Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/07/23
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At 07:05 PM 7/23/96 -0400, Bob Sperling wrote:
>At 11:46 PM 7/22/96 -0400, you wrote:
>>At 06:16 PM 7/22/96 -0400, bowtie@mail.abest.com wrote:
>>
>>>Here is an interesting sidenote: Originally, Leitz had designed a 40mm F2.8
>>>lens for the Leica CL. When Minolta showed up with an 40mm F2 Rokkor - with
>>>superior quality, Leitz went back to the drawing board and came up with the
>>>F2 lens - of equal (not superior) quality.
>>
>>I would appreciate your posting a source for this, especially as to the
>>respective "quality" of the lens and the standards by which this "quality"
>>was determined.
>>
>>Marc
>>
>>msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315
>>Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!
>>
>Gosh! A source... well, how about me? I owned an F2.8 40mm Summicron and
>sold it to the Swedish collector Robert Schonherr. There was more than one.
>In late '72 or early '73 Leitz had decided that the Leica CL would be sold
>with the lens I have described. When Minolta showed Wetzlar what they had
>worked up for the camera thay were going to sell as the Minolta CL, Leitz
>really had to change their thinking. How would it look for Minolta to offer
>a superior lens on their version of the identical camera offered by Leitz.
>Stan Tamarkin (in those days a fledgling collector; not yet a dealer) and I
>attended the September 1978 Petzold Auction in Augsburg. At that sale a
>private party sold me the F2.8/40mm. Perhaps Jim Lager has photos. He
>usually took pictures of anything interesting I had. (In fact, nine of the
>cameras illustrated in Lager I were my cameras) As to the superiority of the
>Minolta lens - I only have annecdotal evidence.
In a forum such as this, Bob, where we lean heavily on "the Leica look",
annecdotal evidence is as good as anything else that can be presented as far
as lens "goodness" is concerned.
--
Roger Beamon, Naturalist & Photographer
Docent: Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
Leica Historical Society Of America
INTERNET: beamon@primenet.com