Hi! I'm wondering if anyone has seen and/or tested this lens? I found it on the B&H website, the Japanese Konica site (can't read it of course), but nowhere else. But at $749, seems like a bargain. Any real world experience would be greatly appreciated especially relative to the Leica or Voigtlanders of the same focal length.

Thanks!

--David

-- David W. (dwellers@mac.com), December 20, 2001

Answers

Go to the site below and scroll down a bit. There is some conflict with Mr. Puts and the cross compatibility of Konica and Leica lenses and bodies, so you might believe or ignore his admonition about not using this lens on a Leica body. FWIW, I have the Japanese camera magazine that reviewed this Konica lens, and they did all of the tests with the lens on a Leica M6... not a Konica RF.

35mm Konica

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), December 20, 2001.

It's an even better deal from Robert White at $536 plus some duties and shipping.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to what Puts has to say on this. When the Hexar RF came out, he claimed that its .6 effective baselength wouldn't focus a 90/2, but when Leica brought out the ,58 M6, that statement miraculously changed. He refused to answer on a mailing list when he made the statement.

There are plenty of people who are regarded as neutral who have used the lens, I would recommend listening to them if you are interested.

Also, I gave a reference in another thread here on the supposed incompatibility.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), December 20, 2001.

I think Mr. Puts is, at best, so biased as to be useless for non- leica items. And at worst, full of crap.

-- Josh Root (rootj@att.net), December 20, 2001.

I agree, Puts is full of shit!!

-- Mitchell Li (mitchli@pacbell.net), December 21, 2001.

Mitchell - There are probably better words to choose...

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), December 21, 2001.

Sorry about the word, but after I red his website and reviews, I really think he is full of BS.

-- Mitchell Li (mitchli@pacbell.net), December 21, 2001.

I agree with your sentiment, but this site has had a bad time recently and needs to chill out.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), December 21, 2001.

David You will find a quite comprehensive test of this lens in the so- called "Chasseur d'Images" French magazine (#236 - August 1st, 2001). Of course, it's written in French but really understandable with curves showing a good optical behaviour. D.M.

-- Daniel Malys (malys@wanadoo.fr), December 21, 2001.

Puts loves Leica, but remember he actually does say he thinks that the 35mm Konica-M is better than the pre-Asph 35mm. Likewise he does say the VC Nokton is better than the Summilux performance-wise (but not mechanically). So he is not hopelessly biased. Also his comments about the poorer focussing ability of a 0.6 is true when you consider a 90 f2 or a 135mm lens - which the Hexar has framelines for. The Leica 0.58 does not have the 135mm frameline implying that Leica do not believe it is suitable for 135mm use at all distances. He also in his book says, for example, that the Canon 2.8/300IS is the equal or better than the Apo 280/2.8 and is much the same as the APO280/f4. I think the strong comments some have written here are uncalled for. I know of no one else who has taken such time and care to actually really test lenses on an optical testbench. Given this and given his interest in Leica, I have not found his results wrong so far as they match my experience (when I know anything about it). There are more subjective concepts of optical design that he cannot test so he tends not to comment on these things. Personally I think Erwin P. provides very useful data on the whole subject of Leica optics where real data is so often (usually) lacking. Many many times he says that the differences he finds may have no practical effect in real photographic situations. So, I think you are too harsh, you Puts detractors!

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 21, 2001.

Robin, i would suggest you read one of his first Voightlander reviews that also includes the Hexanon 50 f2.4 collapsable. He contradicts himself, at one point he says there are as cood as 70's Leica lens then said they are as good as early 90's pre-aspherics. I have to agree with others above, if you want comparisons of Leica stuff he can be usefull but anything made by anyone else and he is always biased about it. The fact is he isnt even dicreet about it. He makes money from his Leica puplications and thats where his loyalty and profitabilty lie.

-- Joel Matherson (joel_2000@hotmail.com), December 21, 2001.

From Puts' website…

Given the price of the Apo-Lanthar 90, this lens is a better choice than most second hand 90;s from Leica on the market and is very close to the performance of the current 2.8/90, which is some act: the apo-lanthar is unbeatable in price/performance relation. Its performance can be improved upon and mechanically it may be of limited durability. As it stands it is optically a first class design.

… He could have preferred Leica throughout. That seems like a fair statement to me.

He was also confusing about whether the Summilux 50mm-R is superior than the Summicron-R at equivalents apertures. His English is not too good that is for sure.

I still maintain that so far his reports have chimed with my experiences. If you can find a more useful source of comparison better than him then go ahead and I am happy to read it. Sure he is interested in Leica, but I still maintains he is pretty fair. Actually the review you mentioned is no longer on his website so I cannot check exactly what he said.

If you read what he actually says about the data he gets then that is useful. Every now and then he does come up with a more subjective statement such as the "Leica lens shows sparkling imagery that is not quite matched by lens x". These are more suspect, but the guy is human after all - most of us here do this kind of thing.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 21, 2001.

Also his comments about the poorer focussing ability of a 0.6 is true when you consider a 90 f2 or a 135mm lens - which the Hexar has framelines for. The Leica 0.58 does not have the 135mm frameline implying that Leica do not believe it is suitable for 135mm use at all distances

That wasn't what he said. It was very specific, that the Hexar RF could not focus the 90/2 because of its baselength. In a report on one of the he posted on the M6 .58, he said it could focus the 90/2.

As was pointed out above, he is happy to contradict himself and then refuse to answer when it's pointed out. I also think that bench tests have marginal usefulness, that what people need to know is how much difference it makes for their own photography. As someone who sells, I would say that most people who like photographs a lot can't really see the difference. I have exhibited shots with a 35mm recent Leica lens right next to shots with a 40mm Olympus lens on a fixed lens rangefinder from the 70s, and people don't comment on a noticeable difference. It may be to me, but not to them. The quality of the printing is a far bigger factor in what it looks like. In the end, lens difference matters to me as a photographer, but I can make good photographs with almost any lens.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), December 21, 2001.

I have the Konica 35mm f2, and I think it's very good. I think it is better than the 35mm f2 lens in my autofocus Hexar, not a lot but still better, and that has always been one of my favorite lenses. It has a focusing tab and goes from infinity to .7 meters in a 90 degree turn of focus ring. Perhaps a bad point is the hood from Konica, which screws into the filter threads, and they don't supply a cap to go over it. My solution is to use a neoprene cover (called hood hat" I think) over this and leave the lens hood on all the time. I think the lens and hood are at least as high quality as any Leica gear. Very nicely made, very nice pictures.

-- Masatoshi Yamamoto (masa@nifty.co.jp), December 21, 2001.

Yeah yeah Jeff we've been this route before. As I say Puts often says that in real terms any differences he reports may well not be noticeable. There are however real differences between lenses despite what you often seem to maintain. The buyer, or viewer does not care which is something we all agree with.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 21, 2001.

Perpaps a bit OT, but I would like to second Robin Smith in appreciating E. Puts work an LEICA and other lenses here.

I read a lot in his LENS COMPENDIUM and always find something new in it. Whenever I put my PUTS aside I feel this guy was very brave to tackle such a complex theme. Just imagine: describing the development of the LEICA lens family from 1926 on, becoming even two families when the SLR was introduced.

I´am fascinated by this book like my kids with Harry Potter.

Best wishes and good shooting

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), December 23, 2001.

Jeff

Just to correct the record, the 0.6 and 0.58 numbers you cited are NOT effective rangefinder baselenghts. They are viewfinder magnification factors. The Effective Base Length (an indicator of rangefinder accuracy) = actual baselenth X magnification factor. The actual baselength of the Hexar RF camera is significantly shorter than the Leica M cameras, so even the 0.58 Leica gives more accurate focus than the Hexar. I think Erwin's statement about the accuracy of focussing of the 90/2.0 on the Hexar is probably correct. I don't think it is likely that Konica will introduce a 90/2.0 Hexanon for their RF camera, for that reason.

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), December 24, 2001.

The Konica baselength is virtually identical to the Leica. I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but you are wrong. You can check this table for a listing of the baselength of many cameras. You are right that I misquoted, I meant that the effective baselength is the same (almost) for the two cameras, although the table points out that the effective baselength of the Hexar is actually longer.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), December 24, 2001.

I know this is a free Q&A forum, but looks like some guys here distract quite a bit from the topic. I have Erwin's book, as well as Leica camera and lens. In fact, I have no objective evidence to prove myself to be neutral, but it is really too much to say someone is full of BS. Everybody has his/her own standpoint and has certain degree of bias, but we cannot, because of these, regard someone's work as valueless. At least he was trying to analyse the performance of Leica in terms of objective perspectives: Contrast, vignetting, resolution, distortion, chromatic aberration, etc. He also tried to apply all these consistently to all lenses in the book. There are in fact a few points which make me him quite respectable in my mind:

(1) After reading his website and book, he did mention a number of other brands' lenses were better than Leica's counterparty, e.g. Canon 300 f2.8 IS, Konica Hexanon 50 f2, Hexanon 35 f2, Voigtlander Nokton 50 f1.5;

(2) He tried to explain in technical terms the better bokeh could be some residual aberrations which remained minimal in Leica modern lens. I know someone might say that's because he received money to help Leica to sell new lenses. But after reading a number of someone else's comments about Leica lenses, it was surprisingly consistent for Erwin's conclusion, as almost all Leica APO-ASPH lenses have the worse "bokeh". On the other hand, there is still no other more technical or scientific interpretation of "bokeh" which interprets the opposite to Erwin's.

(3) I found some very minor "avoidance" in his book in comparison with his personal website. Like R 50mm f1.4, in his website, he said "...Summicron M 50 is still the one to beat" which means Summicron M is still sharper than Summilux R 50, while in his book "...you have to stopped down to f2.8...". but I fully understand that no matter the disclaimer is, the book still bears the Leica logo on the cover. I believe both of the above is true to the knowledge of the author.

I believe a wise man is not one who tried to prove someone's saying to be 100% universally true and then trusted it without any doubt, or, if it is not 100% "true", he would say this guy is full of BS. I believe a wise man is a continuously learning man who listens or read someone else's knowledge, opinions or even deductions AND then make his own judgements.

-- Chris Chung (cchokl@netvigator.com), December 26, 2001.