I have recently picked up a mint condition Summicron-M 2/90,to replace my old Elmarit 2.8/90. Can any of our learned readers enlighten me a bit about the lens, The lens I have is made in Canada with a serial no 3720920. Are the lens made in Canada as good as or equal to German lens ? And what year was it made? Some lens have Leica on the front ring,but I have seen some with Leitz I would be interested on any coments. Thanks Graham.

-- Graham Kilbey (G7MLW@BTINTERNET.CO.UK), April 20, 2001

Answers

I also just purchased a Summicron 2/90, the previous version to the current APO one. Is the performance equal to the performance of the current Elmarit 2.8/90? Or the last Tele-Elmarit 2.8/90?

Thanks, Ja

-- Jack Belen (jbelen@aol.com), April 20, 2001.

Graham,

While I am certainly not "learned", I can tell you a bit about my own 90 f2 'cron: made in Canada, ser# 3532... has Leica on front rim, has built-in shade, lens cover has Leica in script. While I am not really interested in the technical aspects of this lens, I attest to its superb photographic qualities. I have and continue to use it largely for portraits, both indoors and out and also with my studio strobes via the pc connector. The quality is excellent and virtually indistinguishable from what I achieve with a Zeiss 150 mounted on a Hasselblad. In B&W, it is non-pareil. You can find out the year it was manufactured at WWW.cameraquest.com in the Leica section. Take photographs with it... is it as good as a german-made lens? Some will argue that there is a difference. Some others will attest to the superiority of the Elmarit. I take pictures with it and I'm pleased with the results.

J-D

-- Jean-David Borges (jdborges@home.com), April 20, 2001.

Your Summicron (372xxxx) is one of the last production E-55 filter- size series before it was discontinued in favor of the new APO-ASPH version. To my knowledge all the 90/2's were made in Canada. The Leica name replaced Leitz around 1988 when the company moved from Wetzlar to Solms in the "suburbs". Optically, from f/2.8 and smaller it is almost on a par with the current 90/2.8 Elmarit-M at longer distances; in the near-focus range the Summicron needs to be stopped down to 5.6/8 to approach the Elmarit in image quality out to the corners. At f/2 the Summicron gives noticeably lower contrast than f/2.8, and the edge performance is well below the central image. Given the situations under which the lens is normally used at f/2, and the shallow DOF, it's not as big a defeceit as it's been made out to be by nitpickers. If you're doing low-light handheld architectural or scenic subjects at f/2, then the APO-ASPH is going to give you more of what you need. I used to own the 90/2, sold it for the 90/2.8 to cut weight and bulk, and after I got bit on the 135 APO-Telyt vs Tele-Elmar, I shot comparisons with a borrowed APO-ASPH and happily hung onto the Elmarit.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), April 20, 2001.

There are many Leica users who say that Canadian made lenses were superior to the German ones. However as Jay states the 90/2 Summicron's were all probably made in Canada anyway so I guess any comparison is pointless.

-- sam smith (ssmith@hotmail.com), April 21, 2001.