[Leica] A new Tri-Elmar soon ?

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

> 2009-09-16-14:57:58 Mark Rabiner:
>> f 4 I may be  my favorite f stop.
>> If I was the new Mr. Chang the first thing I would do would be to come out
>> with a complete line of f 4's.
>> Don't forget!
>> We don't have to LOOK THROUGH the darned things.
> 
> Yeah, yeah, yeah.  You say that over and over.
> 
> And over.  And over.
> 
> For me an f/4 lens is almost completely useless.  I'd only use it outside, 
> and
> I'm mostly only outside on the way from one inside venue to another.  If I 
> put
> a slow-ass f/4 lens on my camera, I'd have to carry a faster one with me 
> and
> remember to change to it when I got where I was going.  Which would be
> annoying and add extra weight to haul around.  And that's all assuming the
> travel was during daylight hours.
> 
> To pick a day recent enough that I still remember f-stops and suchlike, 
> when I
> wwnt to shoot here,
> 
>   http://photos.bazbarfoo.com/Events/2009-09-11-WarehouseOpening
> 
> I took two cameras: one with the optically-fantastic 28mm Summicron on it, 
> and
> another with the 35mm Summilux-M ASPH on it.  Of the 28 pictures which
> survived my edit, only one was with the f/2.0 lens -- it was too damned 
> slow
> to give me usefully-reliable hand-held shutter speeds in the light 
> available.
> Everything else was with the Summilux wide-open at f/1.4, and even then the
> shutter speeds were problematic.
> 
> I have the swell 24mm f/2.8, which would seem like a really handy thing to
> have on an M8.  Practically never use it.  Too damned slow, I'd lose lots 
> of
> shots to motion blur.
> 
> F/4?  Really?  Might as well shoot with a pinhole camera.
> 
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Wow I love it when you get abusive Jeff!
The best work I've done in the past 2 years has been with a 12-24mm f 4
Nikkor. In effect an 18-35 I'll been set up in that direction soon with both
Leica and Nikon.
Its the lens I put on my camera when I'm in a take no prisoners get serious
intensive mode usually working close. Its the fastest zoom I own.
Seldom with any piece of gear have  felt so enabled than with that lens on
my camrea. The lens is farily compact half the size of a typical 2.8 zoom
and at f4 for me blazingly fast. In the digital age one stop below 2.8 with
the ISO's we can use is a non issue.

Some day though an f4 Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar on a Leica M9
Totally useless because of the f 4 of course but somebody will achieve mind
over matter status and squeeze out some usable images out of it none the
less.
Or the new Leica 18mm f/3.8 ASPH
Certainly .3 of an f stop faster than it  needs to be.

And a AF Zoom-NIKKOR 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D IF-ED
And of course nobodies using this lens every single day for years to bring
home the shot.










Mark William Rabiner