Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/04/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Fine, Henning, I have agreed with Erwin that this choice, optically, is a matter of taste. But let's not confuse construction quality with weight. My Leica Catalogue No. 39 (1966) gives the weight of the DR with close-focus optical unit as 14.5 oz. (few users carry it around with them). I have just weighed my close-focus unit on an accurate postal scale = 2 oz. Thus, the DR weighs 12.5 oz and the Rigid seven-glass 50/2 slightly less as there is a bit less brass in its focussing mount. Leica gives as the weight of the current black 50/2 as 240 grams and the silver chrome lens - necessarily of brass - as 335 gr. My conversion scale of 28.35 gr/oz puts the weight of the current chrome/brass 50/2 Summicron at 11.8 oz. Of course the black 50/2 is lighter - 8.5 oz. - as its mount is largely alloy. Again it is largely a matter of taste or more accurately of choice. But I'd much rather have the reassuring solid construction of the DR (some have called it jewel-like) or, for that matter, of the current silver chrome/brass 50/2 than the lightness of the black lens. And does a difference of 7/10 oz between the DR and the current silver 50/2 warrant the constant reference to the DR as a "tank," as though the current equivalent lens is so much lighter? I think not. No one could say that a user preferring the lighter black 50 was wrong. That's still a matter of choice. Another myth dies.