Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/01/16

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Subject: RE: [Leica] 85mm f2 Russian now a question of Thorium glass
From: "Don Dory" <dorysrus@mindspring.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 07:40:17 -0500

Karen,
You make an excellent point and I have some older lenses where the
balsam is clearly yellowing.  However, this particular lens has at least
one very yellow element, probably the thick center element in the
triplet of a sonnar design.  In this case, far more yellow than the one
in my very early Summicron or in any of the aero Ektars I have seen.

I have only seen one other lens almost this yellow and that was one of
the early production Canon 35 F2 FD lenses.

Don
dorysrus@mindspring.com

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Karen
Nakamura
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 12:52 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] 85mm f2 Russian now a question of Thorium glass

>Neal,
>I have one of these in LTM and it is stunningly good.  However, it
>exhibits all the attributes of radioactive glass as it is quite yellow,
>to the point that you can not shoot color film unless you want a nice
>yellow tone.


Yellow can also be caused by the balsam glue used to cement elements 
together just getting old. It happens in a lot of RF viewfinders. 
Pain in the neck stuff to get off and get cemented again.

Karen

- -- 
Karen Nakamura
http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/
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