fursan Posted July 20, 2007 Share #1 Posted July 20, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) I often read in the threads, folks refering to various types ( 1,2 etc.) of the same leica lens. What does this refer to? Is there a difference between these lenses? how does one know which is which? why would one buy one type as opposed to the other? should one buy some particular type? maybe sean can add this to his excellent intro to rf article? thanks for your help. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 20, 2007 Posted July 20, 2007 Hi fursan, Take a look here Type 1, type 2 etc. ?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted July 20, 2007 Share #2 Posted July 20, 2007 Often only the lens barrel changes, for example the last 135/4.0 type 1 and 2, without changes to the optical cell, or there are changes to the configuration without changing the basic design like the 135. 2.8 type 1, 2 or 3, or there is a series of lenses with the same name like the Summilux 1, 2, 3 , pre-asph, aspeherical, asph, etc. And then there are lenses that are graduaIly upgraded in coating or glass spec without being recognized as separate versions ("get a late/early one") is an complicated story. If you are interested, there is plenty of litterature on the subject, for instance Erwin Puts' Lens Compendium, but even he gets confused from time to time..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fursan Posted July 20, 2007 Author Share #3 Posted July 20, 2007 Jaap, thanks for trying to shed light on a somewhat arcane topic. I guess I will just stick to the latest lens releases. This subject I shall leave to the practioners of the craft. Regards. Often only the lens barrel changes, for example the last 135/4.0 type 1 and 2, without changes to the optical cell, or there are changes to the configuration without changing the basic design like the 135. 2.8 type 1, 2 or 3, or there is a series of lenses with the same name like the Summilux 1, 2, 3 , pre-asph, aspeherical, asph, etc. And then there are lenses that are graduaIly upgraded in coating or glass spec without being recognized as separate versions ("get a late/early one") is an complicated story. If you are interested, there is plenty of litterature on the subject, for instance Erwin Puts' Lens Compendium, but even he gets confused from time to time..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted July 20, 2007 Share #4 Posted July 20, 2007 Jaap, thanks for trying to shed light on a somewhat arcane topic. I guess I will juststick to the latest lens releases. This subject I shall leave to the practioners of the craft. Regards. If so you will deny yourself the chance of buying some really good older lenses! I own a dozen Leica brand lenses, but only three of them were bought new – the Summicron 28mm ASPH, Summilux 35mm ASPH and Summilux 50mm ASPH. And some of the other lenses are among my favourites. Few of us are rolling in money – especially not our own! The old man from the Age of the M3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted July 20, 2007 Share #5 Posted July 20, 2007 Fursan, you are a nice guy, let me tell you... going for the last lenses is surely not wrong... Lars' observation is true, indeed... I have the impression you haven't the exact idea of what strange breed is the people who are Leica addicted, or simply Leica collectors, or Leica amateurs, call them as you like... We (I'm of the band) LOVE A LOT to know everything about lenses history, development, versions... just as an example: - I have 7 Elmar 90mm, all different in something.. - I was eager to post some identical shots made with 3 models of 21 mm... frankly, was rather obvious that newer=better... no surprise... but like so much to make these tests... was satified that someone made observations on it. - I posted pics made with M8 with a very old lens (Summarex 85 mm 1,5) and an even older lens of 75 years ago (Hektor 73mm 1,9) ... why ? Wanted to demonstrate something USEFUL for a M8 customer ? Absolutely not... simply I love those items (and my depicted daughters...) Do not take too seriously these questions of model 1,2, 2 modified, 3... and if you learn to use well your M8, the brand new lenses are surely the better choice (provided you can afford $THEM$ ) And let us continue to speak about our passions... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fursan Posted July 20, 2007 Author Share #6 Posted July 20, 2007 Lars, Luigi Thanks guys for responding. Not that I can afford all new Leica stuff, but for me it is impractical to get third party equipment. I am new to Leica and my primary motive has been to carry something light with excellent lenses. I am sure the knowledge and history of leica cameras and equipment and the images they made is fascinating. I can only read in awe the knowledge and love that leica engenders amongst its owners. It might be heresy within the leica community, but I do not fall in love with material objects. I use them and change them. Like Leica yes, love a material object..nah! I do have to admit however, that possession of objects of subdued elegance does give me pleasure with kindest regards. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted July 20, 2007 Share #7 Posted July 20, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Fahim-- You might compare these version numbers to year models for automobiles, though that's more apropos in the US market. For example, the term "'57 Chevy" immediately conjures an image to someone interested in Chevrolets. If you succumb to this version madness, a good place for enlightenment is Erwin Puts's Leica Lens Compendium available at http://www.imx.nl/photosite/comments/paypal.html. --HC Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fursan Posted July 20, 2007 Author Share #8 Posted July 20, 2007 Fahim--You might compare these version numbers to year models for automobiles, though that's more apropos in the US market. For example, the term "'57 Chevy" immediately conjures an image to someone interested in Chevrolets. If you succumb to this version madness, a good place for enlightenment is Erwin Puts's Leica Lens Compendium available at http://www.imx.nl/photosite/comments/paypal.html. --HC Howard, your reponse greatly appreciated. I will definitely visit that site, but I doubt I have become addicted to leica that much to get further confused. Best. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eoin Posted July 20, 2007 Share #9 Posted July 20, 2007 Fahim, There are degrees of excellence and new does not always equate to a better excellence. Each lens and most versions of that lens tend to draw (fingerprint) differently. In general the newer Asph lenses are better corrected than their prior versions but may draw harsher or with more contrast. Contrast may not be so much of an issue if shooting colour but the spread of tones in B&W may be narrower. There are many fine leica lenses out there at 1/3 of the price of the "newer" version, perhaps they may 95% of the quality of the newer lens but I'm damned if I can see €2000 difference in a 10x8. Yes I can already see the difference between leica glass and SLR glass I've used in the past, but the only difference I see in leica stuff is do you want to draw with a sharp hard pencil or a soft pencil. In terms of overall sharpness the newer lenses tend to be slightly sharper wide open but close the older and newer lenses down they tend to match each other after a stop or two. And we're talking tiny advantage here. By all means if you have the funds you have the options, but an extra €1000-€2000 per lens soon adds up when you've 4-5 lenses in the bag, not to mention all those classics that you'll never try. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted July 20, 2007 Share #10 Posted July 20, 2007 For instance, one of my favorite lenses is the Summarit 1.5/50 of 1954, a direct precursor of the Summilux series, A pre-war Zeiss design, Leica only added some rather ineffective coating. Wide open, Erwin puts calls it " practically unusable" but on the M8 it transforms into a classic of high character. stopped down, it is nearly levele with any Summicron. 300 Euro for a good one.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted July 21, 2007 Share #11 Posted July 21, 2007 Jaap, permit me to correct your Summarit history. The 1.5 Summarit is based on British patents. The patentee (Tayor, Taylor & Hobson) gave a licence to Schneider, who manufactured the Xenon 1.5 for Leitz – but it seems that Max Berek too had worked on the basic design, so that Letz too had valid patents. In any case, the Xenon was a 'prestige lens' which Leitz needed in order to compete with the Sonnar 1.5 for the Contax. And that was all that Zeiss had to do with it! The lens was horribly expensive, and it was not for sale in Germany except for a short period in 1938. The lens had ten uncoated free air-glass surfaces, was extremely flarey and prone to reflexes, and lost nearly half the light before it reached the film. Series production ceased in 1942. After the war some remaining (or newly assembled from parts) Xenon lenses were coated at the factory. Even with the single coatings of the day, this made a great difference – the lens became practically usable. Thus Leitz brought out a recomputed but basically unchanged lens under the Summarit name. By then the British patent had lapsed, but a patent was still in force in the U.S.A., so early Summarit lenses still carried the legend "Taylor-Hobson U.S. Patent 2019985". And the Summarit is still a slightly recomputed and coated Schneider Xenon, designed with what was essentially pre-war glass. Mr Puts is a severe judge, and while the Summarit is still pretty flarey and not terribly sharp wide open by modern standards, it is still usable, and as you have found, a pleasantly drawing lens at mid-apertures. New Leitz glass did open the way to better fast lenses however, and the Summarit was discontinued in 1960 in favour of the Summilux – but that is a different, and quite bizarre story. The old man from the Age of Slide-rule Optical Design Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fursan Posted July 21, 2007 Author Share #12 Posted July 21, 2007 Eoin,Jaap Guys, thanks for your responses. Jaap the images are wow! Regards. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted July 21, 2007 Share #13 Posted July 21, 2007 ... New Leitz glass did open the way to better fast lenses however, and the Summarit was discontinued in 1960 in favour of the Summilux – but that is a different, and quite bizarre story. Lars-- Don't leave us hanging! Inquiring minds want to know the history of the Summilux, bizarre though it be! Tell us, give us the Gospel of the Lens! Must we beg? Please, oh please, speak to us! Fahim-- See what your seemingly innocuous question has led to? We Leicaists are truly strange! --HC Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fursan Posted July 21, 2007 Author Share #14 Posted July 21, 2007 Lars, now I know who to go to for Leica lens information! btw, I was in scandinavia a couple of months ago. Beautiful people and country. My memories of sweden will be cherished for long! Let's meet and share: Regards Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted July 21, 2007 Share #15 Posted July 21, 2007 Lars--Don't leave us hanging! Inquiring minds want to know the history of the Summilux, bizarre though it be! Tell us, give us the Gospel of the Lens! Must we beg? Please, oh please, speak to us! Fahim-- See what your seemingly innocuous question has led to? We Leicaists are truly strange! --HC I am enjoying a lot this thread... ... Fahim's question has made it sprouting out all the intimate feelings of some Leicaists of us... I don't dare to think what could happen if, say, Lars, Jaap, HC and me would meet for an honest beer drink somewhere... Summilux, you say ... blah, all of "US" know that the first Summilux was EXACTLY a Summarit, i.e. the perennial Xenon design... f 1,4 was becoming more à la mode than f 1,5, that smells of old lens scale, so Leitz people decided to make a new barrel, to rename it and say it was 1,4... who notice the difference towards 1,5 in practice ? But they are serious people... and never permit that marketing issues prevail an their real tech knowledge and engineering slills... and 3 years after ('62 - n. 1.844.001) the REAL Summilux, Leitz design, Leitz glass, was on the market: they didn't change barrel, name, code... maybe they felt ashamed to have used till then a superold design... LARS ! If you have to say something about my story, I'm ready to front your fire... FAHIM, follow Jaap's advice ... go on the Net (I sponsor Leicashop of Wien...) and buy some 50 or 35 or 90 for about 1/6 - 1/10 of a new item... something strange then could happen to you too... I am a normal person, and so I think the above guys... but something strange took us for some reason, some day many years ago... in the '70s I thought "well, this Leica IIIc with Elmar 50 works fine, let's find a wideangle and a tele..."; how damn it happens that now I have about fifty lenses ....? Ah, ah, life is nice also for those strangeries... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fursan Posted July 21, 2007 Author Share #16 Posted July 21, 2007 Luigi, I can almost imagine myself sitting in a corner on the orient express, overhearing you guys discussing leica lenses and faberge eggs. oh! the long last past! Regards. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted July 21, 2007 Share #17 Posted July 21, 2007 ... I don't dare to think what could happen if, say, Lars, Jaap, HC and me would meet for an honest beer drink somewhere... I can almost imagine myself sitting in a corner on the orient express, overhearing you guys discussing leica lenses and faberge eggs. oh! the long last past! Fahim-- If you like, we'll make it a coffee bar and skip the beer hall. Either one works for me! But we need to watch out, otherwise the moderators will banish the thread to the "Collectors and Historica" section. There really is an amazing amount of history in the Leitz family and in the Leitz and Leica lenses. And there are people for whom a good read is a list of Leica serial numbers and the year they were sold. I don't think the present company includes any of the latter, but the fact that you raised the question "What is type 1, type 2, etc?" indicates that there is some danger of your interest growing out of control. Perhaps you should walk away now; on the other hand, there are worse vices than Leicas... --HC Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted July 22, 2007 Share #18 Posted July 22, 2007 a) Fahim: Few people may deal in used Leica lenses in Arabia, but I have got some of my used gear from Leicashop in Vienna (http://www.leicashop.com). Their website is excellent, their service is prompt, and they are honest. I do business with them without hesitation. Howard: Here's the Summilux dope. The first version 50mm Summicron, of 1953, was the first Leitz lens to benefit from the new lanthanum glass from the in-house laboratory, and from computer-aided design. This led to a spate of new high-performance (for the time) lenses: A new rigid 50mm Summicron, a 2.8 35mm Summaron, the first 35 mm Summicron, new 90mm lenses, and in 1959 a new high-speed 50mm. This did actually continue the general Taylor-Hobson/Xenon/Summarit layout, with the rearmost element of the classical double Gaussian design repaced with two flat, thin bi-convex single elements; fast 50mm lenses of this general design were in fact designed in Japan even in the 1970's. The lens was however newly computed for the new glass, and its definition when wide open is in fact a bit better than that of the Summarit. Still, the very first lenses were actually engraved 'Summarit 1:1.4'! Soon changed to Summilux however. This proved to be a case of 'too little and too late'. The Japanese competition offered lenses with more of the high contrast 'bite' that available light photographers had begun to demand. So a new design was begun nearly immediately. This had a different rear end, and much improved performance. And now begins the bizarre part: The new Summilux was put into production during the winter of 1961–62. But Leitz hushed up the change! There was no announcement. The lens mount (classical chromed brass, with the elegant intermittent knurling on the focusing ring, E43 filters) was outwardly unchanged, though the weight had increased from 325 to 360 grams. This, and the serial numbers –1.844.001 was the first of the new lenses – are the only way to distinguish the two designs. Leitz did in fact not own up until 1968. By then the mount had already been changed to black-chrome aluminum. But this became the most long-lived Leica lens of all times. It was not discontinued until 2004, optically unchanged though with improved coating and after one further mount redesign in the 1990's. The reason for this unprecedented production run is simple: the lens is as good as a 50mm 1.4 lens can be made with classical technology. Leica had to pull out all stops except the f-stops (exotic glasses, aspherical technology, a floating rear group) in order to produce someting better. The current lens however is a super one. I can imagine only one reason, though not an entirely honourable one, for the Leitzian stealth policy: that they had lots of old lenses in stock and did not want to hurt the sales. A better explanation, from the horse's own mouth, would be welcome. I may add that one classical Xenon/Summarit lens layout is still with us. It is called the Noctilux (current lens). The old man from the Age of the M39x1mm Screw Thread Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
carstenw Posted July 22, 2007 Share #19 Posted July 22, 2007 Lars, do you have a great reference somewhere, perhaps Puts' "Leica Lens Compendium", or did you actually learn all this along the way? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MP3 Posted July 22, 2007 Share #20 Posted July 22, 2007 Lars, our great leitz historian.It's real pleasure reading your thread ! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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