Hello all,
as I said in a previous message, I think that the most tests in the German
photo press (FotoMagazin, ColorFoto) should read with caution, because I
think they are not independent from industry. The reason for this is a
personal experience. 1994 I bought a Sigma 400mm 1:5,6 "Apo" lens because I
wanted to use a supertele lens and did not want to pay to much for it. This
lens had excellent tests in both the above mentioned magazines. Then I
tried to make good pictures with this lens in the local zoo, but I had no
luck. After 6 month I sent the lens to Sigma in Germany with the question,
why it is so soft. Sigma exchanged the lens and I tried to achieve good
pictures with this second one. But I had to recognize, that this second
lens was only slighly better than the first one. So I selled it. Later in
that year I visited a flea market with polish traders. They offered Russian
lenses. After the disappointment with the Sigma lens I risked to buy a
"Rubinar 500mm 1:5,6 Macro" mirror lens (engraved in cyrillic). I attached
an OM-mount and tried to achieve good results. With this lens, which costed
to me 160 DM (the Sigma was over 800 DM) I was able to get such results I
wanted to achieve with the Sigma. In fact, I think the Rubinar is a true
apochromat, which is possible because it is a mirror lens (no dispersion at
the mirror elements). Later I saw in the Internet, that hobby astrologers
use a version of this lens, too. It is from the Maksutov type and the state
of the coatings is amazingly high. You have to choose Fuji Velvia film to
make use of the optical power of this lens. By the way, I continue owning
one Sigma lens, the 28-70 1:3,5-4,5 zoom (not the UC version) for the
OM-707. This is optically o.k. and mechanically amazingly heavy. It is the
Sigma lens which elements where bought from Leica to build a own zoom.
Matthias
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