At 11:07 PM +0000 1/14/03, olympus-digest wrote:
>Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 12:02:12 -0800
>From: "R. Jackson" <jackson.robert.r@xxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [OM] were you just baiting us?
>
>On Tuesday, January 14, 2003, at 10:51 AM, Bill Pearce wrote:
>
> > "rangefinder has a much less complicated light-path than an SLR"
> >
> > Hmmm......... Let me think..........Light comes in the front of the
> > lens,
> > out the back, and squirts onto the film on one, light comes in the
> > front of
> > the lens, out the back, and squirts onto the film with the other.
> > Yeah, easy
> > to see the difference.
>
>Heh...well, he was talking a lot about how the big light box necessary
>to use a prism moves the lens forward significantly and how Leic*
>lenses usually have far less elements than their SLR counterparts and
>then he got into something about glass/air pairings or some such
>optic-speak and most of us just nodded a lot and kept waiting to see if
>there was a point.
It is true that all rangefinder cameras (not just L*ica's) can have simpler
lenses because their back element can be closer to the film than in a SLR,
because there is no mirror to get in the way. That said, it doesn't seem to
make much difference in the delivered optical performance of actual
top-of-the-line camera lenses.
I would be tempted to twist the instructor's tail by asking why the rangefinder
lenses are so outrageously expensive, if they are in fact simpler. Glass is
glass, and aluminium is aluminium. One would therefore expect SLR lenses to be
more expensive, to handle all that unnecessary added complexity.
With luck he won't know the answer, that SLR lenses are made in far greater
volume, and so can be cheaper despite their greater complexity. This can be
great sport, but wicked.
Joe Gwinn
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