Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/04/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marc,
Agreed, but the best Summitar I ever had was one with an asterisk after
the name. A local feather merchant talked me out that lens years ago.
The only 50mm lens I can tolerate now is my pre-Asph Summilux.. Among
my dozens of lenses it is the ONLY 50mm lens I care to keep.
Except of course the 50mm Distagon for my H'blad.
Jerry
Marc James Small wrote:
> A lot of our view of the first-generation Summicron lenses comes from
> aggressiving advertising by Leitz and by Leitz dealers between 1954
> and 1968. Allow us to move beyond this and review the bidding.
>
> The 2/5cm Summitar (1939 to 1954, only in LTM) is a really remarkable
> lens, and is a most satisfactory normal optick. The one I own was the
> first Leitz lens I ever bought, and my family will have to peel it
> from my dead fingers after my passage to the hereafter, as I have no
> intention of getting rid of it any earlier! I recognize that in hard
> testing on an optical bench, the CZJ 2/5cm Sonnar edges it out a bit
> on most parameters, but both the Summitar and Sonnar are quite nice
> lenses in use.
>
> The 2/5cm collapsible Summicron was a marginal improvement in optical
> performance on the Summitar but was not the earth-shaking explosion of
> excellence Leitz claimed and the US photo press reported. Leitz
> claimed that the collapsible Summicron was redesigned to accomodate
> the growing force of color photography but this is not really true:
> the Summitar is perfectly capable of decent color imagery. Leitz
> started to wake up to market economics with the collapsible Summicron
> by shifting almost all of their lenses to an E39 filter thread in
> place of the unique threads used on earlier lenses, such as the E36.4
> thread used on the Summitar, a unique design.
>
> The first versions of the collapsible Summicron contained radioactive
> rare-earth elements. These proved to be too expensive for mass
> production and most of these lenses have non-radioactive glasses.
> Leitz in those days had its own optical-glass lab but did not produce
> the glasses it used in lens production; these were purchased through
> Schott, a Zeiss subsidiary and, thanks to the Versailles Treaty, the
> only optical glass manufactory in Germany at that time, even though
> Germany had renounced that Treaty two decades earlier. Schott
> supplied and supplies many glasses but does not make them all: many
> of the optical glasses listed in the Schott catalogue to this day come
> from Hoya in Japan and a few come from the USA; in recent years, they
> have added glass suppliers from the former Warsaw Pact nations. The
> significant point is that Schott controls the formula and works with
> its suppliers to meet the needs of customers. All Hoya glasses are
> made, for instance, to meet Schott standards, and I believe that
> Schott is currently selling about 2/3 of Hoya's production, as Schott,
> unlike Zeiss and Leitz, will cut one heck of a deal.
>
> The next version of the 2/5cm Summicron was the rigid lens, which
> later appeared with a revised mount as the DR ("Dual Range"), also
> known as the NF ("Near Focus"). This again tweaked the basic design
> to produce incremental improvements in performance. The difference
> between a collapsible and rigid 2/5cm Summicron is really not great;
> for that matter, the difference in performance between the Summitar
> and the rigid Summicron is not that great.
>
> Those who do their own darkroom work can see the differences: take a
> roll of slow-speed film and take identical shots with all three
> versions (Summitar, collapsible Summicron, rigid Summicron/DF) and
> then properly develop the film for minimum grain (TMY and Rodinal are
> not a recommended combination!). Then play with cropped images to
> learn the differences. I have done this, years back, and the superior
> performance of the rigid Summicron can only be noted with a lot of
> printing enlargement. (I used a DR, only available in M BM, so I used
> adapters to fit the Summitar and collapsible Summicron to my M3).
>
> I own all of these lenses: the 2/5cm Summitar is on my IIIc, the
> 2/5cm collapsible Summicron is on my IIIg, and the 2/5cm DR Summicron
> is on my M3. In the end, there really is not much of a difference
> between them, despite the claims of Lietz' advertising at the time and
> the claims of the clerks at Leitz' dealers back in the Longago.
>
> The important point is to USE these lenses, as all are capable of
> great work.
>
> Marc
>
>
> m