Erwin Puts website to stay "put"

It appears Erwin has decided to leave his website up. Go there and

click on future plans,top right http://www.imx.nl

Will he be working for Canon now?

 

I wish he would 'rate' lenses and their characteristics/flaws on some sort of scale. I read his little lens summaries, and he speaks of things like "decentering" and "coma" and "distortions" - all of which sound, to me, like 'fatal flaws.' But, then, he'll continue and vaguely describe the lens as "very good," or "poor in the corners," or somesuch. Doesn't sound very promising, but he'll conclude with a comment that it's "a match for the XXmm Summicron" or whatever, that we all regard as 'excellent.' He uses a lot of words, but i still have no idea what those terms mean, either relatively or absolutely.... Whatever. Glad he's still around.

He has several articles that describe what all that means. Just dig around on his site for 'em.

It will be interesting to see what he has to say about the new Canon 5D. 'Wish Leica could

snag that sensor for a digital M, if there is such a thing.

Who knows? Maybe Canon is secretly working on a digital fullframe rangefinder, for a RF revival of sorts. Why not? They are the top dog right now.

I think it is too small a market for them to be even a blip on their radar. That and the fact

that they would have to design an entirely new lens lineup that would take resources from

their very profitable DSLR and EF lens design team means that it seems unlikely to me. If

DSLR sales flatten out or start decreasing, only then would they begin to explore niche

markets. Or at least that is what makes sense to me....you never can truly tell, particularly

with a company as big as canon.

<i>I wish he would 'rate' lenses and their characteristics/flaws on some sort of scale. I read his little lens summaries, and he speaks of things like "decentering" and "coma" and "distortions" - all of which sound, to me, like 'fatal flaws.' But, then, he'll continue and vaguely describe the lens as "very good," or "poor in the corners,"</i><br><br>

 

Myself, I like a description better than a rating. No lens is perfect, it's simply impossible - lens design is a huge balancing act, where you have many mutually opposing factors to balance. At best, you can make a lens really, really good for a certain purpose, but you just can't make it good all-around.

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Because of that, it's much more useful to know the characteristics of the lens, so that you can match the individual strengths and weaknesses to your particular needs. As an extreme example, an 85mm f/1.2 might get a pretty high mark for image quality, but if you bought one to shoot sports with, the horrendously slow autofocus would likely hamper you greatly.

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Another lens might vignette noticeably, which -at a casual glance- might make someone rate it very low, but as a portrait lens, it could be a real go-to lens, as vignetting can be anywhere from not-so-bad to actually desirable in certain circumstances.

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Another lens might be soft on the edges. On a full-frame or film camera, that could be bad - on a crop-factor camera, it probably won't be.

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Overall, you have to match the lens to the shot, and a description will help you do that, a simple rating system won't.

<i>"...that would take resources from their very profitable DSLR and EF lens design team..."</i><p>I'm curious: are you assuming it's

"very" profitable or has this been documented? With the huge money I imagine they must be spending on R&D and the short life of each model I would think that profits in this area would be really tough right now.

By "short life" I meant short life of each model being produced or on the market before the next "better" one comes out....

It is an assumption, but I would bet that they are doing quite well. I think most of the R&D

dollars are going into the EOS 1 series, and they are able to save money by essentially

fitting a previous generation or a shrunk 1 series sensor into the consumer and prosumer

bodies. And the bodies themselves don't get completely redesigned every generation.

They really have not changed drastically since the T90...at least in some ways. So while

they are constantly upgrading the cameras, I don't think it costs them as much as you

might think. And then you have the fact that many of the consumers and pros are buying

the DSLR's each generation...I think it makes it pretty profitable. The lenses too have not

changed drastically. The 85mm f/1.2L is almost identical to the FD version that came out

in the 80s, and I am sure that many of the other lenses are similar. The aps lenses are of

course an exception...<P>But don't take me as an authority. I know nothing of the reality

of the situation, these are all just my assumptions.

The assumption that the DSLRs are highly profitable is correct. Much more profitable than digital P&S cameras. Do a bit of Googling of financial analysis of the likes of Canon and Nikon to bear this out.

Derek,I believe Erwin answers your questions under "Technical Topics",left side of his website page. Off Topic-If I was going to buy a Dslr,it would be a Hasselblad H2-you can usefilm and digital,same camera,plus 1/800 flash sync.

{It appears Erwin has decided to leave his website up.}

 

Bloody big surprise that is. Not the first time he's threatened to leave the party and not the first time he's decided to stay.

who is erwin?

Sorry,just thought everyone knew who he is-his website... http://www.imx.nl He is a Leica expert who has done writing for Leica;he did the book on Leica optics,which you can find over at Leica online,and on his own website.