Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/06/05

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Leica Nomenclature / Source
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 20:11:32 -0400

At 07:00 PM 6/5/98 EDT, Marvin Moss wrote:
> Finally "Elmar" is a name derived from Ernst Leitz & Max Berak.
>

I hate to dissent from Marvin, since he, after all, back when he was
middle-aged, used to quaff an occasional brew with Oscar Barnack, and who
can argue with the veritable source himself?

But the ELMAX name, the first lens name adopted by Leica after the Zeiss
patent on the Tessar had expired (this expiration allowing Leica to call
their lens whatever they wished) was a contraction of "Ernst Leitz Max
Berek".  The ELMAR followed a few years later, being a slight
reformulation:  to my knowledge, it is just a gentle re-naming of ELMAX.

And then there are the Hektor and the Summarex, named after the dogs of
that cigar-fiend, Max Berek.  It is hard to think poorly of an optical
scientist who would name his lenses after his pets.

Marc


msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
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