I have to agree with Moose on this one. In medium format I've just gone
through a rigorous comparison of the Mamiya 7 RF versus the Pentax 645.
While the Mamiya 7 lenses are extremely sharp and the leaf shutters in the
lenses are the quietest (along with the new Bronica RF) in all of
photography, the difficulty of getting sharp pictures with the 150F4.5
(equal to a 75mm in 35mm coverage) due to RF focusing error and the parallax
problems with the 50F4.5 wide angle (about a 24/25 in 35mm), led me to
prefer the P645 over the larger 67RF. At least I could crop in the
viewfinder and fill the 645 frame with EXACTLY what I wanted and I was
getting sharper (in focus) pictures with the P645 telephotos.
You have to look carefully, but amidst the stream of reverence that
comes through on the Leica lists, there are similar complaints of focusing
problems with the 50F1.0 Noct and 75F1.4 Summilux. I suspect that the
90F2.0s might be difficult to precisely focus also, unless it's a high mag
M. As for wide angles, I once wrote to a guy with both the OM21F3.5 and a
21F2.8 Leica lens, to ask him how did he find the OM 21 compared to the M
lens. He stated that he rarely used the M lens because he hated the separate
finder and found the parallax framing errors disconcerting when he did use
it, so he had never gotten around to comparing them.
For me, the Contax G2 comes a bit closer to the OM4 in terms of ease of
use. The built in winder and auto DX are a joy, and I've had no focusing
error problems with either the 45F2.0 or 90F2.8--just a niggling error with
the 28. All that bothered me about the Contax was the initial difficulty in
getting a black system and the lack of spot metering.
fast_primes
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 02:57:06 -0700
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [OM] Ap prefire question
Albert wrote:
> I was wondering, what cameras have ap prefire?
Among Olys, the 2S, 4 series OMPC and OM2000 have full mirror and
aperture pre-fire. The OM-10, 20(G) and possibly 30(?) have partial
mirror and full aperture prefire. I understand other 35mm SLRs have
these features, but don't know which.
> It seems that RF's have all the benefits of what makes a good sharp
> picture.
Except a viewfinder that doesn't show what will actually be in the
picture, no macro, no serious telephoto without ridiculous and
ridiculously expensive accessories, no serious wide angle without
auxiliary viewfinder that doesn't focus. So they have a possible
theoretical advantage in sharpness for a minority of the pics I take and
can't take the others at all. Sounds like a great trade-off to me ;-)
RF is just not inherently sharper than SLR. RF focusing has an
advantage for some people with WA lenses. SLR generally has an advantage
with teles.
> No retro focus, no mirror slap, ap is stopped down to the correct size
> already, and leaf shutters instead of focal plane..
I don't believe there has been a leaf shutter 35 interchangeable lens RF
since the Zeiss Contaflex (Contax? Contarex?) and Retina Reflex, the
50-60s models with leaf shutter and rear elements fixed on the body and
front elements interchangable. All the others, living and dead, use
focal place shutters.You need an fp shutter of a leaf shutter built into
the body to keep the film from being exposed when the lens is changed.
> I'm now curious if this is the reason why Leica's are exceptionally
> sharp, and not just good glass.
You continue to believe that Leitz is privy to some special secrets that
are unknown to other quality camera/lens manufacturers. Read the results
and opinions of those who use many different cameras and lenses, not
rabid Leicaholics. Leitz makes lenses on average as good as the best
available. They do not make the best lenses available in every single
category in which they make a lens. In a blind test at 11x14, your Leica
friends wouldn't be able to consistently pick out Leitz lenses from
other first class lenses. It's been tried.
> It seems to me, Voigtlander, Mamiya etc.. all those that make glass or
> RF's themselves yield sharp sharp pictures.
So do Can*n, Nik*n, Sigm*, Fuj*, Pent*x, etc. etc.
> Or perhaps, there's no "low end consumer anything" as far as RF's?
One assumes here that you are only talking about RFs with
interchangeable lenses, as there are a great many inexpensive choices in
non-interchangeable lens RFs capable of sharp images
None of the stuff you mention makes any difference for hand held shots.
Have you perhaps been spending a great deal of time in the company of
people who judge things on the basis of emotional attachment to names,
theories untested by experience, gossip, etc.?
> Albert
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