I'd be interested in comments to a discussion I had with a Leica dealer in Munich. This fellow informed me that the new elements for the Leica lenses were manufactured in Japan (or elsewhere in Asia) by Sigma. This was supposedly confirmed, albeit reluctantly, by Leica. Presumably the lens assembly occurs in Germany.

First of all, is this true and secondly, does it matter to the optical quality of the lenses?

Thanks,

Rob

-- Robert Kotin (kotinr@nhli.nih.gov), December 13, 2001

Answers

I don't think it is true, but it might be. The only Sigma design is the 28-70mm zoom which assembled to Leica tolerances at Solms. Lens glass comes from a number of sources and much of it may well be manufactured in Japan: some comes from companies such as Schott. Leica and Contax and others do "produce" their own glass or lenses, but these are often manufactured for them by various glass producers. Leica do not produce their glass in house. Why should we expect them to? They do not forge the alloys for their lenses, or mine the coal to produce the steel etc used in their products. It makes no difference. Whether Sigma themselves produce any glass themselves I don't know, but no doubt someone can tell us. I suspect that there are actually only a very few glass manufacturers that actually produce the glass in most of the world's optical lenses, and personally I doubt Sigma is in the glass business.

No doubt someone here can fill us in on the minutiae.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 13, 2001.

Sigma actually is in the glass business, or so I am told by those in the photo industry. Don't know if they have anything to do with elements you'd find in a current Summicron aspherical or not. Wouldn't matter to me as long as the end result is still some of the finest lenses you can buy for 35mm.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), December 13, 2001.

Sigma Japan made their own high-performance Special Low Dispersion glass (SLD. Crown glass and flint glasses come from Hoya

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), December 13, 2001.

When LEICAs were produced in the LEITZ factories in Wetzlar they used to have their own glass plant for research and for production purposes. But the capacity of this plant was never big enough to meet the demands for the then much bigger lens production. Schott (belonging to the ZEISS Co.) produced the optical glass additionally needed according to LEITZ recipes and standards.

I do not know, if they still do it today for LEICA in Solms. But rumours have it, that today HOYA supplies part of the rawlenses. When I was at a factory tour 12 months ago I saw packages around having HOYA in big letters printed on them and one of the other visitors had heard, that certain glasslenses for the 50 mm SUMMICRON M come from HOYA to be mounted in Solms.

Nothing precise. Perhaps E. Puts has something on this in his Lens Compendium. Try to look for it tonight ...

All this is time spent for speculations. We better take photos with those german, canadian, japaneese, portugeese cameras and lenses. It´s the result which counts and not the secrets of the tools as far as I´am concerned.

Best wishes

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), December 13, 2001.

Good minutiae! Who makes the chips used in the R8 - sure is not Leica. Does this make it any less a Leica? Not really. I think it is all a red herring. Leica imposes their quality controls on everything they make ans of course, usually design and assemble the items concerned to make up the whole. The components themselves no doubt come froma number of sources - this seems to me completely natural, sensible and to be expected in a developed economy.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 13, 2001.

Thank you all for the sharing your thoughts. Of course, if the product meets specifications and quality control is maintained then effectively there is no difference in lenses using outsourced components. It's mostly a psychological issue: one feels somewhat misled and even cheated to some degree. For example, I'll assume that the cost of assembling a lens from outsourced material is (much) less than using Leica produced components. However, the (lower) costs of manufacturing the lenses are not reflected difference in the market price. Maybe it's just me, but I'm very dissappointed when a famous maker's product that had historically been produced in the US now has a made in China label inside for the same price.

-- Robert Kotin (kotinr@nhli.nih.gov), December 13, 2001.

PS- typo in the e-mail. Sorry. RK

-- Robert Kotin (kotinr@nhlbi.nih.gov), December 13, 2001.

Leica does not make any glass. They buy it from various suppliers based on composition and quality. As far as I know, most of the grinding (maybe just the final grinding, occurs in Solms

-- John Collier (jbcollier@powersurfr.com), December 13, 2001.

However, the (lower) costs of manufacturing the lenses are not reflected difference in the market price.

Robert

How right you are, but just think how much more it would all cost everything WAS produced in a Leica factory in Solms! Remember the costs are in the design, assembly/manufacture, quality control, marketing, selling etc. Then you have to think how few cameras and lenses Leica sell every year compared to, say, Nikon or Canon, so these costs are spread over very few items thus producing a very high unit cost. Now one can see why everything is so expensive!

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 13, 2001.

I understand optical glass manufacturing can be quite toxic. So perhaps modern German laws give Leica no choice but to import such materials? The new Hasselblad 905SWC uses non-toxic glass. And the Wetzler 50mm f/2.8 Elmar has radioactive glass?!? Anyone knows anything about this?

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), December 13, 2001.

>>Leica does not make any glass. They buy it from various suppliers based on composition and quality. <<

It is true except that I'm told the glass that goes into the noctilux are still being fab'ed by Leica glass lab.

-- Gerald (hsus@netzero.net), December 14, 2001.

I do not think so! The whole glassproduction is outsourced today. If they had those facilities in SOLMS they would show off with it at the factory tours.

Have one if you can be around and see for yourself! It´s most intersting even without seeing melting glass.

Best wishes

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), December 14, 2001.

Re: lens elements

I think that Leica buys all of its glass from other manufacturers. In the old days, they had a glass lab in Wetzlar that fabricated some of the unusually highly refractive glass, eg., for lens elements in the Noctilux 50/1.0. I still buy Leica lenses because of their very high level of optical performance.

But it does sometimes bother me that more and more components are obtained elsewhere. For example, in some cases, the barrels are obtained from another manufacturer (Sigma). If indeed lens elements are ground and polished by another company (this is a critical step), it would bother me. [Don't know if this is true.] Although final assembly and quality testing is still done in Germany, one could question the degree to which Leica depends on other companies for components of their M lenses.

Ordinarily, this would be no big deal, but if you are paying very high prices for lenses engarved "Made in Germany", it would be nice if this were fully true. That said, I don't believe you can get any better lenses from other manufacturers.

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), December 14, 2001.

The two modern lenses I own, the 50mm f2.0 and 90mm f2.8, are the two best lenses I own and have ever owned by all means that you could judge a lens. The proof is in the end product, and whatever steps Leica is taking these days to arrive at lenses that perform like the two I mentioned above is a great success.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), December 15, 2001.