Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/06/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Pascal, The official party line is that Leica manufactures their own filters, or at least that has been the case whenever their filters are mentioned in their literature. This may have been the case 20-30 years ago, but I don't think they still do. I'd bet that Heliopan is their supplier, but have no evidence to back this up. Heliopan is certainly a high quality filter and whoever is making Leica's filters, you can be certain that they will be up to Leica's standards. Look at Heliopan and Leica filters very closely and you will notice many similarities between them. The only difference I can see is that the Leica filters have a very slim mount and the Heliopan mounts are slighty thicker. This is a similar situation to the actual glass used in the manufacture of Leica lenses. Since the Leitz Glass Research Lab was sold several years ago, Leica no longer makes any of their own glass. They buy glass from various suppliers around the world, such as Schott, Hoya, etc., all made to their specification. Even when they were making their own glass in the research lab, it was only for limited production lenses like the Noctilux. They have been buying most of their glass from outside suppliers for years. Bill Rosauer