Michael Johnston Reviews the DA 35mm Ltd Macro on K20D

[mike_johnston2]

Mr. Wilkins,

You're quite the gentleman. On the one hand you say you're apologizing, but on the other, you turn right around

and assure me that all your belittling and insulting comments made previously were sincere. You even throw in a

few more for good measure.

 

I guess you win, then.

 

I have to say, you have vividly reminded me--and it's true that I had forgotten--why I stopped writing about

lenses years ago. In any event, I have decided to change my plans with regard to my new column here on Photo.net.

I had originally intended to make it a series of lens reviews, spiced with more general articles about lenses and

optics. The next column was going to be about the Zeiss 28mm f/2 ZF/ZK, and the one after that about the new

Nikkor 24-70mm; I had planned an article about purple fringing and another about the history of coatings. But for

reasons that I just cannot fathom, lenses are as difficult to discuss without exciting fanaticism as politics and

religion are. Some vicious, nattering little dispute that resists reasonableness is inevitably a

consequence--there is always someone lying in wait who insists on turning a molehill into a mountain or

vice-versa. Acknowledging that such people might have a different perspective, or cautiously qualifying every

other statement, or modifying what was originally said by stating plain facts more carefully, seems never to have

any dampening effect on the ardor of their disapprobation. Even humor seldom disarms.

 

I'm quite sure you, and those like you (you are certainly not unique), enjoy arguing. I simply don't. So, no more

lens articles from me on Photo.net. I'll find other things to write about, and if they excite the kind of

absolutism and recalcitrance that articles about lenses do, then at least the column following can be about a

different topic altogether and I can leave the previous one behind.

 

Mike Johnston

[joshroot]

As this thread has spiraled into off-topic irrelevance, I am closing it.

 

To those involved, please heed my words above.