its amazing how many of these Chinese companies are popping up some with amazing stuff. love it! i was just reading about Mandler 50mm f/1.4 E46 on PetaPixel
That is just wrong and is a good example of why Chinese products get a bad reputation.
That is a copy of the leica classic reissue except for the hood.
Leica should sue the crapp out of them but it would make no difference. They will still make it. Almost everything brought to market by China is a copy of something else designed in the west. Cant do ot on their own. Yea, almost everything is a strong phrase but you know what I mean.
I would not spend a worn tarnished penny on anything like this. Might as well condone it if you do.
I wonder if it's the same lens as the Peace Lens Classical E43.
It sure looks a lot like the Peace Lens I have.
I have the Funleader 45/2 rehoused Zeiss lens and the quality is pretty solid, however their Artizlab lenses have been priced more budget friendly than their complete rehoused Contax G lenses so I'm not sure if the quality is adjusted with the price.
Jorge Torralba wrote:
Leica should sue the crapp out of them but it would make no difference. They will still make it. Almost everything brought to market by China is a copy of something else designed in the west. Cant do ot on their own. Yea, almost everything is a strong phrase but you know what I mean.
The patents for these old lens designs have expired long ago, everyone is free to copy them legally. That’s kind of the point of patents - disclosing the technology and making it available to the public once the protection period is over.
Also not a new phenomenon in photography: the Leica Elmar 50 is basically a Zeiss Tessar copy, the patent of which had expired at time of the Elmar’s release. Almost all early Nikon lenses were clones of Zeiss lens designs. Etc..
As for the “everything Chinese is a copy of something designed in the west” - that’s a very outdated view and definitely not true for cars, mobile phones, drones, gimbal cameras and many other product categories.
I highly doubt anyone purchasing these Chinese copies would ever buy a Leica Re-Release for 20x the price, so there’s not really economic damage for Leica either.
That said I also think only LLL lenses are really worth buying.
fjablo wrote:
As for the “everything Chinese is a copy of something designed in the west” - that’s a very outdated view and definitely not true for cars, mobile phones, drones, gimbal cameras and many other product categories.
I highly doubt anyone purchasing these Chinese copies would ever buy a Leica Re-Release for 20x the price, so there’s not really economic damage for Leica either.
That said I also think only LLL lenses are really worth buying.
fjablo wrote:
The patents for these old lens designs have expired long ago, everyone is free to copy them legally. That’s kind of the point of patents - disclosing the technology and making it available to the public once the protection period is over.
Also not a new phenomenon in photography: the Leica Elmar 50 is basically a Zeiss Tessar copy, the patent of which had expired at time of the Elmar’s release. Almost all early Nikon lenses were clones of Zeiss lens designs. Etc..
As for the “everything Chinese is a copy of something designed in the west” - that’s a very outdated view and definitely not true for cars, mobile phones, drones, gimbal cameras and many other product categories.
I highly doubt anyone purchasing these Chinese copies would ever buy a Leica Re-Release for 20x the price, so there’s not really economic damage for Leica either.
That said I also think only LLL lenses are really worth buying. ...Show more →
Tbh these ‘China is just copying everything!!!” comments are so passé they aren’t worth anyone’s energy responding to anymore.
Does it matter? Don't really care. Just look at the Porche and Mercedes copies. Do you really need more proof than that? Does it matter if it was 2000 or 2026? Its still a copy. If anyone can honestly defend that or deny it , its senseless engaging in conversation with them. They can't see the forest past the trees.
Jorge Torralba wrote:
Does it matter? Don't really care. Just look at the Porche and Mercedes copies. Do you really need more proof than that? Does it matter if it was 2000 or 2026? Its still a copy. If anyone can honestly defend that or deny it , its senseless engaging in conversation with them. They can't see the forest past the trees.
As I said before: your view is seriously outdated. So yes it matters and it matters a lot.
What may have been true for Chinese companies 10-20 years ago is not true anymore. BYD etc do not copy western cars, they don’t need to anymore. Same is true for Chinese phone makers etc.
The cosmetic design of cars is generally not protected by intellectual property laws, same as we’ve discussed in regards to fonts and lens barrel styling. You can explain how 1+1=2, but they’ll still say that 1+1=3 because someone told them the answer is 3. They want others to know that they’re one of the people who believe the answer is 3 as well so they can find each other and feel normal.
I got a haircut a couple weeks ago at a new barber, and he somehow steered the conversation to politics and went on a crazed rant, excitedly pacing back and forth, slamming his tools on the counter, and waving his scissors in the air. He took so many breaks to spew propaganda that a 30 minute haircut took an hour. He was not well!
Jorge Torralba wrote:
Does it matter? Don't really care. Just look at the Porche and Mercedes copies. Do you really need more proof than that? Does it matter if it was 2000 or 2026? Its still a copy. If anyone can honestly defend that or deny it , its senseless engaging in conversation with them. They can't see the forest past the trees.
Re: LLL being the only lenses worth buying.. my experience is that many Thypoch lenses are fantastic:
- The 35 f/2 Ksana- ASPH yet retains nice tonal transitions and 3D pop and focuses to 1.7 feet.
- The 75mm f1.4 Simera is extremely sharp, lovely rendering and focuses to 2 feet.
- The 50mm f/2 is very sharp edge to edge, very small, and collapses smaller
- The Mandler 35 f/2- this one is an oddball. Lots of field curvature, not sharp at the edges.. yet creates beautiful images.. IF you center frame.
Many of the Chinese companies are doing terrific work. The LLL '1966' 50mm f/1.2 is inspiring, the 11873 35mm f/1.4 is perhaps my most 'Goldilocks' lens- in terms of balancing sharpness, tonal transitions, not too heavy, etc.
All that said.. on jobs I'm most often shooting with the Leica 35 FLEII and 50 FLEII.
"That said I also think only LLL lenses are really worth buying. "
Jorge Torralba wrote:
Standard MO. Lets stick a tag on someone I disagree with instead of a compelling argument.
Well. If someone makes a negative ignorant statement about a country or group of people, I would just say that person is ignorant. If it is then pointed out to that person that their statement is wrong (your "compelling argument"), and they keep insisting on their wrong statement, it is more than ignorance.
Now, if the negative wrong statement is directed at a country or group of people, I would argue it is a racist statement, and the person making it is motivated by racism. Maybe, my definition of racism is too strict (and I am happy to discuss this with you on some other forum).
I love my Thypoch Simeras. The rendering out of those lenses is right up my alley. They have more than enough bite on them to suit my needs. I wish they were a bit smaller, and the tolerances even tighter, but that's about it. I like that they have a unique branding identity even if the hyperfocal distance thing isn't very practical. The LLL APO I just got feels super well built, a big improvement over the Z21 50mm I have from them, which has a little bit of play in it. I heard their 35mm AA was also an improvement build quality wise.
The China stuff is getting tired. We built them into the force they are today and now they're gearing up to run shit. It is what it is.
RomanMF wrote:
I love my Thypoch Simeras. The rendering out of those lenses is right up my alley. They have more than enough bite on them to suit my needs. I wish they were a bit smaller, and the tolerances even tighter, but that's about it. I like that they have a unique branding identity even if the hyperfocal distance thing isn't very practical. The LLL APO I just got feels super well built, a big improvement over the Z21 50mm I have from them, which has a little bit of play in it. I heard their 35mm AA was also an improvement build quality wise.
The China stuff is getting tired. We built them into the force they are today and now they're gearing up to run shit. It is what it is. ...Show more →
I've got the Simera 28/1.4 this year in M mount and it lives on my Minolta CLE but whenever I slap it on a digital camera I am totally right there with you on it's rendering. Whenever I see deals on the non-M versions I am tempted to scoop them all up.
Fun thing I discovered about the hyperfocal distance scale. It's cribbed off Alpa mount lenses like the Kern Switar!
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