Leica lens "made in Canada"

[phovsho]

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A few questions:

How do these lens compare with their German made siblings?

Is there a premium for the German made examples in the 2nd hand market?

When were Leica lens manufactured there?

Best

Murray

[george +]

They are equivalent to Wetzlar made lenses.

Leitz Canada made lenses for Leica since the fifties.

They are no longer owned by Leica,

If there is a premium on Wetzlar made lenses that is not based on their quality.

[sparkie]

The Midland Canadian lenses are every bit as good as the german production. Some of the best lenses were designed in Canada by Mandler. The noctilux began its life there, the pre-ASPH 35 and 90 summicrons were originally made there. Also the military lenses were all made there - Thats saying something.

[nikau]

The Midland Canadian lenses are every bit as good as the german production. Some of the best lenses were designed in Canada by Mandler. The noctilux began its life there, the pre-ASPH 35 and 90 summicrons were originally made there. Also the military lenses were all made there - Thats saying something.

 

... plus, if I'm not mistaken, the ground-breaking 180mm 3.4 Apo Telyt. The Canadian line used the same production and quality standards as Wetzlar and I've always considered the place of manufacture irrelevant.

[luigi bertolotti]

There is general consensus regards lens quality : Ontario and Wetzlar is the same for the lenses produced in both the factories. The problem of sometime different prices in the collector's market I think is only related to rarity, for some lenses were produced in much smaller numbers in one site or the other : so, a Wetzlar Summicron 35 1st version is worth more than the Canada, an vice-versa for the Summarit 50; nothing strange in this, rarity is always a value in collector's world, not related to the intrinsic quality of the item: a classical example in Leica world is the famed Summar f2 5 cm: it has never been considered a great lens (even if is probably better than its fame), but a mint example in non-retractable mount worths much more than a normal Summicron 50, that in user terms is undoubtly a lot better.

[carstenw]

There is also a philosophical difference between Wetzlar, Solms and Midland. Midland was established after the war, when it became clear that Russia might be a threat to Europe, and Leitz wanted a safe, neutral haven. For this reason, the obvious choice of the U.S.A. was rejected, not being neutral. Canada was chosen, and Midland established for redundancy, and to make sure that Leitz survived in some form, in case of a third world war, or an invasion/takeover of Germany.

 

Wetzlar had some problems after a while, and at some point many, if not most, of the best lenses were designed by Dr. Walter Mandler, a German put in charge of lens design, in Midland. For a long time, many of the most interesting Leica lenses were designed by him, such as the Noctilux f/1.0, the 75 Lux-M and 80 Lux-R, and the 180/3.4 R lens. He was extremely prolific, and I am not sure that his output has even been exceeeded today, in quality or quantity.

 

He did use a different philosophy to Solms, however, in that the subjective results were to him much more important than the objective, technical results. His balance between the two went much further in the direction of subjective excellence, and additionally, he was a master of making rational designs which were possible to mass manufacture at reasonable cost. The Noctilux f/1.0 is a perfect example, using no aspherical elements, whereas the f/1.2 lens it replaced had two hand-polished aspherical elements, IIRC, so not only did he improve the performance of the lens, and made it half a stop faster, he also reduced the cost of manufacture.

 

Anyway, the Solms philosophy of today of course does not sacrifice subjective for objective performance, but the balance has shifted, as we can see for example with such lenses as the 35 Cron IV versus the 35 Cron Asph. The latter is technically better, and a gorgeous lens with nice bokeh, but there are still many people who prefer the slightly weaker performance of the former, for its nicer subjective results.

 

To answer the original question, Solms and Midland (Canada) lenses are all great, and it depends on the lens and your taste which you will prefer. Collectors consider the Wetzlar lenses purer, and prefer them, so the Canada lenses often get lower prices.

[jaapv]

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There is even confusion as to the place of production/design. For instance the 2.8/135 (both M and R) are supposed to be 100% Canada lenses. However, Erwin Puts, who had acces to the factory records, places the first series in Wetzlar, and the second and third series (which other sources call the first and second (!)), at Midland.