To all of you who gave me advice on the purchasing of a new 90 lens for my M6 thank you. I purchased the beautiful beast today. I was offered by the vendor a brand new 90/2 APO for approxiamately $US1,300. I live in new zealand in case you're wondering where you can get one for the same price. At this price I jumped at it. On opening the box (the first time it had been opened as it was as tight as) and examining the lens I noticed that it had a minute black speck near the rear element (from the aperture blades I think), when I showed this to the salesman he said "that's normal, hang on a minute". He then proceeded to whip open a nasty little plastc pack with a horrible little yellow cloth inside and before I could stop him, he had given the brand new lens a good old wipe on the rear element. Then I looked through the lens and of course as expected the rear element was smeared in some kind of gunk, probably silicoln. As he had two in stock I asked to see the other one. This was also examined and this lens had two little black specks. I purchased this one.

When I was examining the lens later I noticed that the box had 'Made in Canada' written on it but the lens itself has 'Made in Germany' engraved on it; same serial number on both items. Now could anybody shed some light on this for me please? I certainly have no reservations about the possibility of the lens being made in Canada and in fact it would be kind of nice to support a Canadian worker rather than his erstwhile but highly paid German counterpart and I know Canadians can make a lens every bit as good as anyone else and probably better than most.

I'll let you know how the lens performs. Chunky piece of hardware and handles better than I thought it would.

-- matt veld (mahv@xtra.co.nz), January 15, 2001

Answers

Brand-new Leica lenses with defects (minor or not)are par for the course. I've seen many of them like that in the past several years. Whether or not one buys such a lens is a personal decision, it's one's own money of course. Photographers get into screaming fits and mailing-list flame wars over whether Leica glass is or isn't sharper, contrastier, etc. than Nikon or Canon or whatever other brand costing many times less. They pull out their 20x loupes, MTF graphs and nitpick over micro-fine detail at the 40lppm threshold at the outer corners of the frame (which will be buried under the slide mount!). With a lens with specks or flecks or bits and pieces here and there on the glass, the question then becomes: are Leica lenses *so far* superior to the rest that they don't really need any quality-control at the factory, that even a blemished Leica lens is worth 3 or 4 times the cost of a Japanese competitor's product. Again, that's a personal decision everyone makes for themselves. As to the Canadian box/German lens question, it is my understanding that the Midland, Ontario facility was sold some time ago and all Leica lenses (except for the R zooms made in Japan) are Solms products. How the "Made in Canada" got on the box? Speculation, perhaps whoever put in the order to the box company told them to use the same plates from the old Summicron (which *was* made in Canada) and add "APO-ASPH", forgetting about the Canada imprint. Maybe Leica doesn't have a quality-control department in packaging, either. The good news: eventually, when they use up the boxes on-hand, you might be able to get good money for your box from a collector!

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), January 15, 2001.

Your are going to love that lens!

As far as the Cananda/Germany mystery goes, here's my understanding of the story.

The lens was originally going to be made at the Midland plant in Canada, but that factory had a huge problem with the big aspheric element required. Leica decided to repatriate the production of the lens to Solms. This is what led to the interminable delay following the announcement of the lens before they hit dealers' shelves.

Since the lenses are now made in Germany,that is what goes on the lens. But, I believe they had already printed up a large supply of packing boxes with "Made in Canada" on them, when the production was still scheduled for Canada. Rather than reprint the boxes, they just kept them, and let the origin marking on the lens speak for itself. The serial numbers are on sticky labels, so they goes on the boxes when the lenses are actually packed.

-- Paul Chefurka (paul_chefurka@pmc-sierra.com), January 15, 2001.

Thank you Jay and Paul for your replies. Paul it would seem that your explanation of the 'made in Canada' box is more than likely. I wonder why Leica it self never seems to give out information on this type of thing as it must leave a few people perplexed as I was. They could certainly do so on their webb site. After all how many manufacturers in the world of such highly regarded and expensive products would have such a distant attitude their customers? I guess their silence just enhances the Leica mystique.

Jay I think you might be right about the box becomming a collectors item, judging by the prices these folk seem to pay (on ebay for example) for such oddities.

Paul does your 90 APO have any little black flecks inside it and does the lens box also say 'made in Canada' if you don't mind me asking?

I developed some pics last night taken with the new lens and wow! Razor sharp and the contrast is as good as my 35/2 Asph. Mind you the shots of my teenage son taken at f/2 are almost too sharp as you can see every little detail (he has a couple of pimples)in the in focus areas. The highlight in the eyes and the detail in the eyelashes are beautiful though.

-- matt veld (mahv@xtra.co.nz), January 16, 2001.

I'm staring at a new 90/2.0APO and it says "Made in Canada" on the bottom. No black flecks, though.

-- Howard Blumenthal (howardb@voicenet.com), January 16, 2001.

Howard, what does it say on the lens?

-- matt veld (mahv@xtra.co.nz), January 16, 2001.

Howard, Sorry I'll rephrase the question. Is the 'Made in Canada' on the box or on the lens or on both?

-- matt veld (mahv@xtra.co.nz), January 16, 2001.