[Leica] 75 'cron

[red735i at earthlink.net (Frank Filippone)]

If Leica is chasing Bessa/Cosin/Voigtlander, they are in deep doo-doo.  Back
to my argument to fire someone for wrong thinking.

A 105 lens ( if you even guess that a digital M is around the corner or in
the near future, or in the not too distant future, or in the future,
sometime) is dumb.  They have not had a 105 lens in what, 65 years?  There
is a 90 that is popular and there is a 75 that is popular.  If you take (any
Summicron or ASPH Lux) 50mm lens and multiply by the presumed digital factor
of 1.6 you get 80mm AOV. The portrait FL of choice by Leica for 75 years.
Why a 105?    Multiply by 1.4 and you get... 70MM. The FL they already have
in the lineup for 35 film.  I am not saying that thi sis not the reason they
are doing this, but it sounds .... unlikely.

In my mind, there is only 1 logical reason for the lens..... a redesign was
needed for some reason of optical glass availability, or just plain cost.
Face it, Leica Canada has been gone for a while, and this is the last lens
to survive that ex-Canada thing.  If I were going to design a new lens to
replace the existing, I might just think about changing the design for lower
cost ( less optical elements of less costly optical glass).  So a 75 F2
makes sense here.  The 75/1.4 would then be discontinued.

This kind of thinking meets the goal of lower cost ( F1.4 vs F2).  It also
fixes the availability issues.


Frank Filippone
red735i@earthlink.net