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Questionable Leica (M-Lens) Quality Control.


Alan Zheng

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I have described my brand new Summarit 75 decentering issue in another thread.
A dealer in Austria showed me a BRAND NEW Summilux 0.95 a month ago which he cannot sell as "brand new" because it has so much dust in it. He fired up his strong LED through the lens and boy it was something you would not expect from a brand new 10K Summilux. I have no problem with the odd dust speck but this one was quite... dusty.

 

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8 hours ago, rtai said:

What you described has never happened to me nor anyone I know and I own/owned *many* Leica lenses most of them purchased new. 

If it has not happened to you or anyone you know it does not mean it doesn't exist. Even if you have a dozen brand new lenses your count is statistically not relevant to the million(s) of Leica lenses out there. There are BOUND to be lemons among them and that is a hard fact.

Edited by Al Brown
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30 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

I have described my brand new Summarit 75 decentering issue in another thread.
A dealer in Austria showed me a BRAND NEW Summilux 0.95 a month ago which he cannot sell as "brand new" because it has so much dust in it. He fired up his strong LED through the lens and boy it was something you would not expect from a brand new 10K Summilux. I have no problem with the odd dust speck but this one was quite... dusty.

 

I would be interested to hear what conversation your dealer had with Leica. He should have rejected the lens. Incidentally,  I presume you meant to write Noctilux, not Summilux for an f/0.95 lens?

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1 hour ago, wda said:

I would be interested to hear what conversation your dealer had with Leica. He should have rejected the lens. Incidentally,  I presume you meant to write Noctilux, not Summilux for an f/0.95 lens?

Oh of course, NOT Summilux but Noctilux 50/0.95. Thank you for the notice!

@wda I have found a blog on the dealer's page where somebody (not me) shows the dust of this very lens.
https://www.jogeier.com/blog/let-s-talk-about-dust-christian-doffing/
Have seen this very lens (and the dust within) with my own eyes while visiting there, before this blogpost was made.

Edited by Al Brown
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1 hour ago, Al Brown said:

Oh of course, NOT Summilux but Noctilux 50/0.95. Thank you for the notice!

@wda I have found a blog on the dealer's page where somebody (not me) shows the dust of this very lens.
https://www.jogeier.com/blog/let-s-talk-about-dust-christian-doffing/
Have seen this very lens (and the dust within) with my own eyes while visiting there, before this blogpost was made.

I still think the dealer should have spoken to Leica about this matter.

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The problems that Alan noted in his original post are obvious things that could be detected right out of the box.  For those of us that have no dealers nearby, is it possible to pay the dealer for the new lens and ask them to inspect the lens before shipping?  If the dealers discovers a defect they can then can void the sale and then sell you a different lens and go through the same process until you get the lens you expect.  

I suppose a dealer might hesitate doing this because it might turn some "new" lenses into "open box".  In my opinion that should be between the dealer and Leica.  If the dealer sells the defective lens as open-box then I would hope they disclose it in the description.  

Buying anything new and discovering a defect and the retailer saying to work it out with the manufacturer is to me unacceptable.  

 

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I accept that the OP could have had a genuine problem with a lens, but from the photos shown it's predominantly more like a problem of some cleaning fluid that hasn't been polished off, a typical smear ready to be buffed with a lens cloth. It may have been left by a dealer thinking to make the lens perfect from transit dust, but we all have our own levels of perfection, some of which are absurd in the extreme. Not sure where faults with an M10M come into it, unless this is now a general bitching about Leica thread.

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10 hours ago, Al Brown said:

If it has not happened to you or anyone you know it does not mean it doesn't exist. Even if you have a dozen brand new lenses your count is statistically not relevant to the million(s) of Leica lenses out there. There are BOUND to be lemons among them and that is a hard fact.

I was just amazed over the OP’s bad luck. I never had any problems with new Leica lenses but had a few dud bodies including a new M8 that broke the first week, early R8 that was incompatible with the motor drive, DMR back that froze every few hours. And of course the corrosion crap. But they were less QC issue than design flaws. 

Edited by rtai
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1 hour ago, 250swb said:

I accept that the OP could have had a genuine problem with a lens, but from the photos shown it's predominantly more like a problem of some cleaning fluid that hasn't been polished off, a typical smear ready to be buffed with a lens cloth. It may have been left by a dealer thinking to make the lens perfect from transit dust, but we all have our own levels of perfection, some of which are absurd in the extreme. Not sure where faults with an M10M come into it, unless this is now a general bitching about Leica thread.

Only the last one (50 lux) could potentially be cleaning fluid left on the lens, I didn’t bother cleaning the lens because I’m disappointed to see the lens arriving in this condition nonetheless, and I want to return the lens in its original condition, but with regarding to all other examples in the photos, I’ve tried to clean all of them, they are indeed coating scratches. Unless coating scratches is normal to be found on a brand new Leica lens, then I guess I’m asking too much.

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1 hour ago, Alan Zheng said:

Only the last one (50 lux) could potentially be cleaning fluid left on the lens, I didn’t bother cleaning the lens because I’m disappointed to see the lens arriving in this condition nonetheless, and I want to return the lens in its original condition, but with regarding to all other examples in the photos, I’ve tried to clean all of them, they are indeed coating scratches. Unless coating scratches is normal to be found on a brand new Leica lens, then I guess I’m asking too much.

Well you are either the unluckiest person to buy Leica lenses or the least able, one or the other.

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