Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/02/05

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Subject: [Leica] 75 'cron
From: dorysrus at mindspring.com (Don Dory)
Date: Sat Feb 5 18:45:31 2005

Frank,
With all due respect, another 75 will not sell many lenses.  Low sales,
low revenue, equals R&D money down the drain.  For most Leica shooters,
the absence of a 75 will be of no consequence.  Most could fall back on
a 50 or a 90.  I happen to be an owner a passionate devote of the 75
Summilux, but I think its sales rank right up there with the 135 APO or
maybe the 90 macro.

Places in the lens lineup that could use help would be a faster 24
designed for digital sensors, possibly a redesign of the 50 Summicron, a
new 15 possibly an F4 so smaller and lighter than the Zeiss offering.  A
redesign of the Noctilux with aspheric surfaces might make sense.
Learning to use alternative materials to lighten the lens might make
sense.

Now, if Leica brought out a new frame set with a unique frame line for
the 75 that was free when you bought the new 75 APO macro Summicron, now
that might be of some interest.  Besides, if a 105 F2 is interesting,
then the 105 F1.4 would be even more interesting.

Don
dorysrus@mindspring.com

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+dorysrus=mindspring.com@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+dorysrus=mindspring.com@leica-users.org] On Behalf
Of Frank Filippone
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 5:51 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: RE: [Leica] 75 'cron

If Leica is chasing Bessa/Cosin/Voigtlander, they are in deep doo-doo.
Back
to my argument to fire someone for wrong thinking.

A 105 lens ( if you even guess that a digital M is around the corner or
in
the near future, or in the not too distant future, or in the future,
sometime) is dumb.  They have not had a 105 lens in what, 65 years?
There
is a 90 that is popular and there is a 75 that is popular.  If you take
(any
Summicron or ASPH Lux) 50mm lens and multiply by the presumed digital
factor
of 1.6 you get 80mm AOV. The portrait FL of choice by Leica for 75
years.
Why a 105?    Multiply by 1.4 and you get... 70MM. The FL they already
have
in the lineup for 35 film.  I am not saying that thi sis not the reason
they
are doing this, but it sounds .... unlikely.

In my mind, there is only 1 logical reason for the lens..... a redesign
was
needed for some reason of optical glass availability, or just plain
cost.
Face it, Leica Canada has been gone for a while, and this is the last
lens
to survive that ex-Canada thing.  If I were going to design a new lens
to
replace the existing, I might just think about changing the design for
lower
cost ( less optical elements of less costly optical glass).  So a 75 F2
makes sense here.  The 75/1.4 would then be discontinued.

This kind of thinking meets the goal of lower cost ( F1.4 vs F2).  It
also
fixes the availability issues.


Frank Filippone
red735i@earthlink.net


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Replies: Reply from red735i at earthlink.net (Frank Filippone) ([Leica] 75 'cron)
Reply from sethrosner at nycap.rr.com (Seth Rosner) ([Leica] 75 'cron)
In reply to: Message from red735i at earthlink.net (Frank Filippone) ([Leica] 75 'cron)