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The Designers


uhoh7

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Well we all know Mandler and Karbe. And I just learned my favorite, the 28 cron, was designed not by Karbe, but Michael Heiden.

 

But there are quite a few modern Leica lenses for which no designer is listed in the wikis.

 

135/3.4 APO?

SEM 21, 18 and 24?

90 Summarit?

 

There are quite few more.

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Surely lens design isn't a one man job.

I agree, and I'd love to know the back stories in that respect. But usually one person is credited as the designer. It's true with all the old Canon LTMs, where you can look up the whole list and see who did what.

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I know who slaved over my Favorite glass. It was me... On some of them, I spent more time than the person originally assembling it. That is for sure.

More power to you, but all credit given, adapting, repairing, mounting, is somewhat easier than making the optical forumula and bringing it to life in the first place. Not that I could do what you do.

 

But the 135/3.4 is one of the very sharpest Leica lenses today. Mandler is practically a god in this forum and elsewhere, but we have no clue who was in charge of the Telyt APO?

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I had two optical engineers that worked for me. It was very interesting to watch them work. One working on lens pairs to be used for an optical computer. The alignment was critical, and temperature was a factor. The "Big Boss" would make statements like "Just formulate the metal for the barrel to have the same coefficient of expansion as the glass". The optics preserved the phase of the light coming through the lens. The computer worked by comparing the image being observed with one stored. When the two matched, the images canceled out. $40K per lens, 1980s.

 

Same engineer working on a multi aspheric design, annoyed that the manufacturer of the element only gave the coefficients of the polynomial to 3 decimals and not 5... "Bernie, the camera is only 320x200 resolution..." I took apart a Kodak Ektasound 130 Super-8 movie camera to get the 9mm F1.2 lens from it. Next day- he asked if I had 50 of them.

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I had two optical engineers that worked for me. It was very interesting to watch them work. One working on lens pairs to be used for an optical computer. The alignment was critical, and temperature was a factor. The "Big Boss" would make statements like "Just formulate the metal for the barrel to have the same coefficient of expansion as the glass". The optics preserved the phase of the light coming through the lens. The computer worked by comparing the image being observed with one stored. When the two matched, the images canceled out. $40K per lens, 1980s.

 

Same engineer working on a multi aspheric design, annoyed that the manufacturer of the element only gave the coefficients of the polynomial to 3 decimals and not 5... "Bernie, the camera is only 320x200 resolution..." I took apart a Kodak Ektasound 130 Super-8 movie camera to get the 9mm F1.2 lens from it. Next day- he asked if I had 50 of them.

Love this :)

 

here is an updated list of unattributed Modern Leica lenses:

135/3.4 APO

18, 21, 24 SEM

21/1.4

24/2.8 asph

24/1.4

28/1.4

90/2 asph APO

Summarit 35/50/75/90

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The way all three of the 135 APO's I've owned focus, I wouldn't be surprised.

 

Gordon

LOL I thought I had the only one which was a challenge, but I'm hittin it lately:

 

21315057896_26d509b36d_b.jpgHidden Lake by unoh7, on Flickr

 

Just another poor fatherless Leica lens. ;) Or I could call them the......no no, I won't go there :)

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It would be interesting to know what software they are using.

 

Pro/Engineer for mech design of lenses' bodies (I seem to remember) ... no idea about lens computation in itself : there are lot of programs and lot of optimization tools available, in the market, in the public domain, in-house developed... I wouldn't be surprised if Leica uses some pieces that derive from a longtime internal Sw development... it is like this in many companies which have a technology into they have had an historical know-how on the computational side.  

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