Re: FA 50/2.8 Macro

[graywolf]

Also there are curved field lenses for paper or plastic mounted slides, and flat 
field lenses for glass mounted slides. If you have the wrong one you will have 
edge sharpness problems with your projected slides. Also if a non-glass mounted 
slide is kept in the film gate too long the slide will pop more than normal and 
go out of focus either at the center or the edges. Then the condensers in the 
projector could be out of alignment. And there were $5 projector lenses and $500 
projector lenses the difference between them is immense. Back in the old days 
the Leitz and Schneider lenses were the best, with several brands considered 
somewhat below them. None of the Kodak lenses were considered great, OK at best.

All of the above says there could be any number of reasons his projected slides 
were not super sharp, even if the macro was.

William Robb wrote:
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred"
Subject: Re: FA 50/2.8 Macro



Sometimes the lens defects in the slide projector's lens can make
a good slide (taken with a good camera lens) look bad.  So, do
you know for sure that the slide image itself is soft at the
edges? (Have you checked the slide with a loupe?)

You may be right, this could be due to projector. I do
not see this behavoir when viewing on the 17" monitor.
I have been right only on very rare occasions, Ramesh, so don't take
anything I say too seriously - <g>.


In this instance, I would say you are right. Slide projectors tend to have
really bad lenses, though I am sure there are exceptions.
Also, there is no guarantee that the slide is perfectly parallel to the
screen, or that the curvature of the lens field is identical to the
curvature of the slide (there will be some, unless it is glass mounted).
As well, to get maximum light transmission, projector lenses tend to be
pretty fast optics, which leads to a whole nother set of problems.
Making a decision about camera lens quality by viewing a slide show isn't
thinking things through very well.
William Robb


--
graywolf
http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are,
you are not going to be able to change them anyway."