[Leica] New 75mm lens for Leica

[m037iu00@cwcom.net]

Luggers,

Yesterday I happened to see the latest experimental 75mm f1.9 lens after it was
revealed in England for the first time!

The optics are again made by a 3rd party, Dallmeyer, and the venerated name on the
front rim is 'Speed Six'. Older members may recall there was a 50mm lens with this
name for the Leica mount back in the 50s, that was made for the 'Reid' copy of the
Leica.
To be pedantic the focal length is listed as 3 inches but this equilavents to
76.2mm, not enough to worry us unduly. Serial number is 380926.

The mount is huge, which seems a little unneccesary compared to the optical
dimensions but the designer maintains that was the only helical mount he had which
was capable of being adapted for the lens. In fact it is a Leitz ZOOXY which has
the lens unit sitting inside perched on a distancing ring of some 14mm which
provides sufficient room to enable the moving of the aperture ring, a fairly
neccersary requirement! This rotates, without click stops to f16 and has 16 iris
leaves, bokeh is anticipated as 'bootiful'!

As older viewers may be aware the ZOOXY itself was not an r/f coupled focussing
mount and this does lead to the rather awkward admission, by the designer, that
the lens is (again like these other 3rd party new fangled lenses) uncoupled. In
mitigation he asked that the extreme focusing  range be taken into consideration,
everything between infinity and 16" can be focused, something which was rather
tricky to do in practise unless a tape measure is taken along or a ground glass
focusing screen is used.

This one-off design is so far not destined for production but alignment with the
M6's 75mm frame seemed spot-on. The first pictures have been taken and will be
processed shortly, we await the results from this coated culprit.

best regards,

Jem