Yeah, but can your Summicron do THIS?

R

Ruhayat

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My 90mm Summicron-M apparently can be separated in the middle by simply unscrewing it. Damn. It gave me a good scare at first but now I have gotten used to it and it doesn't seem to affect image quality when you screw them back together. But still. It's just... odd.

I haven't been using this lens for about a year. Took it out of the drybox yesterday to get the filter off it. The filter was stuck fast and wouldn't come off, but something else moved instead. To my horror I discovered it was the entire lens that was starting to turn. Curiosity got the better of me so I decided to follow the rabbit hole to see how far it went and - voila - I got this.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramayanax/7073046523/
 

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This happened to me the other day with a VC 35mm F2.5 PI. I pressed the lens release button and unscrewed the lens in half!

~S
 
If you have the guts for it you can clean out hazy lenses easily this way.

Don't recommend it if you have no experience doing it, but it's not as magical or difficult a procedure as the internet trolls would lead one to believe.
 
paradoxbox said:
If you have the guts for it you can clean out hazy lenses easily this way.

Don't recommend it if you have no experience doing it, but it's not as magical or difficult a procedure as the internet trolls would lead one to believe.
Click to expand...

That's one advantage, I guess. So fungus on the inner elements can now be cleaned off by the user with reasonable impunity.:D

Still. It's weird that Leica would design it so that something like this could happen. I mean, they make so much noise about keeping dust etc off the elements, so how could they design something that has a gap in the middle? Sure, it 's a very tight gap and it screws in, but it's still a microscopic gap at least.

I just find it very odd.
 
well in my case at least, the optical assembly remains in one piece. it's just the mount and focusing helicoid that come off, so I don't really see how that makes the lens elements easier to get dirty or clean.
 
Actually, the older 90mm Summicron lenses are designed to be unscrewed when using the lens head with a VISOFLEX.
 
once you unscrew the optical assembly the individual elements tend to be very easy to remove.

compare that to something like a nikon lens where you need all kinds of lens spanners and special screwdrivers to clean the thing.

again, if you have the guts for it you can clean a fungus infested lens with nothing more than a soft rubber mousepad, cotton swabs, lighter fluid and ethanol and some jewelers screwdrivers.

you just need to be very very careful not to scratch up the elements.

i learned on a fungus infested soviet lens that opens in a similar manner to this (probably a copy of an early leica design)
 
If you don't want it it unscrew at an inopportune time, clean all the threads w/ a non-oily solvent and put a drop or two of blue Loctite on it.
 
maddoc said:
Actually, the older 90mm Summicron lenses are designed to be unscrewed when using the lens head with a VISOFLEX.
Click to expand...

And not only 90mm Summicrons, also 50mm Summicrons (DR, rigid), 90mm Elmarits, and 135mm Elmarits can be unscrewed to release the optical unit for mounting on a Visoflex.

edit: BTW, also the 135mm Hektor and Elmar lensheads can be unscrewed for Visoflex mounting via separate adapters which permitted correct focussing to infinity. Although the 90mm Elmar-c lenshead easily unscrews, I'm not sure that this served a special purpose.
 
When I first got my Zuiko 50mm f1.2 it came with a filter. When I tried to get the filter off the front section of the lens came unscrewed which is a whole different ball game because being an SLR lens the aperture blades live behind the front section and it all got rather untidy. I had only just unpacked the lens after receiving it in the post when this happened! :bang:

That was a regular pain in the butt to get back together ... and I hadn't even used the lens! :p
 
Bill58 said:
If you don't want it it unscrew at an inopportune time, clean all the threads w/ a non-oily solvent and put a drop or two of blue Loctite on it.
Click to expand...

Good idea. I notice that ever since I opened it up, it's become easier to unscrew. The first time was very, very tight but now I can unscrew it as if it was always meant to do that.
 
Keith said:
When I first got my Zuiko 50mm f1.2 it came with a filter. When I tried to get the filter off the front section of the lens came unscrewed which is a whole different ball game because being an SLR lens the aperture blades live behind the front section and it all got rather untidy. I had only just unpacked the lens after receiving it in the post when this happened! :bang:

That was a regular pain in the butt to get back together ... and I hadn't even used the lens! :p
Click to expand...

Canned air helps with that sort of thing :yes
 
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