Summitar collapsible on Bessa R

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jamesmck

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I would appreciate hearing of your experience with mounting certain collapsible lenses on the Bessa R. With the Industar-50, I am able to mount on the Bessa R, but the lens will not safely collapse all the way (short by about 1/4-inch). I have seen reports of this on the web, and am resigned to living with it.

With a Summitar 50/2, I cannot mount with the lens collapsed. With the lens extended, I can mount but the lens will not fully collapse. It stops about 1/4-inch short, clearly hitting something. Again, I could live with this. But, a friend reports that his Summitar collapses fully and smoothly into his Bessa R. Unfortunately, we are not able to sort this out in person. Can anyone shed light on this puzzle?
 
My Summitar acts just like yours. Mounts fine and works great, but it doesn't collapse all the way. Don't know why one would collapse and another wouldn't.. If you open the shutter and look, you can see where the lens hits the baffle inside the body. Maybe his R was modified? Or the lens? Or both?
 
There seems to be variation: some Bessas can take collapsed lenses, others can't. To err on the side of safety, no attempt should be made to collapse a lens on those cameras. Leica's recommendation for the M5 and the CL was Dymo tape on the barrel.
 
Yup, so did mine. I had a Bessa R and a pre-war Summitar. I did see some marks on the baffle in front of the shutter, but the Summitar would collapse all the way.
 
Thanks, everyone. Looks like there's some split here. I wonder if the variations are due to body or lens differences. Anyway, I now seem to be on both sides of this split. Last night I was preparing to take a digital photo of my partially collapsed Summitar in the Bessa R, thinking that my friend (who regularly collapses his Summitar) and I might not be using the same definition of "fully collapsed." Well, when collapsing the lens it went all the way in without any resistance whatever! I tried it again quite a number of times and stumbled upon a way to make it work reliably without any undue force being applied. It seems that my lens has just a little bit of wiggle in the barrel during the closing process (maybe all Summitars show this), such that I have to be sure to push very straightly inward to prevent binding. On occasions when the lens stops short of being fully collapsed, a very slight 'wiggle' of the barrel allows it to go the rest of the way smoothly without any pressure greater than that normally used in collapsing.

kossi008: I see some slight marks on the "shelf" (as Tom A called it), but I suspect these were there before I started messing with the Summitar (my Bessa R was bought used). I wonder if it is wise to cover these up with the tip of a black marker.
 
There is a simple solution here that avoids any damage to the innards of the Bessa and still allows the Summitar to be collapsed most of the way: hair doodles. The elastic loops that women and guys w/ long hair use. A couple of loops around the lens barrel, and you're good to go. Your Summitar, or Elmar, or Summicron will collapse most of the way, but safely stop before colliding w/ anything in the camera body. I've used this method w/ Bessa R, Bessa R3A, Bessa T, and Canon P. Works like a charm.
 
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