Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/01/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 09:56 PM 1999-01-19, David Young wrote: > I was browsing some of the dealer's website today to find the 105/4.5 Pam >Britar at Ken-Mar Camera in New York. The price to my surprise was $495. >Is it one of the rare beasts or special lenses in Leica SM? Does anyone >have any info or experience? >I have never heard that any Leica screw >mount copies were better than the Leica lenses. The 4.5/105 PAM Britar is a rather mysterious lens; Bob Pins contends it was the telephoto for the Kardan. It is a nice lens, but is becoming a collector's piece, rather than a user lens. I've owned several over the years, and they are solid performers, though slow. I have never established any of the details of its manufacturer. Many aftermarket LTM lenses blew the Leitz contemporary lenses into the weeds. Certainly, the Zeiss lens line did so across the board, from the 4/2.5cm Topogon to the 4/13.5cm Sonnar, and their clones, the Russian LTM line continue this tradition. (A 1.5/50 Jupiter-3 performs close to the level of the current 1.4/50 Summilux and certainly is almost grotesquely superior to the 1.5/50 Summarit, for instance.) Angenieux, Meyer, Kodak, Schneider, SOM Berthiot, several Italian houses, Steinheil, Ross, and Wollensak all made LTM lenses which challenged or exceeded the performance of Leitz lenses; Canon and Nikon (LET'S NOT GO THERE, he remarks grimly!), as well as several other Japanese houses did the same. It is an interesting topic: there are hundreds and hundreds of different types of LTM lenses, ranging from superb to horrid. And, of course, there IS an outstanding book on the subject! Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!