T3D Re: TECH-3D digest 285

[Eric Goldstein <egoldste@xxxxxx>]

Greg W. writes:

> But I seriously suggest you buy/rent/borrow an RBT camera and take some
> photos with one for yourself and judge the results firsthand, rather
> than speculate on articles in a magazine with questionable objectivity
> (i.e. one that accepts advertising from the manufacturers it purports to
> review "objectively", thus potentially biting the hand that feeds it).
> Even you might be surprised by the results.

My two cents-

The cheap zooms of modern slrs are seriously compromised lenses,
including the zooms on the Ricoh-based RBTs. I have seen many images
from several of them, and IMO they are visibly underwhelming. FL match
may be tolerable, but plenty of visible distortion and marginal
contrast. A modern prime will kick their butts hands down. So will the
Hexar-based RBT S1. In fact, so will the 40 year old Tessars on
Belplascas!

True story... a friend of mine who is a fine artist and photographer
recently was shooting with a Canon autofocus with standard 35-80 zoom. I
gave her husband my Yashica T4 to use on their recent vacation together;
he didn't know what he was doing, so he just shot everything she did.
You can guess how the story ends... the lab tech asks which of them has
the pro camera with the beautiful sharp lens and which of them has the
junker, and she's all proud her work, except it was his T4 shots which
just jumped compared with hers and boy was she heartbroken... 

I've seen the same results from Nikon, Minolta, Pentax, Tokina 35-70 or
80 zooms. One cannot build a decently fast zoom lens for $120 retail;
the Canon L or Nikon ED zooms are an entirely different story...

Eric G.


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