Spyro P. wrote:
Which, of course, is b*llshit because you can do all that with any camera if you stick with one focal length and manual-everything for a while. Leica is no more a teacher than any other camera, she's just the teacher with the b**bs and the miniskirt. Everybody wants to be in HER class
It should have been 'minimalist kit as a teacher'. Frankly I think MJ just chose the Leica for resale and polemic value.
That said, I tried it and lasted all of 2 weeks. I just shoot too much stuff that requires something other than a normal.
edwardkaraa wrote:
Honestly I would rather have a Sony product designed by Zeiss than a Zeiss product manufactured by Cosina. Sony has proven to be able to manufacture equipment at the highest level (high end video cameras, ZA lenses, A900... etc) while the performance of Cosina made stuff has been highly variable so far, even if controlled directly by Zeiss. In my opinion, there exactly are the same chances to get a bad ZF/E 50 as getting a bad Canon, which says a lot.
That's what I meant in the context of a Sony-Zeiss collaboration. A Zeiss-led, controlled, managed and designed product manufactured by Sony (rather than a totally Sony product with a Zeiss name attached).
However, if this turns out to be a rangefinder product, Cosina might have a role as a parts supplier -- they are one of the very few companies left that can produce a really good optical rangefinder. The Zeiss Ikon optical rangefinder made by Cosina is indeed very good, and many have indicated that it is better than the Leica'a. So far, I haven't heard any complaints anywhere about the manufacturing quality of the Zeiss Ikon or CV Bessa rangefinder cameras. Further, since Cosina is actually still making rangefinders with active manufacturing capacity, it would make sense for Cosina to make this part rather than Sony trying to establish this capacity elsewhere along with the know-how, and a proven ability to collaborate with Zeiss (not a small feat).
Spyro P. wrote:
Which, of course, is b*llshit because you can do all that with any camera if you stick with one focal length and manual-everything for a while. Leica is no more a teacher than any other camera, she's just the teacher with the b**bs and the miniskirt. Everybody wants to be in HER class
I thought it really was "Pentax as Teacher". I suspect a lot more people learned on the classic Pentax entry-level cameras, the SP500, SP1000 and K1000 with a standard 50mm lens.
rhyder wrote:
A quality product comes from superior design and engineering, period. The factory floor usually gets the blame, but the truth is GIGO.
rhyder: I am not sure I agree with you here, the difference between how well a product has been designed (material and technical construction and overall design philosophy) does not always correspond with the assembly of the product. This is true for a lot of products though the flaws are not always visible. I know people who are working with industrial design and deal with Chinese factories and the difference between what is being ordered and what comes out of the final assembly line can be horrific. Same product assembled in a different factory can come out as per spec.
Of course you can design an inferior product and have it perfectly made with the end result being a great looking piece of crap. Or, you can design/engineer a superb product and have it ruined in assembly with the end result being a piece of crap. I am simply saying quality must go all the way from thought to finished product.
I firmly believe that superb engineering is where it all starts but quality management must always include the whole process.
kosmoskatten wrote:
rhyder: I am not sure I agree with you here, the difference between how well a product has been designed (material and technical construction and overall design philosophy) does not always correspond with the assembly of the product. This is true for a lot of products though the flaws are not always visible. I know people who are working with industrial design and deal with Chinese factories and the difference between what is being ordered and what comes out of the final assembly line can be horrific. Same product assembled in a different factory can come out as per spec.
Of course you can design an inferior product and have it perfectly made with the end result being a great looking piece of crap. Or, you can design/engineer a superb product and have it ruined in assembly with the end result being a piece of crap. I am simply saying quality must go all the way from thought to finished product.
I firmly believe that superb engineering is where it all starts but quality management must always include the whole process....Show more →
I've been designing products for a long time and yes, if the floor is not producing to spec you will have tremendous problems, but again it comes down to a managment decision to reject the poor quality parts (costly) and demand parts to spec (less costly). A good engineer designs the quality in. Bottom line, Canon dropped the ball...whether or not it was at the design stage or poor managment (accepting out of spec parts), I don't know. But I do know that it could have been avoided.
Lotusm50 wrote:
I thought it really was "Pentax as Teacher". I suspect a lot more people learned on the classic Pentax entry-level cameras, the SP500, SP1000 and K1000 with a standard 50mm lens.
Yeah Ι never understood that focal length to be honest. I find it very difficult to compose anything interesting with it and when I do I find my self wishing it was a little wider (usually) or tighter (very rarely). I suspect the main reason many people learned with a fifty and still have them in the bag is simply because it used to be the bundled kit lens in the pre-zoom era and its still the cheapest & smallest option for a fast lens in most systems. I also suspect that Cartier-Bresson only used a 50 because there were simply no Leicas with 28 or even 35mm framelines when he started.
Spyro P. wrote:
Yeah É never understood that focal length to be honest. I find it very difficult to compose anything interesting with it and when I do I find my self wishing it was a little wider (usually) or tighter (very rarely). I suspect the main reason many people learned with a fifty and still have them in the bag is simply because it used to be the bundled kit lens in the pre-zoom era and its still the cheapest & smallest option for a fast lens in most systems. I also suspect that Cartier-Bresson only used a 50 because there were simply no Leicas with 28 or even 35mm framelines when he started....Show more →
The reason we use 50 mm is that for a film or FF camera, it is the closet approximation to what we see with our eyes. Therefore, the reason it was called a "normal" lens. I love mine and use as much as my zooms.
rhyder wrote:
The reason we use 50 mm is that for a film or FF camera, it is the closet approximation to what we see with our eyes. Therefore, the reason it was called a "normal" lens. I love mine and use as much as my zooms.
It's not even that. It's because Oskar Barnack designed a 50mm for the ur-Leica and it's been traditional ever since.
A 50 is not actually a 'normal' for the 35mm format, 43mm is the true normal length (the diagonal of the format) and most other formats have a normal close to the diagonal in length. A true normal is usually similar to what we see with our eyes (although the eye's are actually very wide-angle, we concentrate on the centre with an FoV around a 40-45mm equivalent).
Tradition often trumps other considerations. And the 50mm normal on 35mm is pure tradition.
Spyro P:
I suspect the main reason many people learned with a fifty and still have them in the bag is simply because it used to be the bundled kit lens in the pre-zoom era and its still the cheapest & smallest option
It is not like that for everyone. I take probably 5-10% pictures wider that 50 mm. I recently set my zoom to 35 mm and could not go through a few hours of shooting with it (that answered my question if I could live with Leica X1). I prefer tele now but I used only 50 mm lens for at least 20 years of my photography. I did buy wider lenses but almost never used them.
This is a really neat looking camera, but two things left me scratching my head. They tout 'discretion' as a selling point. I listened to the audio file of the shutter, and yes it's quiet. But looking at it, I don't think it's very discrete. People will be curious as to what type of antique you're shooting with. If you had a little xsi with a 50/1.8 I don't think people would say a word about it.
I was also checking out some of the sample files from the m8.2, and I don't recall seeing color bleed like that before. I wouldn't say the quality is terrible, but it's definitely not on the good side. For those that use an m8, what's your experience on this specific issue?
If I've got my M6 around my neck, see someone interesting coming toward me I can just scale focus, lightly tap my soft release, and get a great shot of them. I can try scale focusing on my slr but the adapters make accuracy iffy, and the shutter sound as well as the sheer size will alert them to me taking their photo.
If I'm photographing some *thing* like a building or a landscape and some curious fellow comes over to enquire about my camera, I'm usually happy to talk to them about it, but the Leica so far has gotten me less attention than the 5D-II. Most amateurs and gadget heads lust after cameras like the 5D-II while they often have no idea what a Leica is... Maybe I'm just lucky I live in Australia haha. Not a chance our theives are refined enough to identify a Leica or realise it's value, Big black DSLR on the other hand...
Excellent point on theft! I'm always intrigued by someone who is shooting film, so I'll usually strike up a conversation, though I'm probably in the minority. I've struck up conversation with people holding a black dslr, and the conversation usually dies out quickly, there's a lot of Ken Rockwell's out there.
The explanation given by Rhyder is the one usually given, but as you say it is wrong. I think the truth is that 50mm is one of the cheapest mid range focal lengths to produce. Look at the price of 35mm and 85mm lenses and you'll see what I mean. Hence a 50mm lens was often supplied as the kit lens with a camera body to keep the sticker price low.
mawz wrote:
It's not even that. It's because Oskar Barnack designed a 50mm for the ur-Leica and it's been traditional ever since.
A 50 is not actually a 'normal' for the 35mm format, 43mm is the true normal length (the diagonal of the format) and most other formats have a normal close to the diagonal in length. A true normal is usually similar to what we see with our eyes (although the eye's are actually very wide-angle, we concentrate on the centre with an FoV around a 40-45mm equivalent).
Tradition often trumps other considerations. And the 50mm normal on 35mm is pure tradition.
LeifG wrote:
I think the truth is that 50mm is one of the cheapest mid range focal lengths to produce. Look at the price of 35mm and 85mm lenses and you'll see what I mean. Hence a 50mm lens was often supplied as the kit lens with a camera body to keep the sticker price low.
One of the main reasons the price on 50mm lenses is low, relative to other lenses, is that they produce a lot more of them (at least historically) so they benefit from economies of scale. As zooms have become the standard lens for more SLR's, manufacturers are producing fewer 50mm lenses, and their price has risen relative to others lenses. Historically, the price of 135/2.8 lens also benefited from volume production as it was commonly the second lens that a lot of users (particularly amateurs and the like) purchased.
LeifG wrote:
The explanation given by Rhyder is the one usually given, but as you say it is wrong. I think the truth is that 50mm is one of the cheapest mid range focal lengths to produce. Look at the price of 35mm and 85mm lenses and you'll see what I mean. Hence a 50mm lens was often supplied as the kit lens with a camera body to keep the sticker price low.
While that's true for SLR's, it's not necessarily so for rangefinders where mirror clearance issues affecting optical design don't exist. It's just about as easy to build a simple 40mm RF lens as a 50mm, which is why many of the fixed lens RF's got lenses in the 40-45mm range. The 50mm as a normal was a long established standard by the time SLR's started to get popular in the 1960's.
thrice wrote:
Most amateurs and gadget heads lust after cameras like the 5D-II while they often have no idea what a Leica is... Maybe I'm just lucky I live in Australia haha. Not a chance our theives are refined enough to identify a Leica or realise it's value, Big black DSLR on the other hand...
I think that's absolutely true: WE would all would notice an M9 around somebody's neck, but 99% of people would think it was a P&S these days. I went to my kid's soccer game yesterday and took a GH-1. A guy shooting a Rebel XT with a Quantaray 70-300 (on a monopod no less) asked if I wanted to buy some pictures since "that point and shoot won't get you very good shots".
thrice wrote:
If I've got my M6 around my neck, see someone interesting coming toward me I can just scale focus, lightly tap my soft release, and get a great shot of them. I can try scale focusing on my slr but the adapters make accuracy iffy, and the shutter sound as well as the sheer size will alert them to me taking their photo.
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