Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/01/28

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Summicron 50 mm question
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:24:43 -0500

At 12:04 PM 1/28/98 +0100, Erwin Puts wrote:
>This statement has been made several times and has never been proved. The
>original Leica brochure from 1954, describing the introduction of the
>Summicron, including its optical properties, show the identical design for
>both versions. My own findings support the conclusion that the collapsible,
>the rigid and the DR are optically identical. Unless somebody gives really
>factual and conclusive evidence to the contrary, I would prefer to state
>that there were inly three designs and the current one is number 3 and not
>number 4.

Well, for starters, they have different lengths and thus MUST be a
different formula.  Harold Merklinger, a Canadian optical scientist, has
written on this -- see his web page for details:
http://fox.nstn.ca/~hmmerk/HMbook15.html

For another, the COLLECTORS CHECKLIST TO LEICA CAMERAS lists a different UK
patent number for the rigid from the collapsible.  My copy is not at hand,
nor have I ever compared the two.

Marc


msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!