Mustafa Umut Sarac Posted March 13, 2007 Share #1 Posted March 13, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) I am reading similar comments about old Leitz lenses . A - They were better. B - They have stronger and different character Below written paragraph is widely told also. C - Lens design is a billion variable art and to reach a final , manufacturable and character owned lens there were the selections of designer. D - Nowadays , lenses designed with the help of computers and however these lenses are not good as old ones. And why modern lenses are not good as the older ones ? A - May be older ones were more expensive for their time B - Their carving , polishing time were longer C - Glasses were rarer or harder to manufacture. D - To manufacture lots of lenses is requiring more , same glass now - İt is not same thing to manufacture rare earth glasses as the old time. E - Leica needs shorter manufacturing times F - They have to be cheaper for race with Asia. G - Leica company need more profit per leica. OR THE WORST REASON CAN BE H - Leica staff are not good as the older ones and the good fingerprinting process lost in time. I have enough love, time and space to find the truth. I ran after Zildjan Cymbal Secret 20 years and now you can read the story at wikipedia. I will have many things to learn about the old leica lenses. First of all , I will need their design reports for to analyse with software. And I need Leicas own mathematical analyse methods. For to do this , I need to use archives remote. How can I do this ?Or where can I find individual researcher for me ? Best , Mustafa Umut Sarac Istanbul Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 13, 2007 Posted March 13, 2007 Hi Mustafa Umut Sarac, Take a look here Older Better Research at Archives. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
telewatt Posted March 14, 2007 Share #2 Posted March 14, 2007 that is not true that the older lenses are "better".. they are different to the new line of ASPH lenses....but sharpness and contrast is no the hole story to get nice pictures... ..the older one has a lot of charming characteristics you can play with!.. Regards, Jan ..look at Erwin Puts " Leica Lens Compendium"..he wrote a lot about the lenses..not all is gold but a lot of information.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mustafa Umut Sarac Posted March 14, 2007 Author Share #3 Posted March 14, 2007 Most importantly , I want to learn to do the same way of calculation , prediction of Max Berek or other Leitz precomputer designers. There are many books from 1930 from Max Berek at amazon with the price tag 30 dollars. Which helps me to learn the way of these designers. Is there other Leica sourced books , technical articles hidden in the past which explains the methods ? Do Leica archives help ? I think even summicron is faraway distance star to old lenses. Best , Mustafa Umut Sarac Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimF Posted March 15, 2007 Share #4 Posted March 15, 2007 Most importantly , I want to learn to do the same way of calculation , prediction of Max Berek or other Leitz precomputer designers. Why so? Lens design is a matter of balancing various factors. I'd suggest you get hold hold of some books by, eg, Rudolf Kingslake (I have his "Lenses in Photography" and "A History of the Photographic Lens"). Whilst not Leica specific, for obvious reasons, these contain much of use in a form that is readable by the non-specialist, and have bibliographies if you feel the need to investigate further. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted March 15, 2007 Share #5 Posted March 15, 2007 Uhm, I think you are searching for infos not so easy to find... The lens designs of Leica lenses are easy to find, superpublished, and I argue that expecially for recent lenses one can extract rather precise dimensioning.. but what about GLASS specs ? If you know something on lens design (and seems to me is so), You know well that lens computation is based on geometrical data on lenses AND the optical parameters of GLASS (mainly, the diffraction and dispersion indexes... remember the old "Flint" and "Crown" glasses...) I think that glass data are definitely out of reach, for logistics reasons on old lenses (very old docs... somewhere in Solms? in Ontario?) and for understandable "industrial secret" on new lenses. What is surely known is that at Leitz factory they used to assign CODES to glass types ... some of them are published, but this tells nothing about parameters (seem to remember something like "glass formula E237"... and then ?). And one has also to take in account that before a certain year (end of the '50s, seem to remember) Leitz DID NOT produce its own "crude" glasses: they bought it from external (German) suppliers, mainly from a company belonging to the Zeiss Group (named Schott, if I do not mistake...) : so, the basic glass parameters were data provided by the supplier (ans surely checked by Leitz legendary QC...). Regarding METHODS of computation... some insight can be done: as You say, Berek wrote a lot on the topic, and good tech books of the prewar years are easy to find... and Erwin Puts has written several pages on this, even if mainly with attention to the "principles of lens design at Leitz" and not on the "specific tech metodologies". Use of Computers seems that started at Leitz sometime in the '60s... I think with applications partly developed in house but partly bought outside (the firs programs on lens design cam of course from USA... I have read that Corning and Kodak were pioneers). I work in the IT CAD/CAE business and, by myself, would like a lot to know something about the story of such Software usage in Leitz/Leica... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted March 15, 2007 Share #6 Posted March 15, 2007 I have followed this thread with interest. I'm curious as to the reasons for the question? What is the ultimate objective of all this? Regards, Bill Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted March 15, 2007 Share #7 Posted March 15, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) What is the ultimate objective of all this? The objectif is the objective Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted March 15, 2007 Share #8 Posted March 15, 2007 I have followed this thread with interest. I'm curious as to the reasons for the question? What is the ultimate objective of all this? Regards, Bill Yea, tell us your goal, Mustafa... I can only imagine some reasons: - " Love Sentiments" about old-fashioned engineering... people exist who collect and use slide rulers...can find on the Net groups on this... - "Love for pure math" : the one that, by myself, I could feel also: lens design with old-fashioned method is mainly a strong math exercise, that involved math methods of optimization that have been COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN with computers (they no more appear in Academic books, but look at a University texts of the '30s...): you have a system of n equations with n variables to deal with, you have parameters to optimize, which are the math rapresentations of the well known optical abherrations... Is not casual that the first systematic method of designing a lens system has been developed by Gauss: the "Prince of Mathematicians". - Get in business with some chinese outfit to produce clones of unforgettable brands :Hektor, Summar, Summarex, Xenon (*).. Tell us your goal, Mustafa. (*) A joke... ALL PEOPLE know that "Leitz" Xenon was a Schneider design based on an English Taylor-Hobson patented computation... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mustafa Umut Sarac Posted March 21, 2007 Author Share #9 Posted March 21, 2007 If a old Leitz lens is Pablo Casals , new Leica lenses and cameras are Yo Yo Ma. Something happens when you listen Catalan cellist Casals records on Bach Cello Suites. First , you realized Casals knows and understood the genius , complicated mind of Bach. Bach was not a ordinary man who lost his 11 children and was very sad as Yo Yo Ma told us at his videos and recordings. He was a genius who can think countless times more and complicated than an ordinary man. If Yo Yo Ma tells you that Bach was a calculator , Casals tells you he was a Cray Supercomputer. Casals play the melody but he plays more about the internal structure. He plays like a Spanish flamenco artist. Second you impressed the strong round tube tone of his instruments tone. No cathedral reverb , no heavy metal harsh trebles but pure malt whiskey. I do not know how many Leica users used old Leitz lenses from 60 years away nowadays. And I do not know the statistics of m8 users , who are they , how many Leica did they use , what did they understand from older ones . Only thing I know about noctilux , summilux and elmarits are not good lenses like summitar or summaron. Old lenses were seeing more than eye and creating unbeliviable degrades. They are giving similar sense that you are creating with the same tones of Da Vinci or Goya. Before Leitz , I contacted with Zeiss about Goerz Dagor. They said all papers gone. I think there is no one who wants or believes the fingerprints of dagor , cooke etc.anymore in young generation. I read a post at apug , writers were saying if AA lives , he would use digital hasselblad. No way , you cant reach his prints with a hassy. May be it was necessary to produce these lenses. 1940s Magazines were publishing by tiffdruk and with dense alcohol based very glossy inks.Kodak films were excellent and it was waiting its camera. Magazines were cold war weapons and they were publishing propaganda pictures of good life in usa or nazi germany. And they made leicas as cadillac convertible or U boat. For me , to research Leica math and hand calculating methods is the journey to the mind of forgotten genius. But there is more , you can create your lens and see the result if you read Patrick Maedas paper integrating lens design from stanford free and if you reach to the open code of kdp 2 software. Lots of fun ? You bet , it is Best , Mustafa Umut Sarac Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Concorde-SST Posted March 21, 2007 Share #10 Posted March 21, 2007 Sorry, no offense to anyone, but this thread sounds obscure to the least. I can hardly follow how much "better" the old Leica lenses could be? I think this opinion building is severely based on nostalgia and the desire to do perfect manual labour without the "unhuman" computer involved. Sorry, I agree in many ways that it is regrettable, but the fact is, without computers we won´t have much technological advances. Good old Ansel would of course use the very best available tools (mark it, TOOLS, not Leica specified) to create his pre- visualized photograph. Its just easy to say that his prints can not be done nowadays, because without the current state of the technologies its difficult to see the ones of his heyday. He just put an awful lot of effort into his manual darkroom work. Every time has it great masters and they cannot be recreated only admired. I also don´t see the point putting so much effort in this matter. best, Concorde-SST Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mustafa Umut Sarac Posted March 21, 2007 Author Share #11 Posted March 21, 2007 And I believe , if customers demand digital leicas , even todays lenses and their technology will be lost also. I think I can publish a book about all but I need archive guys help. Is there any archive officers at the group ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted March 21, 2007 Share #12 Posted March 21, 2007 OK Mustafa, you really have explained well your sentiments, which I take respect of: many people in this forum, and also experts like Puts, argue that modern lenses are generally better than old classics: I do not enter the question, I have not tools and experience to make such evaluations with scientific method, and anyway one can discuss is some scientific method can really measure the feeling that a certain lens can give to a picture; personally, I use lenses only from the '40s to the '60s, but the reason is that I am a collector/user with usual money limitations: if I have to choose to put money into a Summicron ASPH 35 or, say, a nice Thambar... no doubt for the latter. It seems to me You would like to join the group of people from various countries that, in their own way, have became the "accreditated" historicians of Leitz factory: people like Lager, Rogliatti, Van Hasbroeck, Bawendi... it is well known that these people have acces to archives from the factory, and so I deduct that there are also insiders at the current Leica factory that take care of archives... Have you the time to try to get into this environment? If so, good luck... I do not know thay way to get in touch with them : for what it can worth, I could suggest to start to contact the Leitz Museum... it is linked to the factory, surely has its own manager... write him, qualify yourself... ask for a personal meeting... try to start your work of historician: is nice to have a mission/passion of your own. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan Henderson Posted April 3, 2007 Share #13 Posted April 3, 2007 This is my first posting. I don't have a Leica, but I am a historian and photographer. I am currently romancing a Canon F1n and its wonderous 85mm 1.2 portrait lens. Mustafa has a very interesting historical approach to learning what Leica users universally understand as the essence of a classic Leica. The purpose is to get your responses, even if they are emotional not just technical because he values how you value this thing called "quality." I see why he brings in descriptions of the arts in describing this tool, this paintbrush, this new medium. I would like to contribute that the quiet shutter of the Leica and it's wide aperture portrait lenses convinced many federal judges in U.S. courts to begin allowing cameras in the courtroom in the 1940's and 1950's. NPPA presidents Joseph Costa and Arthur (Art) Witman were champions of this. They even held a mock court proceedings in which the Leica was basically put on trial. I have original photos and documentation of this event, in which the U.S. Attorney General was present. Before the trial was over, they had pictures printed of the judge that no one thought possible without a flash. Say what you will about the use of the Leica by art photographers, it was in the field of photojournalism that Leica became a legend. It killed Graphlex and 6 x 9. It allowed photojournalists to be unobtrusive, quiet, and to be able to carry their constant companion at all times. I know that the 1/500 and 1/1000 of a second certainly drew them in as well, and so did the small flashbulb units. I'm going to read Mustafa's Zildjin work...best cymbals in the world. Stan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan Henderson Posted April 4, 2007 Share #14 Posted April 4, 2007 Here's an article that y'all might enjoy by Frank Van Riper. Stan Camera Works: Photo Essay (washingtonpost.com) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan Henderson Posted April 4, 2007 Share #15 Posted April 4, 2007 This 1930's Leica 250 "Reporter" camera with the bulk load body must have been the "pro" model of its day. It is 1/1000 of a sec. Can you imagine how empowered / energized its user must have felt when the photo editor handed him this new toy? He must have thought, "Wow, I can take 100 pictures of the Hindenburg landing without even changing a roll!" It is listed on ebay currently at $20,000. Stan eBay: Rare Leica 250 Reporter Camera EX++ Vintage (item 140102365723 end time Apr-05-07 12:49:16 PDT) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
telewatt Posted April 4, 2007 Share #16 Posted April 4, 2007 ...the most fascinating point of the older lenses is the softer contrast....look at the pictures from 1930 to 1975 you can see, they are taken mostly on sunny days and you have a "realistic" vision in the shadows and they are very very fine grain pictures of the contrast.. ..but with the new lenses you will get in trouple to put it on the film.. black shadows and to much contrast to "feel" the picture is reality... ..that is the reason why I use the older and the new lenses... regards, Jan sorry for my english.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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