[Leica] Introduction and Leica Lens Service Question

[imagist3 at mac.com (George Lottermoser)]

Welcome aboard KM.
I don't have much to offer re: lens resurfacing and coating.
I did have John Van Stelten at FocalPointLens.com
do some internal work on a lens for me;
and was moderately happy with the results.

Regards,
George Lottermoser
george at imagist.com
http://www.imagist.com
http://www.imagist.com/blog
http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist

On Mar 13, 2010, at 2:10 PM, Konstantin Mihov wrote:

> Hi all, I have been a member of the group for about a month and have
> silently been following the threads but never chimed it and thought  
> that
> it's time to introduce myself briefly. I am one of the young Leica
> enthusiasts on the board, having discovered Leica only several  
> months ago
> (besides, being young age-wise, with only 24). I have not had formal
> photography training but have had art training and art theory  
> training. I
> hold a bachelor of arts in psychology and a master of arts in literary
> theory degrees but work in a managerial and marketing area at a  
> university
> in Bremen, Germany. Originally, I come from Bulgaria but have been  
> located
> in the past 5 years in Germany.
>
> I had had very few cameras so far: my first camera and the one I  
> had for 4
> years was a Canon EOS 300D and it served its purpose great until  
> October
> when I decided it was high-time for an upgrade. The Canon 300D has  
> been a
> very faithful servant throughout my work with chocolate artist Warren
> Laine-Naida and his book publication for which I did the photography (
> http://www.chocolatecheese.de). At that time, I got a Canon EOS  
> 500D but was
> disappointed with it - it did not feel like a new camera compared  
> to the
> 300D - the only new feature was the video capability which wasn't  
> important
> to me at all. At that time I decided to shop around a bit and I  
> discovered
> Leica - of course I had heard of it before but I did never consider it
> because of the price. I was however able to afford one now and in  
> January I
> got a Leica M8 and have been since then experimenting with a number of
> lenses (all vintage). Have tried a cron 90, a cron 50, a Voitlanger  
> 50 f1.1
> but none of these felt right until I discovered a pristine cron 50  
> from the
> 80s which is currently the one I am using (I have in the meantime  
> returned
> all others). I love the bokeh of it and how it renders portraits.
>
> I recently made a purchasing mistake (as it turned out) of buying a  
> second
> hand Elmarit 28 on ebay which turned out to be in poorer condition  
> than
> described. The sale did not make use of PayPal which is probably  
> the last
> time I am allowing such a mindless transaction and none of my actions
> against the seller helped in the communication. The coating of the  
> front
> lens element is severely scratched and it creates a halo in the  
> picture -
> very foggy pictures. I assume it is simply the coating and not the  
> glass
> itself but I am no specialist. I have not yet sent it to Solms for
> inspection and I was wondering if any of you have experience with such
> conditions and if you would recommend sending it off to Solms or to  
> another
> repair center. Do you also have an estimate of how much this may cost?
>
> I am looking forward to knowing you all better! I post pictures  
> often on my
> website: http://imperfiction.com
>
> Cheers,
> KM
>
> -- 
> ***
> http://imperfiction.com
>
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