Barmy 75mm f0.85 lens on ebay - authoratitive info?

[lorriman]

Out of idle curiousity I would love to know more about this lens that someone has stuck on an M3, which I rather assume is via mount modification. Limited info on the web.

I had thought that lenses faster than f0.95 were for non-photographic purposes.

Is there a better forum to post this?

 

[rxmd]

Out of idle curiousity I would love to know more about this lens that someone has stuck on an M3, which I rather assume is via mount modification. Limited info on the web.

I had thought that lenses faster than f0.95 were for non-photographic purposes.

That's probably an IR Summar 75/f0.85 from World War II.

Here's what you find on the Web. There were several IR Summars. Your 75/f0.85 is mentioned at least here (page 19, it looks like a Korean translation of Puts' Leica Lens Compendium - the text-only version on his own website has it on p. 18 without much information). A 150/f0.85 is mentioned there as well, and also, with pictures, on this site on military Summars (in Italian, with a lot of questionable and confused information on German reconnaissance airplanes) and this site (a nice overview of high-speed lenses, in French). In the Leica forums it was mentioned that the distance scale was limited from 0,8 to 1m, and that those lenses were probably used for photographing radar and X-ray screens, which makes more sense to me than the hypothesis that they were used for aerial photography.

I would expect the photographic utility of this combination to be rather limited, and since it's rather hacked up I wouldn't think it's too interesting for a collector either.

Philipp

 

[lorriman]

Thanks for that, rxmd.

 

[Rob-F]

I read someplace not too long ago that this lens has a deep red filter in it, making it not very suitable for general photography (as if it would be suitable in any case). But I imagine that some versions may have had this filter, others not, depending on the intended use. I first read about this lens in The Leica and the Leica System, by Theo M. Scheerer. (Umschau Verlag, Frankfurt, 1960) On Page 57, Scheerer wrote:

"Summar f/0.85--not for the amateur:

"Objectives made with a relative aperture or more than f/1 were made by Leitz as early as 1934! An example is the 75mm Summar f/0.85 . . . it is used for a number of special tasks, for instance by Professor Janker, of Bonn, for X-ray screen photography. During the 1936 Olympic games such a lens was used in the projection room of the German postal authorities for the projection of the television image.

"I have held this magic lens in my own hands--but I would not like to take photographs with it no matter how precious it is."

---Neither would I, Theo. A glance at the photos shows that there's no way to see through the camera's viewfinder. The lens blocks the whole thing. Of course, you could use an auxiliary finder in the shoe--but what about the rangefinder? You need a rangefinder with this lens! Or better yet an SLR screen.

 

[raid]

You need strong wrists to be able to hand use this beast of a lens. The bigger the lens, the more intelligent the photographer ... ?

 

[Al Kaplan]

It doesn't look coated for sure. A lens like that might be surprisingly sharp if its internal spacing is optimized for just one distance.

 

[xayraa33]

" It is big Harry, but not big enough"

Johnny LaRue SCTV

 

[maddoc]

"Objectives made with a relative aperture or more than f/1 were made by Leitz as early as 1934! An example is the 75mm Summar f/0.85 . . . it is used for a number of special tasks, for instance by Professor Janker, of Bonn, for X-ray screen photography.

Interesting ! I am from Bonn and know the hospital for radiology founded by Professor Janker in the 30s of the last century. So he used one of these special lenses for photographing X-ray screens ?

 

[Tom A]

I have seen and held one of these. It is massive and probably quite useless for "normal" shooting. As was said before, it was mainly used for taking pictures of early Cathode ray screens, X ray and the 1936 Berlin Olympics. I know of one example that was fitted to a M3 and used at infinity and wide open. Very flat contrast, not too bad image quality considering the speed. Resolution was quite low, but then the early "tubes" on X-ray and Tv's were not exactly High Definition either!
The deep red inside filter was common (relatively speaking) for aerial lenses. Leica used to make a 280mm f4.8 package with four lenses - matched focal length, one was completely uncoated (no UV filtration), one was an Apochromat and the third one had a interior element made from red glass (or colored chrystal?) and the 4th one was a reference lens. All four lenses were mounted on a 10"x10" square lensbord for a Wild aerial camera. You got four 5"x5" negatives of the same area with IR, UV, Apo and a reasau plate pattern on the fourth neg. Cant remember what it was used for (surveillance, aerial detection). Massive piece though - weighed in at 30-35 lbs. Leica did a lot of these specialized optics during the war and then later at Midland, Ontario. About as practical as the 75mm f0.85.
I also remember seeing a shot of a 6000mm f5,6 scope made for the German army and used to "spy" on the British coast from France! It weighed some 600 kg (1300 lbs+). Cant remember if it was Zeiss or Leica though who made it.