[Leica] 28mm M-Rokkor

[Henry Chu <hchu@metropath.com>]

I have had two 28mm M Rokkors.  Both seemed to have edge separation in 
the front two elements and both had the small spots on the inner surface 
of the front element alluded to by Hans.  One of the two had flaking of 
the internal black paint.
I took one of them to John Van Stelten of Focal Point to look at and 
clean.  He is familiar with the lens and told me that there is no edge 
separation.  The edge looked separated because of the "steepness" of the 
edge of that particular element.  The little spots which are very evenly 
spaced on the inner surface are not colonies of fungus.  Rather they are 
deposition of magnesium salts (if my recollection is correct) which, over 
a period of time, has leached out of the paint.  This is easily cleaned.  
John has done the job for me.
I like the lens for its size.  It is a nice companion to the 35 
Summicron, 50 Collapsible Summicron and the 90 Tele-Elmarit.  It 
certainly does not perform as well as the current 28 Elmarit in terms of 
contrast.

Henry