Zeiss 6 Bit coding ?

Roger is correct. The coding at the factory is only on leica lenses.
You can have your zeiss coded, I myself did this at a shop (more workshop) in holland with my zeiss 28.
But I have the 50 planar uncoded and never had any problems with it. I thought that only the wide angle lenses (35 and wider) need coding for correction. On the longer lenses its not really necessarily , or you like your exif data to be correct. Personally that can't bother me enough to pay the 80 euro for coding.
 
Thanks much guys, I'm looking into a purchase of a pre-owned 50 Planar f2, and the owner said it had the 6-bit coding for Leica...I thought that was something Zeiss did at the factory.
 
gravityassault said:
Thanks much guys, I'm looking into a purchase of a pre-owned 50 Planar f2, and the owner said it had the 6-bit coding for Leica...I thought that was something Zeiss did at the factory.
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No.They're too smart to be sued for patent infringement. My suspicion (I don't know) is that Leica can't be bothered to go after bit players, and that some of the bit players are merely coding rough approximations anyway (but probably better than nothing).

Cheers,

R.
 
Some of my lenses are 6-bit encoded and yet were never 6-bit coded by Leica.

My head is going to explode! :D
 
You could ask the owner if the Planar has a shallow groove on the mount face; Cosina added this at some point to all their lenses to allow for "sharpie coding." Then all you need is a template to code it as a Summicron 50/2.

Though coding the Planar probably won't make much of a difference in the first place, unlike 35mm or wider. Well, it's good for the EXIF data at least.
 
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There are people out there who will do the milling of the lens mounting plate for a fee. I've had a few of those done. Never had a problem.
 
I have often thought that the next iteration of M9/MX firmware would be fun to allow lenses from other companies to be manually selected.

(But I know better.)
 
rya said:
I have often thought that the next iteration of M9/MX firmware would be fun to allow lenses from other companies to be manually selected.

(But I know better.)
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It would indeed be fun, but as you imply, there is zero incentive for Leica to spend the money needed to write the software.

Also, stepping through the manual selection menu is tedious enough as it stands: I found it less useful than I expected.

Cheers,

R.
 
I used a black Sharpie pen and a site that shows all the coding and a cutout to use for spacing and placement. I coded all my lenses and they work fine and show up as what they are.
 
I have hand coded 21mm, 25mm and 28mm. As Kevin said, if your lenses have the "groove" on the mount, the sharpie hand coding won't fade away. And those lenses have the "groove". But I don't code 35mm since it does not have the "groove" and plus, I don't think I need any correction for 35mm lenses other than having the lens info in EXIF Data.
 
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