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> From: Bill
> Film gets a way off topic, and there are many ways to control the tonal
> range and curve of B&W.  Not so easy with transparency film, but doable
> within narrow limits.  Film adds adjacency effects and many other goodies
> into the equation.

Yep, it's a big subject. My contribution was a simplification but hopefully
relevant to the post that prompted it - specifically: why Leica lenses may
have seemed inferior to Japanese.

> As to sextant scopes, my experience is limited, but they seem as a group
> to fall well below my level of expectations for a prime 35mm, 2 1/4" or
> view camera lens, especially around the edges. Not knocking any particular
> manufacturer, just a general comparison.

Spot on again. Lenses for applications like sextant scopes seem crude things
by comparison.

> Off topic again, but I had often wondered about the quality of Cannon and
> Nikon $400 wide-ratio auto-focus zoom lenses designed for "35mm" digital
> camera. (Note: the the chip sized of Nikon and most Cannon's are smaller
> than 35mm film.) I felt they fell below standards for a prime or zoom
> lens.
> With the 10+ megapixel digitals, it seems the lenses are indeed falling
> apart.

Agree. What I have been waiting for is a camera with a chip the size of the
35mm film frame (24x36mm) at a reasonable price. Why? So that 35mm lenses
will then work the way they were designed to work. A smaller chip
effectively changes the focal length, and so wide angle becomes difficult to
achieve, and the justification for paying a lot of money for lenses is
partially lost as the camera only uses the central portion of the lens'
projected image. None of the system's lenses perform the way they were
designed to. When such a camera comes along at a reasonable price (currently
$10,000-12,000 AUS) I'll be interested.

Incidentally (while all this agreement is going on) your post about the
early development of ideas about the date line was indeed fascinating.

   

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