Versions of the Summarex

[UliWer]

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In LFI 7/2011 - german edition - there was an article about the Summarex and its different versions. The author - Mr. Bawendi - says and shows photos, that the second version in chrome (serial numbers 732.001 -732.500) still had the straight lines for the DOF-scale with narrow space for the engraved numbers. He then shows the third version (823.001 - 824.000) with lines for the DOF-scale with elbow lines, giving more distance for the engraved numbers. He also shows, that the numbers of this third version were black, only the index in the middle in red.

 

Now my new Summarex (No. 7324xx) - which should belong to the second chrome version - is different:elbow lines for DOF-scale, broadend space for numbers, red numbers, black index:

 

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My example differs in other details from the description of Mr. Bawendi: He shows a chrome version 1 (593.363) with a triangle in a circle for f-stop index and as far as I understand version 2 should be the same. With version 3 (starting with 823.001) he says this changed to the triangle in a half-circle, like mine - which should be version 2:

 

 

All other details he describes for the second chrome version apply to mine as well.

 

Though mine has a feet scale, while the examples shown by Mr. Bawendi are in meters.

 

So my question is if other users have a Summarex with a serial number from 732.001 to 732.500, which show the details for DOF-scale and f-stop index described by Mr. Bawendi, or do they show the details of my example? Could there be differences between versions in feet - more frequent - and in meter? Or is my example perhaps a late one from the series mentioned above, which already shows some marks of the following series? Or was mine changed? (It des not seem to be changesd as everything is looking and working fine, and I hold my breath when I first tried if it focusses right on the M9, which it does as exactly - or even better - than my modern 90mm Summicron).

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[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello UliWer,

 

Leitz, like many companies, has examples reflecting a degree of variation within production during the transition from 1 version of the same model to another. These are different in some respects from the standardized packages before & after. Some later M3's, for example, do not have the safety collar around the lens release button that most M3's do.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[Scarlet]

What are the three versions? Puts mentions two, the first version, most of which were black but with a few chromes and all with screw-fastened hood, and the second version, only chrome, with bayonet hood.

 

Or do you also count the null series of six lenses, Puts refers to, which was designated as a 9cm lens?

[luigi bertolotti]

What are the three versions? Puts mentions two, the first version, most of which were black but with a few chromes and all with screw-fastened hood, and the second version, only chrome, with bayonet hood.

 

Or do you also count the null series of six lenses, Puts refers to, which was designated as a 9cm lens?

 

Summarex was a costly lens, made in small batches, completely hand-made, and this explains the number of slight modifications that brought to the three version quoted by the OP ... indeed, they are all chrome : one could say that the Black (older) and the Chrome are the two "major versions", and the chrome, in turn, has three "sub-versions" (and the black, too, has some "sub-versions"....Leica world is full of such complications... which are the pleasure of collectors/historicians... )

Edited July 19, 2012 by luigi bertolotti

[UliWer]

Well, I always thought, that there were only two versions: black and chrome.

 

Mr. Bawendi in his article in LFI 7/11 shows the following differences - though some of them very small :

 

1. Protoype "Summar" 1:1.5/9cm (No. 541.051 -541.100 - perhaps 6 examples)

2. Prototype Summarex 1:1.5/9 cm (perhaps one example with no. 541.058)

 

3. black paint Summarex (SOOCX) 593.001-593.100 - 100 examples; anti-reflex "B-Belag" coating, international and european f-stops, bottom part of housing in one part.

4. black paint from 593.101, 276 examples, "modern" coating, international f-stops, bottom of housing in two parts.

 

5. chrome version 1 from 593.350- 593.500, bright chrome, f-stop index with dot or triangle, straight lines for DOF-index

6. chrome version 2 from 732. 732.500 bright chrome, like version 5, but look for my posting #1 for some differences

7. chrome version 3: 823.001-824.000 matt chrome, DOF-scale with elbowed lines, red index line for distance., half-circle with triangle for f-stop index, "Nr." instead of "No." on front ring.

8. chrome version 4 and 5, 940.001 - 941.000 and 1.008.001 - 1.009.000, no knurling on double ring below the tripod-fix, bright chrome front ring above f-stop markings, R-mark for infra-red film.

9. chrome version 6, red lines for DOF-scale, black index for distance with triangle, single ring below tripod fix.

Ufff:rolleyes:

 

Mr. Bawendi seems to cover only versions in meters, so there might be even more variations for feet versions.

 

The hood underwent changes as well. Most important: metal for the late versions of the hood was thicker, so also the cap was changed, which means you can't swap late caps to early hoods and vice versa.

 

Notwithstand all this fuzz about micro-differences: the Summarex is a sort of Leica myth, but an astonishing good lens in practice. It has an extremely long focus-throw, which makes it slow to work with, but so precise and smooth that its a pleasure to focus even at f/1.5 which I feared would be almost impossible. It isn't. Of course it's soft fully opened, though much, much better than the 1.5/50 Summarit. Not much vignetting fully opened, and surprisingly resistant to flare. The hood seems huge, but you see only a fine line in the M-viewfinder. Of course its very heavy, not to be carried safely just hanging down from a strap over your shoulder - you carry the lens in your hand and forget about the camera. I think its out of relation to the size of a screw-mount body for which it was made, but with a bigger M it feels good and very stable. If you put the camera with the lens and hood on a table it stands exactly horizontal.

Edited July 19, 2012 by UliWer

[lars_bergquist]

I would like to add a Summarex question of my own – wartime coating.

 

In LFI 7/2011 Dr. Bawendi says (my translation): The first 100 specimens (No. 593,001–593,100) were delivered from July to August 1943 to the Wehrmacht in Berlin. Most of these lenses have anti-reflection coating, the so-called B-coating (Brillant-Belag). […] Lenses from serial no. 593,101 are always coated […]

 

Indeed, th Summarex has often been quoted as the first Leica lens to be coated. But, the Leica Pocket Book, 8th Edition, says of the 5cm Summitar, that "most sources state that from November 1945 the Summitar was delivered with coating, from serial number 587,601. […] It is unlikely that that the coating was applied so soon after the end of the war as coating technology was military property and demanded elaborate equipment." 1946 is usually given as the first year with coating of some lenses.

 

So, in that case, where did the coatings of the first Summarex batches come from? I also understand that some non-photographic wartime equipment made by Leitz was coated. Did Leitz in fact have coating equipment? Or was the coating 'outsourced'? By the way, the statement that the technology was military propert is untrue. The process was developed in the mid-1930's by Zeiss in Jena. What is true is that the patent (by O. Smakula) was promptly stamped secret by the Reich, but that Reich had ceased to exist in May 1945. All German patents were subsequently declared void by the occupation states, but I do not know exactly when.

 

My own suspicion is that Leitz did coat during the war, when this was called for, but that general coating set in from 1946. The alternative would be that the lens elements were sent out to Zeiss for coating before assembly, a less likely alternative, I think.

 

The old man from the Age B.C. (Before Coating)

[luigi bertolotti]

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Your is an intriguing question, Lars : surely it would be very interesting to have details on which was the "status", in term of equipment, of Leitz factory in the dark days of 1945 (Puts does give some hints about, in his last book). In my opinion, there are some considerations that can be made :

 

- Wetzlar factory did not suffer of bomb attacks

- It was surely rather well provisioned of raw materials during war years

- Its area was occupied by Anglo-American forces which inspected with care it but (probably) did not take away machinery and similar (differently from Zeiss, which had entire manufactuing departments packed away and sent to USSR).

- It is reported that Dr. Dumur (one of Leitz managers, and a relative of Leitz family by marriage), as a Swiss citizen, tried (probably with quick formal acts on Company shares) to claim Leitz as a Swiss property, searching to limit the possible deprivations that the factory could have obviously suffered from winners.

 

Those considerations, which I think aren't wrong, make me think that, even if industrial production was strictly controlled by occupants, the industrial capacity of the factory, in term of equipment, was rather good : of course the MAIN raw materials were scarce and controlled, but the coating process, in itself, doesn't need tons of basic commodities like steel or copper : more important is the equipment and the people to use it : simply said, I think that when they had sufficient basic materials to build lenses (steel - brass - glass) they probably had the capability to apply coating, expecially for lenses that were already "stabilized" as manufacturing cycle (and Summitar surely was such) ; as you say, the issue of coating as a "military property process" was at all immaterial in 1945/46: neither, I think, military occupants treated it as a process of military interest for themselves, taking away and secreting it in their favor (as they did, indeed, for other industrial processes an products they "discovered" in Germany) ; they surely took infos and copied documentation about (as for many other industrial docs), and sent all of this to their commands in case they would decide to treat something as matter of specific military interest, but probably no further actions were taken. A similar story happened for the technology of the BMW bikes' famous "Kompressor" engine (which won the last pre-war Tourist Trophy), sent in Britain with a good set of drawings, but that BMW was free to restart to build as soon as they had available the basic materials.

 

I agree that the involvement of Zeiss (or Schott ?) in the coating is unprobable : Zeiss was, relatively speaking, in a much worse shape than Leitz in that times, and great parts of the concern were in the Soviet-occupied area : it took some years to re-establish the (short lived, but this is another story) collaboration between Jena and Stuttgart/Oberchocken , and probably it would have been not easy to collaborate also with Wetzlar, supposed there was the will to do.

Edited July 24, 2012 by luigi bertolotti

[jc_braconi]

Well, I always thought, that there were only two versions: black and chrome.

 

Mr. Bawendi in his article in LFI 7/11 shows the following differences - though some of them very small :

 

1. Protoype "Summar" 1:1.5/9cm (No. 541.051 -541.100 - perhaps 6 examples)

2. Prototype Summarex 1:1.5/9 cm (perhaps one example with no. 541.058)

 

3. black paint Summarex (SOOCX) 593.001-593.100 - 100 examples; anti-reflex "B-Belag" coating, international and european f-stops, bottom part of housing in one part.

4. black paint from 593.101, 276 examples, "modern" coating, international f-stops, bottom of housing in two parts.

 

5. chrome version 1 from 593.350- 593.500, bright chrome, f-stop index with dot or triangle, straight lines for DOF-index

6. chrome version 2 from 732. 732.500 bright chrome, like version 5, but look for my posting #1 for some differences

7. chrome version 3: 823.001-824.000 matt chrome, DOF-scale with elbowed lines, red index line for distance., half-circle with triangle for f-stop index, "Nr." instead of "No." on front ring.

8. chrome version 4 and 5, 940.001 - 941.000 and 1.008.001 - 1.009.000, no knurling on double ring below the tripod-fix, bright chrome front ring above f-stop markings, R-mark for infra-red film.

9. chrome version 6, red lines for DOF-scale, black index for distance with triangle, single ring below tripod fix.

Ufff:rolleyes:

 

Mr. Bawendi seems to cover only versions in meters, so there might be even more variations for feet versions.

 

The hood underwent changes as well. Most important: metal for the late versions of the hood was thicker, so also the cap was changed, which means you can't swap late caps to early hoods and vice versa.

 

Notwithstand all this fuzz about micro-differences: the Summarex is a sort of Leica myth, but an astonishing good lens in practice. It has an extremely long focus-throw, which makes it slow to work with, but so precise and smooth that its a pleasure to focus even at f/1.5 which I feared would be almost impossible. It isn't. Of course it's soft fully opened, though much, much better than the 1.5/50 Summarit. Not much vignetting fully opened, and surprisingly resistant to flare. The hood seems huge, but you see only a fine line in the M-viewfinder. Of course its very heavy, not to be carried safely just hanging down from a strap over your shoulder - you carry the lens in your hand and forget about the camera. I think its out of relation to the size of a screw-mount body for which it was made, but with a bigger M it feels good and very stable. If you put the camera with the lens and hood on a table it stands exactly horizontal.

This 1954 issued one is in feet scale s/n 1 159 xxx :

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Edited July 24, 2012 by jc_braconi

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Everybody,

 

An interesting historical note:

 

Part of the Military necessity of lens coating was: For coating the optical systems in periscopes which had to be usable for 360 degrees which included looking into the Sun or searchlights. Also for antiaircraft gun optical systems since attacking planes often flew @ their targets from out of the Sun.

 

Nice photo Jean Claude.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[lars_bergquist]

Hello Everybody,

 

An interesting historical note:

 

Part of the Military necessity of lens coating was: For coating the optical systems in periscopes which had to be usable for 360 degrees which included looking into the Sun or searchlights. Also for antiaircraft gun optical systems since attacking planes often flew @ their targets from out of the Sun. […]

 

Michael

 

That was certainly the reason for the secrecy around the original Zeiss 1935 coating patent. But in 1945 the secret was out, and various manufacturers were free to start using the process.

 

To me, the mystery is who coated that Leitz optics during the war itself, and where.

 

The old man from the Age B.C.

[scsambrook]

 

To me, the mystery is who coated that Leitz optics during the war itself, and where.

 

The old man from the Age B.C.

 

I 'm not sure if there's a mystery - but obviously I can't be sure ! Knowledge of lens coating techniques was widespread during the latter part of WWII - for instance, Barr & Stroud here in Glasgow were coating persicope optics after 1943 - and the process was somethng rather short of "rocket science". I can see no reason why Leitz shouldn't have had the capacity to perform the work in-house, even if only on a limited scale. That was how Barr & Stroud did it - their binoculars and rangefinder optics were, as far as I can tell, not coated at all until either very near the war's end or soon afterwards.

[jc_braconi]

Somebody have to ask to Malcom Taylor, as he is doing coating himself.

Edited July 26, 2012 by jc_braconi

[lars_bergquist]

I 'm not sure if there's a mystery - but obviously I can't be sure ![…]

 

I have tended to agree with you all the time. I think Leitz did it all by themselves. But the process was probably not completely settled, so it was not done regularly. Various authors however have pontificated on the near-impossibility of it – and they have made a mystery of it.

 

The old man again

[Peter Branch]

That was certainly the reason for the secrecy around the original Zeiss 1935 coating patent. But in 1945 the secret was out, and various manufacturers were free to start using the process.

 

To me, the mystery is who coated that Leitz optics during the war itself, and where.

 

The old man from the Age B.C.

 

Lars, In the book "A History of the Photographic Lens", ISBN 0-12-408640-3, Page 17 by Rudolf Kingslake, until 1968 Head of the lens design department of the Eastman Kodak Company, he makes reference to the German Patent 685,767 (1936) in the name of A. Smakula of Zeiss and seems to imply that Eastman Kodak was aware of this means of applying anti-reflection coating from that date.

 

Is is being suggested that the German military were aware of the importance of this development in 1936 and restricted its publication?

 

Eastman Kodak had since 1932 owned the former Dr. Nagel-Werke company, (Kodak AG), and had strong links within the German optical industry at that time.

[lars_bergquist]

It has been stated in the literature that the Smakula patent was put under secrecy because of its obvious military applications (u-boat periscopes, bomb sights etc.) I don't know it it is true. But the principle was generally known, so only the exact technical process could be kept under wraps. Even that was pretty obvious, and there is no need to presume that e.g. Kodak's early coating process was a result of a 'leakage' from the German optical industry.

 

In any case, the industry of the Third Reich was very much a directed one (though with the old owners as the economic beneficiaries, as long as they behaved) and neither inside nor outside it, formal patents meant much. Neither is it to be assumed that e.g. the American war industry was much influenced by the existence of foreign patents.

 

The old man who heard the war from afar

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Everybody,

 

Don't forget that both Newton & Leibnitz invented more or less the same Calculus @ more or less the same time, independently of each other.

 

Knowledge is sometimes an equivalent but slightly different assemblage of information available to a # of different people @ more or less the same time.. There is no reason NOT to assume that: A # of different people would discover/invent more or less the same thing @ or around the same time: The airplane.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[UliWer]

It has been stated in the literature that the Smakula patent was put under secrecy because of its obvious military applications (u-boat periscopes, bomb sights etc.) I don't know it it is true. But the principle was generally known, so only the exact technical process could be kept under wraps. Even that was pretty obvious, and there is no need to presume that e.g. Kodak's early coating process was a result of a 'leakage' from the German optical industry.

 

In any case, the industry of the Third Reich was very much a directed one (though with the old owners as the economic beneficiaries, as long as they behaved) and neither inside nor outside it, formal patents meant much. Neither is it to be assumed that e.g. the American war industry was much influenced by the existence of foreign patents.

 

The old man who heard the war from afar

 

I am not sure where I read about it (Puts? Ulf Richter's Book about Max Berek?) that the Zeiss license for coating was given to Leitz because of the importance to use it for lenses of military purposes. Lars' assumption that Zeiss was forced to do so doesn't seem to be probable. The Summarex at its beginning certainly was a "military" lens. So Leitz were just able to use the Zeiss technology without problems.

 

After the war they could go on with it, as Zeiss was situated in the Soviet zone and Leitz much protected by the US/British military administration in the west. Zeiss could not take action agaianst Leitz when they went on to use the Zeiss patents. Some good luck for Leitz just mainly out of geographical reasons.

 

You may find other examples of forced licensing which had much more consequences for the industry: Since Japan was a close ally to nazi-Germany, they were given the licenses to built Zeiss-Contax and Leica cameras without paying for them. Zeiss technicians helped the Japanese optical industry at the beginning. They started with copying but then evolved the production to the present Nikon and Canon industries which are miles away and ahead of either Zeiss or Leica.

Edited July 28, 2012 by UliWer

[Peter Branch]

It has been stated in the literature that the Smakula patent was put under secrecy because of its obvious military applications (u-boat periscopes, bomb sights etc.) I don't know it it is true. But the principle was generally known, so only the exact technical process could be kept under wraps. Even that was pretty obvious, and there is no need to presume that e.g. Kodak's early coating process was a result of a 'leakage' from the German optical industry.

 

In any case, the industry of the Third Reich was very much a directed one (though with the old owners as the economic beneficiaries, as long as they behaved) and neither inside nor outside it, formal patents meant much. Neither is it to be assumed that e.g. the American war industry was much influenced by the existence of foreign patents.

 

The old man who heard the war from afar

 

Lars, I have re-read the parts of Kingslake's book which relate to anti-reflection coating. My interpretation of what he wrote is that "coating" was first observed by H. Dennis Taylor around 1896 and subsequently reported. Lenses tarnished by exposure to the atmosphere were observed to transmit more light. In 1904 Taylor patented the use of acids and other chemicals to cause "deliberate" tarnishing, but this process was "uncertain in operation". The new idea(s) in the Samakula patent seem to be the disposition of a substance on the surface of the glass, rather than modifying the glass itself, together with vacuum deposition of a thin evaporated layer of a lower refractive index than the glass such as calcium fluoride. The book makes no reference to any licencing arrangements or of any attempts to suppress access to this information. The text implies, but does not explicitly state, that Eastman Kodak were aware of this technology from 1936. (This may be significant.) He acknowledges that this patent represented a major breakthrough which rendered it possible to design and build lenses with many air / glass interfaces. Early uncoated Zeiss Planar lenses were apparently subject to negative reviews on account of their light transmission.

 

This leads to the issue of who had legitimate access to this technology and the associated issue of who was using it. Although it seems from other parts of Kingslake’s book that the buying and selling of licences between optical companies was common, the industry, at least in Europe prior to WWII, seems to have been respectful of others’ IP. However “all is fair in love and war” and patents cease to be of any effect in wartime. It may be that Zeiss helped Leitz to manufacture coated optical devices, which may have been required by the German military. What is certain is that US and UK optical companies would have had not the slightest hesitation in applying the technology; if they knew about it. The evidence is that they most certainly did and Eastman Kodak was very much involved. See, http://www.svc.org/assets/file/HISTORYA.PDF, (too large to attach). When and how EK acquired this knowledge was perhaps being deliberately omitted from the Kingslake book. If the German military did, as suggested, attempt to restrict access to the Samakula patent it seems, on the basis of the evidence, that they were singularly unsuccessful.

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[Martin K]

A further small note of historical interest as far as coatings and Kodak is concerned. In an article "The photogrpahic lens" in the Scientific American of August 1976, Willianm H Price, who succeeded Kingslake at Kodak, wrote the following:

 

It had been known since 1936 that a thin coating of transparent material on the surface of the lens could counteract flare, and that for any one wavelength such a coating could in fact eliminate flare entirely...........

Repeated attempts to coat surface of glass chemically with a thin film were inconsistant and unsatisfactory. The key was turned in 1936 when John D Strong of the California Institute of Technology reported success in evaporating a film of calcium fluoride on glass in vaccum. The first fluoride coatings did not adhere well, however. They were soft and rubbed off easily. The problem was solved by heating the lens during the deposition of the coating to drive off impurities.......

 

I also read somewhere (cannot find the reference at the moment) that Leitz did experiment with chemical coatings as well prior to WWII, but that they switched to vacuum deposit coatings when it became clear that their process was a dead end. When this happened was not mentioned.

[UliWer]

I...Lars' assumption that Zeiss was forced to do so doesn't seem to be probable. ...

 

Sorry, I misread my own posting:

 

I wanted to say that Lars' assumption that Zeiss was forced to give the license to Leitz seems probable.

 

I wrote at first:"... doesn't seem to be improbable..." but than changed it - fault of not reading what I wrote - to "... doesn't seem to be probable...".