Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You!

[Joe Mondello]

So I picked up this very clean old bit of Leica kit . . .

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230111880548

Which is a 35mm Summaron 3.5 with goggles for an M3. I have a 1963 DR Summicron 50/2 which has removable goggles.

The 35 Summaron has a large thumbscrew on top of the goggles which appears to secure the goggles to the lens, but I can;t seem to get the goggles to slide off.

Before I start removing screws (hehe) I thought I'd ask the knowledgable folk here if in fact these eyes can be removed.

Sure looks to be a nice lens!

Thanks!

 

[Mark J]

Joe: I sold mine a couple of years ago. As I recall, the lens had to be focused on infinity for the eyes to slide off. You loosen the thumbscrew until it releases (pull up slightly), set the lens to infinity and slide the eyes off. The eyes slide away from the mount. The lens will focus correctly with the rangefinder only at infinity with the eyes off. The lens should focus properly through the entire range with the eyes on. I parted with mine as I did not like the speed.

Mark J.

 

[Artorius]

No Fear

No Fear

You must remove the two screws on the front of the eye mount of the little plate, to get the eyes off. I have seen it posted that you can't use it without the eyes, but I have used it this way on my M6 before getting the 40mm. The only real hassle is that if you don't have some way to hold down the little ball on the mount is that it locks at infinity and to get it off infinity, I have to push down on it and move the focus ring. It wont hurt anything, and is easily put back together.

 

[Joe Mondello]

thanks for the info!

Since I only have an R-D1 as an RF camera, perhaps I jumped at this a bit too impulsively.

 

[Todd.Hanz]

loosen the thumbscrew, focus to infinity and slide the eyes toward the front of the lens carefully.

Todd

 

[FrankS]

Without the googles you will be able to scale focus the lens. If it were mounted to a Leica M without googles, the camera's RF would only agree at infinity.

With an RD1, you could take a shot, check the focus on the LCD screen and refocus, taking shots and repeating untill you're happy with the result.

 

[Joe Mondello]

loosen the thumbscrew, focus to infinity and slide the eyes toward the front of the lens carefully.

Todd

Yup, came right off.

Very preliminary RF focusing on the R-D1 looks ok, but I will make a real test outside where the light is better!

Thanks guys.