[Leica] 50/1.1 Nokton

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

Other than some perhaps obvious Bokeh effect differences on very fast lens
the difference between a 5000 dollar Leica lens and a 500 Cosina, Canon or
Nikon is not going to so much be seen in a normal sized jpeg shot hand held
at 400 iso that we are looking at on our screen.
But will be seen in a tripod low iso shot printed 11x17 or larger.
If we never ever extend our technique to tripods and large fine prints why
invest in exotic glasses, hyper close tolerances and obsessive quality
control from a small company in central Germany.?

Me I do go through phases from time to time where I use tripods with the
lowest  ISO's and make large prints from the results so I are looking at
ultra fine subtleties on the print maybe with a loupe and glad I didn't save
money on glass or cut corners on technique.
Although its been more often its the opposite. I'm looking at my new large
print wishing I'd used better glass than I used. Wishing I'd used slower
film, a tripod and better developers.
When I got into Leica I got to see such very demanding results from 35mm
film it was right as the new ASPH lenses were coming out in the mid 90s.

I was standardized for 11x14 darkroom printing for years then found myself
printing a few boxes of 30x40's on a few occasions,
 and dozens of 20x24's on a more regular basis..
And learning that the hand held rule is baloney:
that 60mm lens should get a 60th of a second.
250th is nicer. And on a tripod.
250th on a tripod sound like overkill to you?
Try outputting very large prints on any kind of regular basis.


Mark William Rabiner