Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/02/28
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Diglloyd, a subscription site, to which I no longer subscribe, had some in depth analyses of the M9 and quite a few lenses. The 35mm f2 Zeiss ZM lens was, in his opinion, the pick of the bunch, which included a lot of Leica lenses too. In terms of build quality he would be comparing it to current Canon and Nikon lenses, as well as the Leica ones and they are obviously much better than them and close to Leica in his opinion. I have never used a ZM lens but have a 28mm f2 for my Nikon which is much better made than recent Nikkors I have used. In his photographic comparisons the big difference between the 35mm f2 asph Leica and the Zeiss was the field flatness, with the Zeiss much better in the field. I am not much bothered, personally, about field flatness in non-copier lenses, since I rarely photograph flat objects square on, but he found landscapes with the Zeiss superior to the Leica because of this. I may reconsider re-subscribing to the site, since I find has plausible data on it. He did have a go at reviewing the M9 and got a few things wrong and missed the point at first, but eventually got well into it, he did not much like it. Anyway, IIRC depending on use he considered the 35mm f2 Zeiss to be the only non-Leica lens he preferred to the Leica version. FWIW. A little story about money. I worked in the R&D department at Garrard, the record deck manufacturer, as a young engineer in the mid 70s. Their top model, the 401, had fallen out of fashion and production reduced to the extent that it no longer justified being assembled on an assembly line. The production was therefore re-planned to be built as one offs from part bins in batches. Now Garrard priced everything on a cost plus profit basis, unlike the competition which sold on the "what can we get for it after a favourable review" basis ;-). The assembly was re-costed and a new retail price calculated about 70% IIRC more than it had been. Orders surged at the new price. This taught me that often a higher price makes things more attractive even with no change in the product. BTW the production cost of these and other mass produced items, like cars, tends to be about 10-20% of retail BTW. cheers, Frank On 28 Feb, 2010, at 07:01, Mark Rabiner wrote: >> On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 7:15 PM, Vince Passaro <passaro.vince at >> gmail.com>wrote: >> >>> Mark lit into the guy (Kevin) for his suggestion that the lens he used >>> every >>> day for a few years was not as good as the guy (Kevin) said it was. >>> Regardless of the details that was the gist. "Hi Welcome to the Lug >>> you're >>> wrong." I was suggesting perhaps "Hi, those pictures are excellent" >>> might >>> have been a better starting point for the argument. >>> >> >> Which took it off topic >> >> -- >> Regards, >> >> Sonny > > > Actually my difference with him was that he was calling a ZM a "world class > lens" on par with the Leica lens costing three times as much. > And there were no pictures being discussed. > > [Rabs] > Mark William Rabiner > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information