P3D Re: Sputnik and Saturn Slide w/lightbox

[egoldste@xxxxxx (Eric Goldstein)]

David Kazdan writes:

>I gather that Sputniks vary a lot from sample to sample.

Yes, you're right, seemingly even more so than older classics which can
have lots of variation between examples. Poor QC with these...

>The lenses in mine are pretty
>good, even at f/5.6, just slight coma in one.

I guess it all depends what your standards are. These cameras have front
cell focusing triplets, which are the most compromised achromatic design to
begin with; acceptable for smaller formats but marginal for MF unless
stopped way down, and still lots of oblique distortion and poor coverage
away from the center...

I think I mentioned, one of the list members (John B?) did some resolution
testing and found system performance to be just marginally better than the
top-end 7 perf stereos factoring format differences... a search of the
archives will turn it up...

But still, I know what you mean about the "wow" factor when you put a well
exposed chrome on a nice contrasty emulsion in one of Alan's viewers...

Eric G.



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