Collapsible Summicron with Haze-Penetrated coating- should not be so good

[Sonnar Brian]

Remember when you could pick up a Collapsible 5cm F2 Summicron with coating marks for $70? I did, and it was better than expected. Those days are over.

Pardon Our Interruption...

For $280, took a chance on a late collapsible Summicron LTM 5cm F2, sold as-is with the haze well photographed. The haze has penetrated the coating of the front element. Leica had soft coated optics in the 1940s and 1950s. All other surfaces are now clean.



Shine a strong light through the lens, and the haze in the coating of the front surface shows up.

After some quick test shots in strong sunlight- it just does not make any difference that I can detect. I have a couple of perfect Summicrons- two hot glass, one later M-Mount. No "cool glass" in LTM, so this one fits that requirement.

These are at F2, on the M240. LR4 conversions of DNG to JPEG, no touch up.


Fence post in shadow- slat in direct sunlight.



Sun off to the upper right of Photo.


F2 and F4 pair,

 

[Miles.]

A year or so ago I purchased a "hot" Summicron from a good dealer. It had a fair amount of peripheral haze in the front that they missed, and despite some pretty intensive testing, I couldn't get it to show any effect on the image.

And for what it's worth, Kanto Camera in Japan has replacement elements for the "cool glass" Summicron. They don't sell them directly but they do exceptional work for what I think is a very fair price. If anyone here has a scratched up example, or one with very heavy haze, send it to them now, that service won't be available forever.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The Kanto rebuilt Canon 50/1.2 is better than new.

I have a spare Summicron front element, but is for the type 1 Rigid Summicron- comparing the two, is a larger radius than the collapsible. I had forgotten which it was for...

 

[Duofold RF]

recoat the front element maybe is the solution

 

[wlewisiii]

Still looking for the equivalent Summitar again 😉

 

[Sonnar Brian]

recoat the front element maybe is the solution

I had John Van Stelton do that for a hot-glass Summicron that was like Wax Paper, is now perfect. It showed the normal cleaning marks and light scratches. Polished and recoated. He is now retired.
This lens, the surface looks much different- not cleaning marks, not scratches. It's interesting. Looks more like Bloom on my uncoated lenses.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

All wide-open on the Nikon Z5, some of the most adverse lighting you can run into.

 

[Duofold RF]

I had John Van Stelton do that for a hot-glass Summicron that was like Wax Paper, is now perfect. It showed the normal cleaning marks and light scratches. Polished and recoated. He is now retired.
This lens, the surface looks much different- not cleaning marks, not scratches. It's interesting. Looks more like Bloom on my uncoated lenses.

John previously re-coated the lens on my Rolleiflex. If you have contacts in China, polishing and recoating can be done at a reasonable cost — just sent the front element and re-collimated the lens afterward

You might also try contacting YYX; he used to send lens elements to China for recoating, though I’m not sure if he’s still offering that service.

Or just use this lens as soft special effect lens

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I'm going to do some side-by-side tests of my collapsible Summicron-M 5cm F2 with this one, also test against the recoated hot-glass lens.
One quick metric is the file size of a lossless-compressed JPEG file. A soft-focus lens produces a smaller file as high-frequency is lost.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I am a big fan of the collapsible Summicron, but only the high numbers, just before the introduction of the rigid, so around number 13XXXXX.


gelatin silver print (summicron 50mm f2 collapsible) leica lll

Frank B., Amsterdam, 2024

 

[Sonnar Brian]

This Summicron is a 134xxxx and my Summicron-M collapsible is 136xxxx. I had a 112xxxx, cool-glass, but different coating than the newer ones.

 

[splitimageview]

Interesting. My experience with moderately hazy lenses is a reduction in contrast. The collapsible is a low contrast lens already even with no haze. @Sonnar Brian could you shoot a photo of the glass backlit to get an idea how hazy?

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Interesting. My experience with moderately hazy lenses is a reduction in contrast. The collapsible is a low contrast lens already even with no haze. @Sonnar Brian could you shoot a photo of the glass backlit to get an idea how hazy?

This is the image of the haze from the auction. I can see internal haze that cleaned up nicely, and the "milky" front coating.

This is how the lens appears now, I used a bright flashlight that picks up everything.
Despite what you see- the lens produces the images as shown.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

This is from my "really clean" Summicron...

I think it is just deterioration of the old-soft coating. Not scratches in the glass.


My "Modern" (only 25 years old... Konica with multi-coated optics.