Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/08/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 10:38 PM 8/2/96 -0600, Chris Fortunko wrote: >I will second this. Van Stelten is local and a hell of a nice and competent >guy. I don't think he does this in his shop in Louisville, since I did not >see any equipment there. However, the work gets done correctly. I know this >on "good authority." REPLY: John has the work done by a scientific laboratory nearby. > >I did not know about the drip process. However, a friend of mine who worked >at Leitz in the 1980s, did not think that Leitz coatings were state of the >art at that time. REPLY: Leitz coatings have ALWAYS been "state of the art" insofar as patents allowed them to be. I would like to know on what basis your friend makes this judgement -- did he ever work at, say, Zeiss or Rollei or Kodak or Wollensak? He might well know what he's talking about, or he might not, but I think we're entitled to a precis of his credentials. >I have a DR Summicron with a superb coating. Could it have been redone? My >DR looks very good and much different from the other Summicrons (Rigid, DR, >and collapsible) I have seen. Many of them seem to have a shiny quality, >which a sales person in Palo Alto attributed to incorrect cleaning. REPLY: The NF/DR Summicron dates from 1956 to 1968; Leitz was using vacuum-coating techniques by 1960 or thereabouts. Perhaps your NF/DR lens is post-1960 and your other two lenses are pre-1960. As the drip coatings were moist and soft, they were much more susceptible to abrasion in cleaning than are later coatings. >A friend of mine (Robert Benjamin) in Boulder, and a Leica expert (now at >Jones Drug at Camera), attributes the bad condition of some of the older >lenses to overuse of Kodak lens cleaner. He does not recommend the use of >this particular concoction at all. According to him, RoR should be used at >most once a year. REPLY: Sounds like a great case of more speech than thought. Maybe we should stick to what Leitz/Leica recommend and not to what some guy who works at a Drug Store claims. Leica has traditionally recommended the use of lens tissues and cleaner, whether Kodak or not. They now recommend the use of micro-fibre cleaning cloths. Lenses should be cleaned only when they need it, whether this be once a week or once a decade. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!