Leica zooms in with new camera lens
Published 8:16 pm Friday, September 19, 2008
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 MM.
Consortium targets CD DVD compatibility: Buy a CD or DVD, and it should work on a variety of devices and personal computers.
Buy the same music or movie online, and you’re on your own: Songs bought at Apple Inc.’s iTunes will generally work only with Apple products such as the iPod, while many movies sold in Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Media format will require a Windows computer or device.
Leading entertainment and consumer-electronics companies — including Microsoft — are trying to change that.
They have formed a consortium, the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, to come up with technical specifications that content distributors and manufacturers can follow to ensure compatibility. The idea is to let people know that content and devices carrying a special logo will play nicely with one another.
By reducing confusion, consortium members are hoping to see the digital marketplace grow, said Mitch Singer, president of the consortium and chief technology officer of one of its members, Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Consumers will be able to use digital products they buy on cell phones, set-top boxes, computers and other devices made by a slew of manufacturers. A virtual locker will store those digital products remotely, and the system will permit some copying onto physical media like DVDs.
The Associated Press
