Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/05/05

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Subject: [Leica] Re: 35 mm lenses - possible items of misinformation
From: jsmith342 at cox.net (Jeffery Smith)
Date: Sat May 5 17:05:22 2007

"Officials at Leitz and Leica have both claimd the story to be true and have
denied it flatly."?

Jeffery Smith
New Orleans, LA
http://www.400tx.com
http://400tx.blogspot.com/



-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+jsmith342=cox.net@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+jsmith342=cox.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Marc
James Small
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 5:23 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: 35 mm lenses - possible items of misinformation


At 03:47 PM 5/5/2007, Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:
 >

 >Item 1. I recall hearing that the Summaron 2.8 has the same optics as
>the Summaron 3.5. The lens diaphragm was tweaked to open wider at the
>request of a well known photographer.

I have always read that this occurred at a New 
York Chess Tournament when Eisie was being 
challenged by low light with his 3.5/5cm Elmar 
and queried Ernst Leitz New York about a possible 
remedy.  The story runs that they redid the stops 
on a lens in stock so that it could open to f/2.8 
and sent it over to him, and the rest is 
history.  Officials at Leitz and Leica have both 
claimd the story to be true and have denied it 
flatly.  But the optical construction of the late 
3.5/5cm and 2.8/5cm Elmars do seem to be identical.

I have never heard this story about the 3.5cm 
Summaron though that is possible.  We are now 
well into the realm of camera apocrypha and, as 
all of the principals are dead, we probably shall 
never be able to pin the truth down.  I probably 
ought to ask Emil Keller while he is still around 
as he might well have heard of this.

Marc


msmall@aya.yale.edu
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!



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In reply to: Message from marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small) ([Leica] Re: 35 mm lenses - possible items of misinformation)