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Leica grabs bragging rights with `fastest' lens
2008-09-18
NEW YORK - Before camera manufacturers one-upped each other with the number of megapixels, they one-upped each other with the zoom range of their lenses. And before that, in the 1960s, the "speed" of the lens, its ability to gather light, was the big selling point. Now, Leica Camera AG, a prestigious but small German maker of high-end cameras and lenses, is going for the speed crown again, making the world's "fastest" lens for still cameras. This week, Leica said it has created a new version of its Noctilux lens with an aperture number of 0.95, which in the inverted math of optics means it gathers 11 percent more light than the old version, which had an aperture of 1. A lens that gathers more light performs better in poor lighting conditions, but an increase of 11 percent is hardly noticeable, so the difference between the old and new lenses is mostly in bragging rights. (Leica can't claim the fastest-ever crown, however: Japan's Canon Inc. also made a lens with an aperture of 0.95 for a few years in the '60s, at the height of the lens-speed craze.) However, either the previous or the new Leica Noctilux lens is substantially faster than the zoom lenses that come with regular digital cameras. They often have an aperture number of 3.5, which means they gather just 7 percent as much light as the new Noctilux. To gather more light, a lens needs to have a bigger glass surface, and super-speed lenses like the Noctilux are at the limit of practicality. The lens weighs 1 pound, 6 ounces, and dwarfs the Leica cameras it mounts on. It's focused manually and doesn't zoom, but has a fixed focal length of 50 millimeters. Stefan Daniel, a product manager at Leica, said he expects the lens to cost $10,000 when it goes on sale in December. The company had been selling the older Noctiluxes at a similar price, which held back many would-be buyers. They have a word for their condition: "Noctilust."
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