75 APO Summicron Availability

[ZomZom]

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Having trouble finding the 75 APO Summicron—has it been this scarce for a while?

[Robert Blanko]

It seems that Leica is producing rather small batches of the 75 APO. I recently bought one from a dealer who also had to wait several weeks. When I received mine, there was another one availabe - but now sold. Just checked: Not available in Leica’s German online store either.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Robert Blanko

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[adan]

As Robert says, Leica builds lens types in batches, not continuous production. They are not big enough to have separate manufacturing lines for every lens. So they will set up the machine tools and lens grinders and so on to knock out 1000 or 2000 75 Summicron-Ms - and that will be that for 1-2 years, while Leica cycles through batches of all the other lens types.

Sometimes Leica misjudges the sales rate and ends up with no lenses of a given type for several months (or longer).

In 2010, the 90mm APO-Summicron-M was also MIA for nearly a year, after the intro of the M9 camera. Partly demand with the first "full-frame" M digital, and partly that the techs were taken off lens assembly to help build M9s (per my Leica rep). Maybe the M11 intro has produced similar disruption - along with covid staffing problems, supply chains, yada-yada.

For a few years, Leica has been "pushing" the 28 and 75 Summicrons in special-edition kits (e.g. the Lenny Kravitz "Drifter" Monochrom 246 set) - as though they had too many, and were trying to dispose of them that way. So I guess that lens is feast or famine.

 

[ZomZom]

Great info, thank you both.

[Kwesi]

I remember that lens being problematic to focus correctly consistently on my M9 and M240  bodies. Something to do with the floating element.

Maybe its being redesigned. 

[rim_light]

You can get one at meister camera in Hamburg https://www.meister-camera.com/produkt/leica-apo-summicron-sl-20-75mm-asph/

[otto.f]

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3 minutes ago, rim_light said:

You can get one at meister camera in Hamburg https://www.meister-camera.com/produkt/leica-apo-summicron-sl-20-75mm-asph/

We are talking about the M lens

[didier]

29 minutes ago, Kwesi said:

I remember that lens being problematic to focus correctly consistently on my M9 and M240  bodies. Something to do with the floating element.

Maybe its being redesigned. 

I bought one 2 years ago. It is absolutely perfect (and gives stunning results) without any focusing problems.

 

[rim_light]

11 minutes ago, otto.f said:

We are talking about the M lens

Oh, sorry - but even that lens is available at meister https://www.meister-camera.com/produkt/leica-apo-summicron-m-20-75mm-asph/

[stephan54]

I bought one a week ago and it is at Wetzlar with the rest of my lenses and camera for calibration. Some are a bit more problematic I guess. Problem: infinity was at two millimetres before the hardstop. With LV no problem of course.

Edited April 8, 2022 by stephan54

[LocalHero1953]

I had the Apo-Summicron-M 75 - it was one of my all-time favourites. I never had any focusing problems with it.

Both the 75 and the Apo-Summicron-M 90 reached infinity before the hard stop - confirmed on LV with the M240. When I bought the 90 it never quite reached infinity; when it came back from recalibration it matched the 75, and went a bit over.

It was said then - perhaps an urban legend - that this was intentional with longer lenses simply to avoid the problem of never quite reaching infinity at the hard stop (the longer the lens the greater the sensitivity to focus at the far end. I rarely tried to swing the focus ring to the hard stop for infinity anyway, because my intended focus point was usually short of infinity; shooting at infinity with a long lens for a (non-infinitely) distant subject risked missing focus - as I sometimes found out.

[stephan54]

vor 31 Minuten schrieb LocalHero1953:

I had the Apo-Summicron-M 75 - it was one of my all-time favourites. I never had any focusing problems with it.

Both the 75 and the Apo-Summicron-M 90 reached infinity before the hard stop - confirmed on LV with the M240. When I bought the 90 it never quite reached infinity; when it came back from recalibration it matched the 75, and went a bit over.

It was said then - perhaps an urban legend - that this was intentional with longer lenses simply to avoid the problem of never quite reaching infinity at the hard stop (the longer the lens the greater the sensitivity to focus at the far end. I rarely tried to swing the focus ring to the hard stop for infinity anyway, because my intended focus point was usually short of infinity; shooting at infinity with a long lens for a (non-infinitely) distant subject risked missing focus - as I sometimes found out.

Interesting. My telyt 135 reaches infinity at the hard stop and is sharp at that distance.

When infinity is reached before the hardstop it will be hard to focus with RF as one has to exactly know where to put the focusring for infinity. Anyway my specimen showed that exact focus with LV never matched RF on any distance.