[LRFlex] Re: R7 and 21/4 and R5
- From: David Young <dnr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: leicareflex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 08:49:17 -0800
Xavier, Douglas, et al:
Douglas said:
I don't know what was wrong with Doug's tested 21mm but I've always found
the lens to be very sharp, no vignetting and, as you say hardly any distortion.
then Xavier said:
I did some 10 pix yesterday near the shop, because I'm more at ease with
Paris sceneries than Victoria's, I've been astonished by the straightness
of the verticals, as well as the even lit picture in the viewfinder.
So the litterature, such as Doug's (Herr) page, says it is soft.
I've not had the time to check Doug's page, but I am amazed that he would
say it was soft. The reason? The lens that you used last August, and
which I am so delighted with for it's incredible sharpness **is the exact
lens** that Doug suggests is a bit soft. I bought the lens from him!
Mind you, it was well worn and had a loose bit in the focusing mount. The
first thing I did was send it to Gerry Smith (Kindermann - Toronto) for a
CLA. It came back, still well worn, but in very fine mechanical/optical
shape. Perhaps whatever Doug found soft was fixed at that time. Still,
I've just looked at my evaluation (test) roll and I cannot find any
difference from later shots.
Like Douglas, I almost never use "P" mode... my R8 is nearly always set on
'A', with spot metering.
I think it's is just a matter of display. Comparing the values from
different modes, it seems the lens is really measuring at f4 and can do
the difference between f4 and above.
The 3-cam versions of the 80~200/f4 Vario-Elmar do a similar trick.
They indicate f4.8 in the R8's finder, when wide open or when set to f4.8
(all modes). At f5.6 and smaller, they indicate correctly.
I was warned of this before I bought the lens and was told that although it
indicates wrong, it measures correctly. From my results, this would appear
to be so.
This problem is supposedly a fault in mount design/manufacturing and thus
is consistent with the R8. (Earlier R's don't have an f4.8 indicator and
thus work fine.) Certainly, no other lens I've tried on the R8 does this!
I also understand that this can be fixed, but the problem is so small, it's
not worth the cost, unless the lens was going in for repair for some other
reason. Apparently the later ROM models (the vast majority of production)
do not suffer this problem.
Best regards,
----------
David Young, | égalité, liberté,
Victoria, CANADA | fraternité et Beaujolais.
Personal Web-site at:
http://www.horizon.bc.ca/~dnr
Leica Reflex Forum web-page:
http://www.horizon.bc.ca/~dnr/lrflex.htm
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