Re: Hektor 135mm /SM and new vs. old Elmar/135.

[Daniel Cardish <dcardish@spherenet.com>]

At 11:22 AM 22/10/96 -0400, Marc wrote
>
>Leica has stated that the current 4/135 has had a slight optical redesign
>from the older 1965 design.  My source for this is Eric Welch, and I hope he
>is still on board and can quote the statement he posted a year or so back.

Maybe I can be assistance.  I dug through my trusty collection of Leica
Fotographie Internationals and found the following from issue 2.93E  (my
humble apologies to anybody objecting to my quoting somebody here!):

From an article entitled, "RE-DESIGNED:  135 MM F/4 TELE-ELMAR-M", page 31:


"This type of action [refering to the usefulness of 135 mm telephotos in the
M-system] may now benefit even more from the updated design of the 135 mm
f/4 Tele-Elmar-M.  The overall impression is that this well-proven optical
system now has a housing which is more in keeping with the styling of the
latest generation of lenses for the Leica M camera.  In common with the
latter, the 135 mm Elmar received a face-lift, yet with special attention to
ease of operation."

They then go on to explain how they moved the aperture ring further back,
and revised the filter size to E46 (was the old one E39?) and attached a
lens shade to the lens.    The lens is a triplet which "includes one
unusually thick element" (again, does anybody know the construction of the
older Elmar?).  The diagram of the lens shows it to be a 5 element 3 group
design.

Sounds to me as if the lens is basically the same as the older model, with
perhaps minor optical alterations to accomodate the new filter size and
diaphram location.