Talk:Schneider

Needs to be toned down

"Schneider or Schneider-Kreuznach has been designing and manufacturing high quality lenses for cameras and other optical instruments since 1913. Over 14 million precision Schneider lenses have been sold worldwide. Schneider camera lenses are renowned for their quality, and have equipped many fine cameras, including the superb Alpa 12S/WA."

There are five hype expressions in three lines, please tone down. --Rebollo fr 17:57, 1 June 2006 (EDT)

Agreed. Actually I zapped one of these quite independently, while you were writing this. Incidentally, I'd point out that these superlatives could just as well be added to most of the lenses produced by Nikon and Mamiya, and to a large percentage of those produced by Olympus, Canon, Konishiroku, Asahi/Pentax, etc etc. -- Hoary 18:01, 1 June 2006 (EDT)

Please don't remove content

The current version is replacing a previous version where it was said: "Their lenses were often proposed as the second best choice, just behind Carl Zeiss, both firms were considered of equal quality, with Schneider a little less expensive."

I agree that this sentence was too general and not satisfactorily worded. However it contained an information that was valid at least for some period. I can give a good number of examples of cameras offered with both a Schneider and a Zeiss lens, the Schneider lens being a less expensive alternative for the same focal length and aperture.

It is not considered acceptable to suppress content without justifying it either in the change summary or in the talk page. At least it is the rule in wikipedia, and I would like it to be applied in camerapedia too. --Rebollo fr 18:03, 1 June 2006 (EDT)

Perhaps the problem is that the first half of the deleted sentence seems to make sense (whether or not you consider that it's true) but that it's apparently contradicted by the second half. (Well, the second half is ostensibly about firms, but surely about lenses.) Here's a guess at the meaning: Its lenses were often considered the second best choice, just behind those of Carl Zeiss. Other people considered that the lenses of both firms were of equal quality, with Schneider's a little less expensive. (I'd guess again that this is all a bit silly: that for some choices the CZ option was better, for some the two were just as good, and for some the Schneider was better. And for the huge majority of photographers, the difference between quality of lenses was trivial beside ergonomic and other problems with the cameras and of course their own deficiencies as photographers. But I'm just guessing again.) -- Hoary 18:14, 1 June 2006 (EDT)

You are perfectly right, and I was not overly regretting this sentence, but I would rather see it improved than deleted. For example: "On German fixed-lens cameras, Schneider lenses were often proposed as a slightly cheaper alternative to the Carl Zeiss lenses, even if most people considered both firms to be in the same league." What is of interest is not the quality comparison but the fact that people were ready to pay more to have the Zeiss name on their camera.

One hour earlier I had to restore content in the Ferrania Ibis 66 page, and this content was perfectly clear (date of release, type of shutter and another minor feature). I know nothing about this camera and I don't care that much, but I don't want to see content disappearing without a word of explanation. I am not in the mood (and will never be, for that matter) to look at each change in detail to verify if something has been removed. --Rebollo fr 19:44, 1 June 2006 (EDT)

Let's agree then that even if material doesn't seem to make any sense, one should at least note in the talk page that one is cutting it. For example: I've just removed "Their lenses were often proposed as the second best choice, just behind Carl Zeiss, both firms were considered of equal quality, with Schneider a little less expensive." because I can't work out what it wants to say. Hoary 02:15, 2 June 2006 (EDT)

Thanks for the reminder and the information. I didn't realize that Camerapedia content rules differed much from Wikipedia. I will instead cease to delete material, no matter how poorly phrased, and just add corrective paragraphs where the information is clearly wrong. I think the current wording, as corrected, is fine, but have to disagree that there is any 'hype' in what I first drafted. 'Hype' is lauding a camera design or lens that does not deserve it - but Alpa 12 cameras happen to be perhaps the finest medium format camera in the world, bar none, and Schneider, one of the lens suppliers for the camera (along with Rodenstock and CZ) has long been known for making some of the very best optics ever (speaking as a Zeiss owner). Mass-produced small format lenses from Pentax, Olympus, Canon, etc. aren't even in the ballpark. glenmark 3 June 2006

I think that Pentax, Olympus, Canon, etc. would disagree with that assertion. At Photo.Net and such places, plenty of users of Pentax, Olympus, Canon, etc. would also (rather noisily) disagree with that assertion.

I have my own opinions about lens quality, etc., but I've tried to keep them out of articles here. I think and hope that I've succeeded. Later, I might make an exception IFF I thought the matter of relative quality was really important AND I could back up my assertions with clear evidence published elsewhere by a disinterested party.

Back to the deletion. It's imaginable that some moron will later add to the Canon article "Canon sux, Nikon rulez!" or similar. (Or vice versa.) Clearly anybody can delete such stupidity without a second thought. But if something doesn't make sense I don't think you have to preserve it in the article, or even that you should do so (even if it's not obviously stupid). Better, just pull it out of the article and put it into the talk page, saying on the talk page that you removed it as you couldn't understand it. -- Hoary 21:47, 3 June 2006 (EDT)

"I think that Pentax, Olympus, Canon, etc. would disagree with that assertion. At Photo.Net and such places, plenty of users of Pentax, Olympus, Canon, etc. would also (rather noisily) disagree with that assertion."

Certainly they would. But that doesn't invalidate the assertion. The protests aren't based on objective MTF or resolution tests of the entire range of the manufacturers optics line, evaluation of material build, secondary optical effects, nor comparison of quality control mechanisms, but rather on enthusiasms. There are plenty of objective lens evaluations out there, from Photodo onward, not to mention the experiences of many thousands of owners with the quality (or lack thereof) with mass-produced 35mm camera optics. No amount of objective tests would satisfy anyone with their ego invested in the brand, in any event. Not that any of the aforementioned manufacturers attempt to compete in the MF or LF arena anyway - it took, and still takes, considerable expertise to make large, flawless lens elements.

I understand the logic of tamping down superlatives. But I still insist that there ARE camera lenses that, as a range, consistently provide higher manufacturing quality, tighter quality control, and superior resolution to the overall lens range of other makes. That's not an assertion, it's a fact. It's important as well, otherwise we risk getting the lowest common denominator everytime - if every brand is 'just as good' why not just buy the cheapest 35mm or digi-lens? As to Schneider, I know I've never picked up a new Schneider lens (unlike several famous-name 35mm optics) with bubbles clearly visible in the elements, loose parts, a 47 lpm 'best' resolution, etc. glenmark 4 June 2006

The question of why one shouldn't just pick up the cheapest lens is an interesting one, but I'll set it aside for now. I can and do assert the fact that I've never picked up a new lens by Cosina or anybody else that had bubbles or loose parts; of course I wasn't instantly able to test resolving power. I have read credible stories of parts on certain Cosina lenses quickly working loose; I've also read of mechanical problems with new Leica lenses. Well, if it's a fact that Schneider lenses are unusually and consistently excellent and faultfree, let's have links to argued assertions of this by disinterested people. -- Hoary 19:50, 4 June 2006 (EDT)

As for me, I think that the quality question is twofold:

1. Today Schneider's quality is high, because Schneider mostly equip expensively built cameras (large format, high-end medium format and so on). By contrast, the Japanese makers that have been cited equip all the market range, and it is pretty normal to find a poor lens on a cheaply built camera.
2. This has not always been true. Among the 14 million lenses that Schneider produced, there is a good number of Radionar triplets. At the heyday of the German photo industry, Schneider and Carl Zeiss were comparable to Canon and Nikon today, in terms of lens reputation and domination of the market. This included medium-quality lenses. Maybe the German companies were only more careful not to associate their name with the poorest and cheapest lenses. --Rebollo fr 07:35, 5 June 2006 (EDT)