What's so great about Leica lens?

[soma]

Was extremely tempted to start getting one to try but i keep asking myself, what's so great about leica lens?
Someone explain to me it the tone it give, silky and grey is grey. (NPNT)lol
Optical quality of the lenses?
Ease of use?
Consistent technical innovation?
Price keeps the riff-raff out?
Or just magic?

Can someone pls post some picture of the magic the lens can create lol.

 

[metalgear]

you are going to get much a much better answer on the interweb than just here. even some simple googling will lead you down a thousand links that will send you off your way.

there's also the issue of what level of experience you have with what equipment and since you haven't provided any details this question is just going to go everywhere.

 

[night86mare]

Was extremely tempted to start getting one to try but i keep asking myself, what's so great about leica lens?
Someone explain to me it the tone it give, silky and grey is grey. (NPNT)lol
Optical quality of the lenses?
Ease of use?
Consistent technical innovation?
Price keeps the riff-raff out?
Or just magic?

Can someone pls post some picture of the magic the lens can create lol.

it is the magic symbol L

whenever people see that L in the red, they cannot think anymore. :bsmilie:

 

[Blur Shadow]

Quality, I guess.

 

[distagon]

the HISTORY.

 

[Tupi Guy]

Was extremely tempted to start getting one to try but i keep asking myself, what's so great about leica lens?
Someone explain to me it the tone it give, silky and grey is grey. (NPNT)lol
Optical quality of the lenses?
Ease of use?
Consistent technical innovation?
Price keeps the riff-raff out?
Or just magic?

Can someone pls post some picture of the magic the lens can create lol.

With the amount of words u type here, google will have plenty of links about it.

Perhaps you can pop by here for the "feel" of it.

THose RF user will have a better answer for your questions.


Personally, i never own one before as it too pricy for me or can say it a "dream" camera.

I do have friends own it and i lucky enough just able to "feel" it for seconds. It body build is diff from the Bessa i used to own. It more sturdy and it more quiet when u click it. And for lens, i love the 35 Summicron F2......i have seen it quality... it's awesome!

 

[catchlights]

Was extremely tempted to start getting one to try but i keep asking myself, what's so great about leica lens?
Someone explain to me it the tone it give, silky and grey is grey. (NPNT)lol
Optical quality of the lenses?
Ease of use?
Consistent technical innovation?
Price keeps the riff-raff out?
Or just magic?

Can someone pls post some picture of the magic the lens can create lol.

you are asking a question like what is the different between Rolex and Casio watch? is Rolex worth it? well.........

 

[Fotophilic]

it could be a blessing in disguise to not know about its "greatness".

 

[axis90x]

it could be a blessing in disguise to not know about its "greatness".

ya then he wont get poison by it LOL!

 

[JohnMak]

I've never used a Leica lens in photography but years ago I had to do some surveying and my employer borrowed and ancient Leica Theodolyte from the local town Council.
As the surveying continued longer than expected my employer bought a Nikon Theodolyte.
What a shock to both of us. The Nikon was useless as the lens was so poor. Blurry and we could not get far from the staff before it became unreadable.
We sold the Nikon at auction and bought the much more expensive Leica.

Maybe their camera lenses do the same thing.

 

[Anthony Lee]

Was extremely tempted to start getting one to try but i keep asking myself, what's so great about leica lens?
Someone explain to me it the tone it give, silky and grey is grey. (NPNT)lol
Optical quality of the lenses?
Ease of use?
Consistent technical innovation?
Price keeps the riff-raff out?
Or just magic?

Can someone pls post some picture of the magic the lens can create lol.

Try one and see for yourself. I did and got bewildered.

 

[hazmee]

Try one and see for yourself. I did and got bewildered.

I also got bewildered... WITH THE PRICE!!!

 

[giantcanopy]

and is really cool to have one in any attire in any country at any time.

 

[chua beng]

I find that every lens has it's own character. That's y different brands are renowned for their own strength n have their own cult followers. The best way to study images of different lenses is to do a search in Flickr.

The beauty of the character of a lens is not just restricted to it's sharpness, colors, contrast, details resolved n bokeh. For example, cheap Russian lenses have a character of it's own that's hard to find in others!

As for Leica, I love it's creamy bokeh, the great amount of details resolved, the very fine transitions from highlights to shadows n it's natural skin tones resolved(subject to film types or different digital settings/sensors of course).

Try a cheap old leica lens(screw mount type) n see if you r on a tight budget. Or borrow.

 

[ziggy]

You can only really appreciate the 'specialness' of a Leica lens if you enlarge the prints. On normal sizes, you will notice the naturalness, the richness and the picture seems to pop up. Some of the Japanese lenses are sharper but look pretty flat when you enlarge. Not the Leicas.

And they seem to last forever - my R 60mm macro is now 38 years old and although a bit bashed up, still produce great pictures.

If new is too expensive, buy used ones - they are usually good enough.

 

[pinholecam]

My take is that if I need to ask, that means I can't tell the diff straight out from the sample photos available on the web. In other words they make no diff to me.

 

[Numnumball]

Never used a Leica lens b4 (seen samples, can't really tell the diff) but wud luv to try one out someday

 

[VainKid]

i assume people see u using leica, first thing that comes to mind, "ATAS Photog" espcially those who look younger. Like people carry Gucci/LV (Nikkor/Canon) and Hermes (Leica)

 

[Jed]

Quality, I guess.

the HISTORY.

This kind of reminds me of a Top Gear review of an Alfa 159 that James May did where they "tried" to do it without mentioning any "fake Italiano" - essentially intangible things that don't really add substance to a review, like "soul" and "passion". ^.^

 

[Jed]

Someone explain to me it the tone it give, silky and grey is grey. (NPNT)lol

There are plenty of factors that affect the tone of an image. Back in the days of black and white film, film choice, processing, printing choices, etc all had at least as much impact individually on image tone, as the difference between a top lens and an average lens.

And with regards to grey being grey, in black and white film days, grey was grey anyway. In colour days... saying that all Leica lenses are neutral is generalising; each lens has different characteristics. Strange also how that Velvia was not massively neutral, and Astia which was, was hardly popular. In terms of negatives, again processing, printing, and scanning all again individually can have as much impact on the neutrality of an image than lens performance. In the digital age - the camera itself, and massively, the white balance, is far, far more important.

Do you shoot any camera on auto white balance? If you do, you shouldn't even be thinking about the neutrality of a lens.

Consistent technical innovation?

You're joking, right? ;p

Or just magic?

There is plenty of magic in that red dot, I'll give you that.