Leica lenses vs the best Nikons (for b/w)

[keithwms]

Michael that distinction was more true ten years ago or so, but is basically moot now. Corrections are very, very good now. A high end SLR lens is easily en par with a high end RF lens... long, normal or wide. And part of the reason for that is that Bayer digital urgently forced lensmakers to face the problem of chromatic aberration and other issues.

[Michael R 1974]

Well, distortion is another matter. You can spend upwards of $2,000 on a 24mm prime from Nikon, and although it is well corrected for spherical aberation and is sharper wide open than lenses used to be, it has very visible barrel distortion. Things get worse the shorter the focal length. Look at how complex the design of the Zeiss 21mm ZF is compared to the rangefinder Zeiss 21mm. I have the ZF, and although it is pretty sharp, it exhibits visible complex distortion.

[keithwms]

True but there are some ultra-freaking-wide nikkors , even zooms, that are en par with the best RF lenses, including distortion. Lens manufacture has come a very long way in the past few years.

I'm not disagreeing with you strongly, and I do adore my RFs, I am just sayign that it's not nearly as strong a case as it once was.
Anyway, mark my words, we'll all be using RF lenses in a decade or less. The mirror is going the way of the dinosaur, for small format work.

[skahde]

You certainly have a point here but what you do is comparing. And everyone can decide on his own if he can live with this kind of distortion for his kind of work or not.

[Bill Burk]

Quirks you have to get used to between rangefinders and SLR's

With a rangefinder you never get to see the "bokeh" until you develop the film. You always have to imagine "lesser" depth of field.

With an SLR (at least manual focus SLR's), you always see it, but unless you shoot wide open or use the depth-of-field preview, when you develop the film, you don't get the "bokeh" you saw. You often have to imagine "greater" depth of field.

[skahde]

With respect to real-photo-bokeh I found the image in the SLR-finder never to be very reliable, especially with faster lenses and brighter screens but anyway: It is still a lot better than not getting any impression at all!

[rakeshmravi]

I can see very clear differences between different lenses wide open and in difficult (contre-jour) light situations...
Maybe at f/8.0 the differences are minor (main exception being corners in very wide angle lenses), but it's speed you pay for.

Once the basic premises are satisfied (light -tightness, film planearity, etc.), camera differences *can* be significant in terms of mirror & shutter slap, focusing ability and type of metering used.
However, if a camera is used on a tripod, very carefully focused and the metering is done with a handheld meter, *HOW* are camera differences more significant than lens differences in the final result?

When I put my camera on on Tripod, for taking a landscape shot, I never shoot at 1.4.

If you are holding onto a lens that is made 20 years ago, then defnitly. Only very few Nikons can come to compete at extremes even with a mediocre RF. I don't see much difference over 2.8 with modern lenses. Do I street shoot at 1.4? Do I landscape at 1.4? Do I macro at 1.4? Def no. The lenses made by Nikon today are plenty sharp at 2.8. But they are frikn expensive.

The camera difference between RF and SLR is what plays for the 90% of your portfolio. This is true more often than not. The 10% (even less), is when you have the scenario such as you mentioned. In such cases, it is rarely that I use extremes.

The biggest benefit when I tried an RF is the sharpness I get when handlheld at sane apertures.

[narsuitus]

Since I only shoot 35mm, black and white, will I see a difference compared with the best Nikon lenses?

When I shot 35mm black & white, I saw no significant difference between rangefinders and SLRs or Leicas and Nikons. I was never completely satisfied with any of their black and white images.

It was not until I started shooting medium and large format black & white film that I saw a significant difference. The larger formats gave me the high-quality images that I needed.

[Rol_Lei Nut]

Less of an issue with longer focal lengths, but particularly if one is shooting at focal lengths shorter than 50mm, the comparison is "unfair" as SLR lenses are retrofocus designs. It is much easier to build a sharp, distortionless, fully corrected 28mm rangefinder lens than an SLR lens, for example. So don't go comparing say a 28mm SLR Nikkor to a 28mm Leica M lens. To evaluate the potential superiority of the Leica lens, a better comparison would be to another 28mm rangefinder lens, like a current Zeiss/Cosina. There you will likely find the differences to be much smaller.

While that may be true in general terms, I actually prefer my 35mm R Summicron to my M one...
There are also several other cases where my retrofocus wides have little to envy their rangefinder equivalents (apart from size & weight!).

[blockend]

I can't see any discernible difference in quality between different makes of 50mm SLR lens. All are sharp enough and film choice and processing make a much greater impact on the final image. Wide and tele, yes, there are subtle differences, but enough to change the story the photograph tells? No. Even kit zooms can resolve enough information to make an attractive photograph.