Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Leica, according to articles in Leica Photographie and their press releases, does not use any plastic or plastic/glass hybrid aspherical lens elements in their lenses. The wide angle Leica M aspherical lenses use a press forming technique with glass that results in an aspherical surface that does not require any further surface finishing other than coating. This technique can be used only on lenses that are about one inch or smaller in diameter. The 90 Aspherical Summicron, because of the larger size of the lens diameter, is formed with a mechanical grinding and polishing technique. In regard to an earlier comment that Leica is pouring its resources into the Leica M lenses, I have to point out that they have recently issued new R APO lenses such as the 180 APO Elmarit-R, the 180 APO Summicron-R, the 280mm f4 Apo Telyt, the Modular APO 280, 400, 560, and 800 lenses, the 70-180 APO Elmarit-R, the 35-70 f2.8 Aspherical Elmarit-R and other state-of-the-art zoom lenses. Their attention in the R lens series has been focussed, appropriately, on long single focal length lenses and zoom lenses. I expect (and hope!) to see an APO 90 Summicron-R lens in the immediate future. I also think that they will replace the 24 Elmarit-R lens soon with a aspherical design. I think that Leica will also upgrade the 50 mm Summicrons, both M and R, and the 50 Summilux M lens. Other R lenses that I have not already speculated on that are getting long-in-the-tooth are the 60mm Macro Elmarit -R, the 35mm Summicron-R, and the 15mm f3.5 Super Elmar. They are still superb lenses, but Leica seems bent on a remarkable crusade to design the best lenses in the world. I think that the challange of Zeiss in the form of the G cameras and the superb Zeiss G lenses has helped spur their progress in reformulating their lens lines. Maybe they should follow the lead of Zeiss and provide lenses for other makes of cameras. Why not a 120mm APO Macro Elmarit -R for Hasselblad?