Leica M Family

[Dan Cattermole]

Jbdklmnahaga md WTF!!! How much?!??!!!! Hahaha!! Wow! I thought maybe a few grand at the most. Haha! Yeah, nice suggestion there Hamish but.......
And there's me whining about how difficult it is to focus with an OM 50 f1.8!! I can imagine now. Lol

 

[Chris Dodkin]

The Canon 50mm f1.0L is rare, but when you find one you'd expect to pay somewhere north of $4000

It's been replaced by a sharper 50mm f1.2 these days

 

[Pete Askew]

The older Canon 0.95 seems to go for about $2-3K these days and many of those have been converted for M mount. No use for the SLR's though of course. Somewhere I read an article comparing focusing accuracy of SLR's with RF's with wide apertures and was amazed that a good RF is more accurate due to manufacturing tolerances, variations in, and wear on, the mirror assembly. I guess in many cases this doesn't matter and the advantages of WYSIWYG (haven't written that in a while!) win over but interesting none-the less. Of course SLR's win once you get over about 100mm focal length. Similarly, camera's without mirrors have a shorter shutter lag but you certainly wouldn't want to use them for sports and wildlife!!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Ive always wondered why nikon have never ventured anything faster than 1.2
I guess it is just R&D vs potential sales... not that there really is a need for one in terms of light gathering power now nikon have slrs capable of 102,400 iso
The thing that people often miss though, its not just the light gathering power, but the aesthetic that is attractive
People often criticise the nikon 1.2ais of being soft... If i want a sharp photo I wont use, a 1.2 lens!
I use it when i want something "arty" (i feel like i have said this so many times)
Larry refers to them as jewelry, and i take his point when they are hanging around the neck of a "gear head" but i bought mine for the effect it would have on the image

Basically un-processed, straight from camera
all kit should be used for its strengths ... try and use it for its weaknesses and you will dislike it!
Same goes for the nikon 50mm 1.4d ... shooting into the light reaps masses of flare ... but in the right circumstances, thats a aesthetic benefit, not the opposite ...

anyway, im ranting a bit here ... you get my point!

 

[Pete Askew]

Exactly Hamish. It is the aesthetic that interests me as well. Exactly the reason I bought the 40mm SC - I wanted a low contrast lens to use on the M cameras. Exactly the reason I sought out a Cooke Soft Focus lens for my 5x4 cameras, because of its unique aesthetic. And, in the right conditions, these very fast lenses yield a very definite look. I like the bit in the article on adapting the Zeiss 50/f1:0.7 for use in Barry Lyndon when he asked Kubrick why he didn't just add some fill light. Exactly the point. It is not just about being able to shoot in low light, especially now we have sensors capable of such sensitivity.

http://www.bigredhair.com/movies/kubrick/candlelight.jpg

 

[Hamish Gill]

Im yet to fully grasp lens contrast ...
Ive read this http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/lens-contrast.shtml
many times ...
but im not quite there... hence me wanting to see some examples from your lens ...
I have been tempted in the past to find a 35mm sc to compare directly to me 35mm mc ... but it seems a touch ... erm... decadent, if thats the right word?