Good morning, Mike and Cork;
Well, Mike, I did say that the variable aperture characteristic of a zoom lens may be an inconvenience at times, but I guess you are already aware of what it requires. At this level, it is probably better to continue speaking of what the lens does and how it does it and what you will see when using the lens, than it is to start referring to page numbers in books by people such as Rudolf Kingslake. And, Mike, you are absolutely right when you speak of the need to do many things in a very short time period with such a lens. That may be one of the reasons why the automatic focusing, automatic exposure, automatic flash, automatic advancing of film (or storage on the card) is so popular in general photography now. Today even our highly advanced and capable professional level SLR and DSLR cameras have a "point-and-shoot" mode.
Cork, my undergraduate study was in Electronics Engineering with a heavy emphasis on Physics. I have spent some time ray tracing, and I was told that I was pretty good at that task, but I think the main thing was the other training in engineering drawing which helped in producing drawings that were clear, precise, and fairly well done. It is amazing what influence a good draftsman can have. Mainly an offshoot of my exposure to the instruction and tutelage of Frank Zozorra.
The real point of all of this (regardless of such things as the love affair or cultlike following of some lenses and cameras), still remains what we can see in the print we are holding in our hands when we have finished taking our photographs. The optical engineers at Zeiss and Leica have said that they can make their lenses even sharper than they are now, but it will require more effort and special materials, techniques, and processes to produce them, and money for you to buy them. However, they point out that the lenses today are already at the point where they are capable of putting an image on the film that will be better than what is required to produce a large print or to be projected onto a fairly large screen. At this point they are also asking if they need to do that additional work, when the lenses we have now are certainly adequate to the task. I think that is a fair question.
In a somewhat related point, the sensitivity of a good communications radio receiver today is already capable of hearing radio signals that have a signal strength that is less than the common noise levels we experience in the radio frequency spectrum today. To rephrase that, the noise level is already wiping out the lowest level signals that the radio is designed to hear. They need to test these things in a shielded RF quiet room, so they can get down to the level of the minimum discernible signals. Do we really need to make a radio that is "more sensitive?" For our use right down here on earth, maybe not.
For a guy who grew up in a time period that is regarded by many as one of the best time periods for the United States, and to have worked at putting a man on the moon, and seeing all of the benefits we have gained in so many different ways directly from that program and from offshoots related to it, including what we have available to us today in the way of photographic equipment that can consistently do a better job than we can with a "normal photographic scene," I am impressed. Fortunately, there are those scenes that are not "normal" where we still excel at making a truly fascinating photographic image.
Having said all that, I can also state that I still like using my Minolta SR-1b, and my Kiev 88, and my SINAR F1. There is still a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment in producing a print of a photograph that you have made. This is not found in something that was done for you by a remarkably small computer inside the black box with a lens you were holding in your hands and pointing at the scene that interested you.
Enjoy;
Ralph, Latte Land, Washington
