[Leica] 200mm test

[passaro.vince at gmail.com (Vince Passaro)]

Dr. Ted I know you're out there -- a savage hound on the dark moor -- but I
want to ask all you others, do you remember a discussion thread about a
month or so back on the Nikon 200 f/4 prime? As I recollect Jim Laird (?)
was constructing a shoulder brace for use with this lens. Doug advised him.
Several others kibbutzed, including me, to the effect that the lens is quite
light.  Well today it was so lovely I was testing my 200mm lenses out the
front window. We live up the hill from a park with a big pond in it and the
living room overlooks it. Tested Nikkor AF 70-210 1:4-5.6 D;  Nikkor 80-200
1:4.5 AI-S ; and the Nikkor 200 1:4 AI-S as previously mentioned.  All at
F8.  RAW. ISO 400 because I was too dumb to remember to change it and since
I used to shoot Tri-X almost exclusively I tend to leave it at 400 most of
the time and not think about it. Roughly 1/500th of a second though this
varied a little because the metering on the D40x is a little too bright so
with the AF-D lens -- the only one with which the D40 can provide metering
and aperture priority -- one keeps the EV adjusted to -.7.

I swear to God Dr. Ted I was thinking about Leicas the whole time. I was
thinking about selling the new kid -- he was right there with me and damn
cute -- so I could put a down payment on an M9.

Anyway the 200/4 knocked my socks off.  Here are three images from one shot:
The first just a JPEG straight up from the RAW file. The second cropped and
enlarged almost to 100 percent and slightly adjusted in PS Camera Raw. The
third cropped the same but with more work fixing the highlights, working out
a bit of fringing, color adjustment, sharpening, etc.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/toast+eatin_+bog+man/nikon+200mm+f4/

Opinions, criticisms and advice most welcome. Particularly welcome is advice
on the processing. Everything I know how to do is in camera raw. I have
hardly tried PS itself yet.

Vince