Re: Upgrade Realist lens? Dennis Selwa! (digest 1505)

[P3D Bob Howard <bobh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

RE: Realist Format discussion.

Dennis Selwa says he loves his Realist f/3.5 but wishes he could upgrade
by mounting a modern Nikkor, Canon or Fuji lens.
I would say that if Dennis got himself an f/2.8 Realist he would have
all the upgrade he could desire in terms of lens quality. And this only
because the Tessar is a bit better wide open than the Triotar
design.(e.g. 4 element vs 3 element common Zeiss clones)
THERE IS NO ADVANTAGE to (if short focal length for Realist) an f/2.0 or
f/1.8, or f/1.4 lens of the Japanese designs, except the increased speed
which is wasted in stereo when we stop down as much as possible. Those
six and seven element lenses are NO BETTER for having extra elements.
Those only give the "degrees of freedom" to correct the horrendous
abberations that come in as you go wider than f/3.5 of f/4.0. Also the
newer lenses designed for contrast in small prints may lack resolving
power under extreme magnification which is what we do when we project or
examine in a good viewer (the reason grain is apparent except in slow
films.)
Some of the sharpest slides I have were taken with f/3.5 Elmar 4 element
or front focussing Tessar on a Zeiss Contaflex. At the outdoor apertures
of f/8-16 the exotic fast lenses only hope that they are as good stopped
down. So Dennis you can relax. BobH
(The Japanese lenses just discovered contrast before the Germans, as a
design objective. Their ad copy alluded to new volcanic sand for the
glass. It was Schade of RCA who found out how to do it when he invented
the MTF method after wondering why "rotten" tested lenses were better on
TV than the "good" tested ones.)


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