It's me again, Mr Jinxed

[tashley]

That was what I thought too, until the others missed the centre crop part and started saying it was really fine for f/7-f/8 I don't agree about your sharpness comment at all though. Tim's centre crop at f/4.5 was about as sharp as a wet rag.

Thanks Carsten - I was beginning to think I was seeing things that were invisible to others. Always spooky!

;-)

 

[tashley]

TAshley: Now as to how you managed to get a bad 80mm AND a bad 28mm I have no idea and that must be terribly frustrating. In the past 12 months I've overseen the DOA exchange of two lenses out of hundreds we've sold. So I guess what I'm saying is don't spend any time in Vegas for a while.



Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer | Personal Portfolio

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the pointers!

I have one idea here: I am picky about glass - I hope not overly so, but when I buy a lens I ALWAYS give it a quick test for obvious faults. The reason for this is that in my experience, a notable (maybe 10% or more?) percentage of lenses have issues from new. QC procedures these days involve testing a representative sample of lenses off the production line, I think few manufacturers test them all.

Knowing this (and having been burned by it before) I always make sure I test new glass properly. At £3,000 a pop I think that's justifiable! And I am somewhat sanguine about getting two duds in a row because I have an immaculate Noctilux that, holy grail of grails, doesn't focus shift badly as it stops down. So I already had my lucky run in Vegas!

More worrying is the fact that my dealer and I had to go through FIVE Hahnel chargers before finding one that worked properly. I caution all purchasers to check this out and to hope I got in the middle of a bad batch. But on no account buy a new P1 setup and go abroad on a shoot without giving it the once-over first.

But then that's true of all gear. My 1DSIII arrived with a sensor so filthy with shutter grease that it looked like someone had sneezed on it. My M8.2 also had a grubby sensor at delivery...

Best

T

 

[dougpeterson]

But on no account buy a new P1 setup and go abroad on a shoot without giving it the once-over first.

But then that's true of all gear. My 1DSIII arrived with a sensor so filthy with shutter grease that it looked like someone had sneezed on it. My M8.2 also had a grubby sensor at delivery...

Best

T

Exactly, under no condition should you take gear on a shoot which you have not tested to satisfaction. True of any manufacturer and any price. Perhaps the only exception is when a trusted dealer does the testing for you; even then, you better trust them a LOT.

There are some items we often refuse to deliver without testing them ourselves. Certain helical mount lenses we've had around 25% come in marked for infinity incorrectly (the glass was sharp but the focus point marking was off). Otherwise we make sure the customer knows to test for this if they want it delivered ASAP.

Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer | Personal Portfolio

 

[dougpeterson]

There will also be the Leica 24mm S2 lens coming... Leica lenses are typically sharper wide open than the competition stopped down a bit, so it will be interesting to see the comparisons when it arrives.

I think we're all looking forward to seeing what magic Leica can work at this focal length. If anyone can do it, Leica would be it.

Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer | Personal Portfolio

 

[gogopix]

I usually wouldnt push a MF, meaning wide open, but MY experience is that half to one stop up and a lot of my MF lenses do just fine.

Here's a 35mm FL 3.5 lens, at 4.0 from the P45p (SO REALLY getting detail)

noisy as one would expect in a dark church

but this is striaght C1>jpg in PS (sized 900 for the full, actual pixels for the crop)


Victor