[Leica] Early 90 Elmarit-R question

["Anderson, Ferrel E" <AndersonF@ria.army.mil>]

Javier,

Doug is correct about the double zeros.  Another example is the older 50
Summicron R lens, which has the value of 19.  This indicates that the actual
focal length is 51.9 mm.

The 90 Elmarit R lens you have has the colors for the focusing scales of the
lenses supplied with the original Leicaflex, which had only one aperture
cam.  I bought one of these with my first Leica, the original Leicaflex,
which is now call the Leicaflex Standard or Mark 1.   This was my most used
lens because I did a lot of portraits, landscape, and closeup photography.
This lens is a natural for all of these purposes.  It focuses to 1/6 life
size, and with the Elpro, to 1/3 life size.  Its performance is superb, and
I use it to this day as a control lens for all of my lens resoution tests.
It holds its own with the best modern lenses, and the only lens that I have
tested in this focal length range which betters it are the best of the 100mm
APO Macro Elmarit R lenses.  In its day, all published lens tests indicated
that it is a superb lens.  I don't know how it stacks up against the new
Elmarit R (which is optically the same as the current M lens), but if it is
better, which I expect from Leica, it has to be superb.  Erwin reports that
it is one of Leica's best lenses, and that it is only bested by the 100 APO
and the new APO 90 Summicron.  I expect that the latest version is slightly
higher in contrast and has a flatter field at close distances.  This is
gilding the lilly.   Even thogh I own the 100 APO, my favorite lens is still
the 90 Elmarit R.  Part of this is sentimental, but I like the 90mm focal
range better that 100mm, its lower weight, and its handling.  For most
applications, I can't discern any optical difference with the 100 APO, but
the 100 is slightly better optically at very close distances, and when
shooting with Technical Pan film.