Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/01/16

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Subject: [Leica] Summicron DR Eyes
From: csaganich at gmail.com (Chris Saganich)
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:25:02 -0500

I noticed that according to Steve Gandy's lens guide the eyes of my DR
shouldn't be compatible with the lens body.  The newer DR lenses have a
dual scale in feet and meters, focus to 20in, and have ridges in the trough
of the focus ring knurling.  The older DR bodies have a single scale, focus
to 19in, have reproduction ratios, and have ridges on the peaks of the
focus ring knurling.  The older bodies are supposed to have a larger ball
bearing compared to the newer DR bodies making the newer eyes incompatible
to the older DR bodies, but the older eyes will work on the newer DR
bodies.  Older eyes have the "condenser" logo and newer eyes have the Leitz
Wetzlar logo.  According to convention ( which I haven't confirmed) the
newer eyes shouldn't be compatable on the older DR bodies due to the ball
bearing size difference.  My DR has the new logo and the older body so I
was curious if I could find any other examples of this anomaly.  I searched
ebay and the internet for examples where the age of the lens and logo of
eyes were identifiable.  Here is what I found:

1956- 125,594 lenses made
1402xxx Old Body Old Logo
1403731 Old Body Old Logo
1440268 Old Body New Logo

1957- 89,389 lenses made
1487412 Old Body New Logo
1513415 Old Body New Logo
15301xx Old Body New Logo
1534320 Old Body New Logo
1545576 Old Body New Logo

1958 -97,281 lenses made
1587819 Old Body Old Logo -From Cameraquest website
1592570 Old Body New Logo - My Lens
1623068 New Body New Logo


The only exception is from Cameraquest where Steve probably used an old
example of the eyes for the old body. Who but Steve would have lots of
these hanging around?

All this suggests that eyes with the newer logo were manufactured with the
larger ball bearing receptor for the older DR bodies.

The ball bearing size on my older DR body is 3 mm diameter and 1.8mm
height. The receptor dimensions on my eyes with newer logo are 3.5 mm
diameter  and 1 mm deep.

It would be interesting if we could fill in these blanks regarding ball
bearing measurements on the older and newer DR bodies and eyes:

1)  Older DR body: 3mm dia x 1.8mm height
2)  Eyes with older Logo: ???
3)  Eyes with new Logo on older body: 3.5mm dia x 1mm depth
4)  Newer DR body: ???
5)  Eyes with new Logo on New DR body:  ???

The supposition is that the dimensions of1,  2 and 3 should be similar
while 4 and 5 should be different and smaller.

-- 
Chris Saganich
www.imagebrooklyn.com


Replies: Reply from jshulman at judgecrater.com (Jim Shulman) ([Leica] Summicron DR Eyes)
Reply from joelct at singnet.com.sg (Joseph Low) ([Leica] Summicron DR Eyes)
Reply from lluisripollquerol at gmail.com (Lluis Ripoll) ([Leica] Summicron DR Eyes)
Reply from maurice at mckay3d.com (Maurice M. Greeson) ([Leica] Summicron DR Eyes)