Leica lied about the lens on the X typ 113 - it's not a true f/1.7 lens.

I own prime lenses, and they are all a constant f-stop regardless of the focal length. I've also owned lenses and cameras before with variable apertures, and they all have the specs listed on them.

The X typ 113 is my first Leica camera. I bought it for a 35mm equivalent, Leica quality lens, with an f-stop of f/1.7. The truth is, it's a variable aperture lens depending on the focal length. Shame on you Leica.

I blogged about it: http://www.bershatsky.com/northwest-chocolate-festival

What exposure mode were you using?

I wish the different models had different names.

The Photo Ninja said:

I own prime lenses, and they are all a constant f-stop regardless of the focal length. I've also owned lenses and cameras before with variable apertures, and they all have the specs listed on them.

The X typ 113 is my first Leica camera. I bought it for a 35mm equivalent, Leica quality lens, with an f-stop of f/1.7. The truth is, it's a variable aperture lens depending on the focal length. Shame on you Leica.

I blogged about it: http://www.bershatsky.com/northwest-chocolate-festivalA

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All prime lenses are constant f-stop. The 113 appears to be a proper prime with a fixed focal length. Thus I do not know what you mean by "focal length" since it does not vary (other than the fractional change between infinity and, say, 2m away - which all prime lenses do).

I think you better review your experiment and camera settings and figure out how the camera works.. If the camera is set to auto-exposure, it is quite reasonable that other apertures than 1.7 could be automatically selected.

--
tony
http://www.tphoto.ca

It happens in all of them.

Unfortunately, perhaps I should have downloaded and read the instruction manual prior to buying the camera - unbelievable.

Page 136 of the manual -

"To enhance picture quality, the aperture setting is also corrected automatically between 2.8 and 1.7 in the close-up range, i.e. at distances of 0.2 - 1.2m to the subject."

"I own prime lenses, and they are all a constant f-stop regardless of the focal length."

You do realise the X does not have a zoom lens. So how can the focal length vary?

The only other way I can read it is that you are aware the focal length is constant, but are unhappy it doesn't stay at f1.7. It will go all the way to f16; but I find it difficult to believe this is your concern.

See my previous response to another poster - this is not a case of user error. It's a case of variable aperture and Leica's misleading advertising.

I was duped. I have since updated the blog post with additional information.

See my previous responses for further clarification.

Still everything I said is correct.

The Photo Ninja said:

It happens in all of them.

Unfortunately, perhaps I should have downloaded and read the instruction manual prior to buying the camera - unbelievable.

Page 136 of the manual -

"To enhance picture quality, the aperture setting is also corrected automatically between 2.8 and 1.7 in the close-up range, i.e. at distances of 0.2 - 1.2m to the subject."

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I think you seriously don't understand how a prime lens focuses and the effect of aperture. The closer the subject is to the camera, the lens is moved further away from the film plane thus reducing the effective aperture. This is normal for all prime lenses

Your comment "to enhance picture quality ..." seems to imply that the camera is computing the effective working f-stop in the close up range - thus giving an "honest" f-stop.

23mm f/1.4 fuji.

By the way, it's not "my comment." That's a direct cut and paste from the manual.

The Photo Ninja said:

23mm f/1.4 fuji.

By the way, it's not "my comment." That's a direct cut and paste from the manual.

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You Canon 35mm 1.4 is actually less than F1.4 at the minimum of 0.25m focusing for that lens. It is only truly F1.4 at infinity. The lens reports only 1.4 to the camera.

--
tony
http://www.tphoto.ca

The Photo Ninja said:

It happens in all of them.

Unfortunately, perhaps I should have downloaded and read the instruction manual prior to buying the camera - unbelievable.

Page 136 of the manual -

"To enhance picture quality, the aperture setting is also corrected automatically between 2.8 and 1.7 in the close-up range, i.e. at distances of 0.2 - 1.2m to the subject."

Click to expand...

Hard to know exactly what they mean here...

There's a "laws of physics"-type effect that says that the effective aperture decreases as you focus closer, where (dredged from the memory banks) the rule-of-thumb for a typical macro lens is that you lose about 2 stops when you focus to 1:1 magnification.

On the other hand if they are restricting the maximum aperture when focussing close-up to reduce optical aberrations, then that seems a bit dishonest if it isn't stated clearly up front in the specifications, not buried in the user instruction manual.

Getting close to your subject is what a 35mm lens is all about...

J.

n/t

Its a bit sneaky if its not in reasonably headline specs although if your talking a "true Leica" then close focus is hardly a strength, most of their M lenses only focus down to around 0.7 meters or more so this lens going down to 0.2 meters is a definite improvement there.

The Photo Ninja said:

I own prime lenses, and they are all a constant f-stop regardless of the focal length. I've also owned lenses and cameras before with variable apertures, and they all have the specs listed on them.

The X typ 113 is my first Leica camera. I bought it for a 35mm equivalent, Leica quality lens, with an f-stop of f/1.7. The truth is, it's a variable aperture lens depending on the focal length. Shame on you Leica.

I blogged about it: http://www.bershatsky.com/northwest-chocolate-festival

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You're right and you're not right. You're wrong and you're not wrong. "Ask not of the Elves because they'll never give you a straight answer..."

The X type 113 has indeed a 23mm f/1.7 prime lens. However, remember that Leica's continuing and always goal is the best lens quality they can figure out how to obtain, given price, size, etc, constraints.

Compact, ultra-fast, short focal length lenses typically have failings at one point or another as you get to the closest focusing distance, particularly when the closest focusing distance is a mere 20cm. I remember my darling little SMC-Pentax DA21mm f/3.2 Limited ... whew, the imaging qualities got pretty nasty at the closest focusing distance, but for most of the range the lens was intended for, it was super. And that was an f/3.2 lens!

Leica's solution is simple: the iris closes down a little bit starting at 1.2m focus setting and gives you an effective maximum aperture of f/2.8 by the time you get down to about .42m. From there to the minimum focus distance of .2m, it remains at f/2.8 maximum aperture. By doing this, they preserve the best imaging possible with a lens this fast and this compact, at the price. I believe they use a similar technique with either the 23mm lens on the T or the X Vario lens at closest focusing distance.

I am not sure why you feel you are being lied to. This fact is listed in the manual and is immediately and easily observable by just looking in the front of the lens while you turn the focusing ring and touch the shutter button. It's also reflected in the readout on the LCD/EVF, and in the EXIF data. If they're lying, they're doing a darn bad job of it. And for most people using a wide angle, fixed lens camera, losing a stop of lens speed at sub-meter focusing distances only helps them get enough DoF to take a picture of the baby with nose and ears in focus ... !

At normal use distances that the X was designed for, the lens operates all the way out to the optical f/1.7 limit. What it has, in effect, is a near-field correction using the aperture to promote better quality imaging. Leica is not the first or only manufacturer to use an aperture limiter to promote better imaging quality...

G

Every one has used close up bellow knows the exposure degradation the angle of ray problems.

Thanks Leica for the auto compensation Really neat.

Leica is picking up vety quick in using the modern digital technology. Bravo!

If you need speed close up - try adding a +1 diopter filter.

Yes, one of the issues with range finder lenses, thus the need for unusual looking add-on devices in the film era.

From film days, the typical 50mm SLR lens would close focus to about 2 feet and shorter focal length lenses even closer.

In contrast, I have a nice 35mm Cosina-Voigtlander M39 lens and its closest focus distance is about 3 feet.

Einst Stein said:

Every one has used close up bellow knows the exposure degradation the angle of ray problems.

Thanks Leica for the auto compensation Really neat.

Leica is picking up vety quick in using the modern digital technology. Bravo!

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Different thing: automatic compensation for exposure happened when TTL metering was introduced back in the 1960s. What was being discussed was optical corrections in fast rangefinder lenses at close focus distances...

J.

How could the effective aperture of a lens remain constant from 20 cm to infinity? I would learn photography a bit more before calling anybody liar.