke
> about a far, far less expensive camera that produces terrific images 
> and
> say ' that's okay, we can fix the images in Photoshop?'
> This, to me, is the ultimate example of the Emperor's New Clothes: if
> there's a Red Dot somewhere in the room, everything's okay.
> God, if only I had the time and inclination to go through the archives 
> and
> pull up all the anti-digital diatribes in which people trashed just 
> this
> sort of digital fix, and other uses of PS, because it was creating
> information where there was none, and ...
> What a hoot.
> Finally, no, of course I haven't used a Digital M. I am sikply 
> reacting to
> what LEICA has just told us about it, and what Don has written.
>
>
> ...... Original Message .......
> On Tue, 6 Jun 2006 22:32:10 -0400 "Don Dory" <don.dory@gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>> I suspect that Leica doesn't have the lenses mapped nor wants to 
>> spend the
>> money to do the work.  The lenses will mount and work just like they 
>> always
>> did, but you might have to do a little PS work on the edges.  No big 
>> deal.
>> Really no worse than using your old Pen F lenses on your 330.  :)
>>
>> Don
>> don.dory@gmail.com
>>
>>
>> On 6/6/06, B. D. Colen <bdcolen@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Fascinating to note that lenses manufactured prior to 1994, and only 
>>> a
> few
>>> of those, can be "upgraded." Gee, I didn't know that Leica has made 
>>> any
>>> changes to its mount since 1954, and if it hasn't why can't every M 
>>> lens
>>> be
>>> upgraded? Could it be creeping Lobselescence? Not from the Leiks of
> Leica!
>>> ;-)