offshore Posted December 7, 2009 Share #1 Posted December 7, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) I purchased a 28 mm F2.8 Elmarit almost three years ago and went to clean the front element for the first time last night ( it has always had a filter on it) and noticed this movement in the element barrel. Anyone else noticed this in their 28 Elmarit? I know this lens is a bargain but surely this can't be Leica tolerance. Just want to hear from others before I pack it up and send it in to Leica and wait for weeks to find out it is a characteristic of this lens. The video doesn't show the play until the end so please bear with it as it is short. Leica 28 mm Elmarit on Flickr - Photo Sharing! Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted December 7, 2009 Posted December 7, 2009 Hi offshore, Take a look here Excessive Play In Elmarit Lens?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
delander † Posted December 7, 2009 Share #2 Posted December 7, 2009 Unfortunately it is a known issue with some examples of this lens. Jeff Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blatent liar Posted December 7, 2009 Share #3 Posted December 7, 2009 28 with Floating Elements? JK. The wiggle gets worse, Fast. Mine is In NJ for repair for the same reason/s. Been there for three months. Known issue or not, they asked for my receipt when authorizing the repair. Eventually they found my Passport, and told me, "never-mind this is under warranty". Good Luck Max Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
offshore Posted December 7, 2009 Author Share #4 Posted December 7, 2009 28 with Floating Elements? JK. The wiggle gets worse, Fast. Mine is In NJ for repair for the same reason/s. Been there for three months. Known issue or not, they asked for my receipt when authorizing the repair. Eventually they found my Passport, and told me, "never-mind this is under warranty". Good Luck Max Three months is exactly what I'm concerned about. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosuna Posted December 7, 2009 Share #5 Posted December 7, 2009 I had similar problems with a (more expensive) lens... I cannot understand why Leica allows these lenses to leave the manufacture process. Leica insisted this was a normal characteristic of the lens, and the process of fixing it was painful (two trips to Germany, no fixing at all...). Leica lenses are more expensive than Zeiss' or Cosina's and this is due to better mechanical precision, assembly precision and quality control... So, in my opinion, this is unacceptable. I had a no-positive feeling in handling a Summarit lens in the store (so I didn't buy it finally), and more specifically the aperture ring. I don't know what happens, but I see these assembling problems too often. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyIII Posted December 7, 2009 Share #6 Posted December 7, 2009 (edited) I just got a new 28mm Elmarit ASPH a couple of weeks ago. It is rock solid, no play in it at all. At least for now. Rocky Edited December 7, 2009 by RockyIII Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blatent liar Posted December 7, 2009 Share #7 Posted December 7, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) Three months fell smack when Leica was releasing the M9, and I have a suspicion that they had the US do local QC for initial Release. This and other flurry such as lens coding etc... may have made them extra-busy -- but I have yet to get my lens back. Good For Leica if it forces people to buy a stop-gap, but bad if they buy another brand. Either way good luck. It will get fixed. -M Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
offshore Posted December 8, 2009 Author Share #8 Posted December 8, 2009 I'm afraid my prior experience with Leica repair in NJ is where my hesitation comes to play. Last year I sent them a 21 mm Elmarit for 6 bit coding eight weeks before I was to go live in Mexico for two months with the assurance from them that it would easily be done and back in my hands in a couple of weeks. You guessed it one excuse after another and seven weeks later it was still on the repair shelf. I wrote an open letter to Leica on this forum and sent it directly to Dr. Kauffman and the manager of repairs in NJ. I told the manager to just send the lens back overnight so I could take it with me to Mexico. The lens arrived two days before I left and was miraculously 6 bit coded. I really don't want to go through that again so although it is still under warranty maybe I'll just send it to DAG for a CLA. I really don't understand Leica making lenses like this as I currently own four, three of them I bought used and none of them has ever had an issue, the 28 I bought new and it now feels like it's ready to come apart. I've used Leica equipment for over forty years and never had this happen. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mc_k Posted December 10, 2009 Share #9 Posted December 10, 2009 ...wait for weeks to find out it is a characteristic of this lens... when wiggled like that, that part of the optics is decentered and it could affect focus, correct? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
offshore Posted December 11, 2009 Author Share #10 Posted December 11, 2009 when wiggled like that, that part of the optics is decentered and it could affect focus, correct? I'm not sure as the photos with this lens are tack sharp but I'm more concerned that it may just fall apart one day as it wasn't like that new three years ago. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
grillo Posted December 11, 2009 Share #11 Posted December 11, 2009 I bought mine two years ago. Last summer I noticed the wiggle, and didn't pay much attention to it, but one day a saw a picture I took of a landscape, all elements in the picture effectively at infinity, and the right half of the picture was out of focus and the left half in focus. I did some tests, and confirmed that the wiggle could affect focusing. Most pictures were ok, but if the front element wiggled the wrong way I had weird focusing. A trip to Leica, two months including August, and it's fixed. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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