Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/03/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Someone mentioned recently keeping his/her glass in a box, under ultraviolet light. To keep the fungus away. I'm sure it works for this end but what about the plastic or rubber parts if the lens has any? Should make them brittle I think. I don't know how many Leica lenses have plastic inside but to my surprise critical parts on the outside can be plastic. E.g. the focusing "handle" on the Summicron-M 35, (at least next to the latest edition) is plastic. Mine once broke right from the middle without any major impact. It is highly critical part since after it is gone there is no practical way of focusing the lens! Only a short screw is left, quite cumbersome to handle. When I took the lens to repair I checked some of their older generation lenses for the same part. All metal like my Summicron 50. Cannot understand why the maker switched in such a small but critical part to an inferior material. The reason surely cannot be weight and in a $1000+ lens it cannot be the price either. Regards, Kari Eloranta