How many version does M Summicron 50mm/F2.0 have?

-- James Lin (SIGPE57@YAHOO.COM), May 02, 2001

Answers

This will tell you:

http://www.cameraquest.com/mlenses.htm

-- Steve Hoffman (shoffman2@socal.rr.com), May 02, 2001.

The first were the compact retracting ones from the early and mid 1950's. Not a bad lens if you could find one without cleaning marks. These had the softest coating imaginable (what were the Leica folks thinking about?)and also fog up internally very easily. I had one and liked it for portraits, but the images didn't have much snap to them. Then there was the heavy chrome non retracting one with 1 meter minimum focus. This came out about the same time as the dual range 50's, in the late 1950's as well. Both of these lenses are better than the retracting 50, and can aproach the current 50's performance (except wide open) if they are free of coating and fogging problems. They are not multi coated and are of a lower contrast than the latest lenses. They also seem to produce even nicer tones and out of focus highlights than the current formual lenses do. There was then a version in the early 1960's in black without the tab that also was a 1 meter minimum focus. I see a lot of these on e-bay for sale for some reason, and they don't have quite as high of a reputation with Leica nuts as the dual range or newer lenses that came after it-although I do not know exactly why. That's the only one I have never shot with. Several versions of the compact made in Canada (with focus tab) lenses then came next and were made for many years. The early ones have a tab that sticks out further and doesn't have the center dished out. The latter ones have the dished out tab. These are reputed to be the same formula as the current lens, and focus to a close .7 meteres. There was then a very short run of the same style lens made in Germany before the current built in hood style came to be in the early 90's.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), May 02, 2001.

How many version does M Summicron 50mm/F2.0 have?

4 Optical designs and 6 main external designs. 1 - Collapsible 54-57. 2 - Rigid & Near focusing 56-68. 3 - 69-79 4 - 79-94 and 94-today (built-in lens hood)

-- lucien (lucien@ubi.edu), May 08, 2001.