Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/06/19

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To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: 50mm Summicron
From: Hans Pahlen <hans.pahlen@mark.komvux.se>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 10:11:40 +0200 (MET DST)

At 11.00 1996-06-17 -0400, you wrote:
>The editor of RFinder magazine, Joel Tlumak, first acquainted me with this
>situation by sharing with me a Japanese test of respective types of
>Summicrons.  To put it bluntly, the current production Summicron is no mean
>performer and is worthy of the Leica moniker -- but the rigid chrome and NF
>designs are generally regarded by users as yielding more satisfactory
>results, and this Japanese test quantifies this.   I do have a copy of this
>report.  I'll see if I can dig it and post it to the List.
>

Please do! I think lots of readers on the list should be very interested. I
have never seen this type of test before.

>
>Therefore, there has been a concerted effort -- pioneed, for once, by Leitz
>and not Zeiss -- to use computers to reduce lens production costs while
>maintaining acceptable quality.  Thus, the eight-element 2/35 Summicron
>gives way to six elements, and so forth.  It's NOT intended to reduce
>quality but, sometimes, that's what happens.
>

Another important factor is that the weight of some lenses have been
considerably reduced, using less elements. But I find it hard to beleive
that there are any new Leica designs that are inferior to the old ones. If I
am wrong, I really would like to know which lenses to avoid!

Regards, Hans