Lens Design Similarities Between Companies

[steve_rasmussen]

I just did a comparison between Leica's mid '80s lens designs with Pentax's. Many of the currently available 67 lenses were designed in the mid to late '80s. Some interesting findings were noted. The 35mm fisheye is is nearly identical to Leica's 16mm Elmarit-R fisheye. The P67 45mm is very close to Leica's 21mm Super-Angulon-R. The normal lenses are similar as well but that is not surprising because most companies use the Double Gauss design. The P67 200 and Elmarit-R 180mm Leitz both use an Ernostar design made famous in Germany. Conclusion: All of the major optics companies use the same basic designs with only minor differences. Because of this, the difference in performance between producers is going to be fairly small. The only exception to this seems to be with zoom lenses. SR

[mayorson_kirk]

even though the design is the same, the lens refractive index may be different. that is why leica people may say their summicron is better than konica hexers and other japs' lens.