Before I continue let me add my gratitude to the already long list of thanks to the people on this site who have greatly contributed to my knowledge of rangefinder photography.

I recently received my first Leica lens (along with my first Leica camera), a new black 35mm Summicron f2.0 Asph, which comes with a detachable rectangular lens hood. After a few days I noticed that the hood was tilted, and not aligned with the camera's lines. The left corner is 1mm lower than the right, and it is visibly noticeable.

I took it to the dealer and they told me that I was not the first person with this situation. The gnomes at Leica said they would have to disassemble the lens to set the alignment of the lens hood, and in its current (crooked) state it would not affect the quality of the images. In short, live with it. The dealer was concerned that I had spent $1,145 on a lens with a crooked hood.

My personal philosophy is that it is just a camera and not an object of worship. However I am a bit miffed at this defect. Is this the best of German engineering? How could such a thing get past the quality control gurus at the factory?

I don't mean to sound infantile, but what should I do? What are my options?

Thanks for your advice.

-- Sikaan (Sikaan4@aol.com), December 24, 2001

Answers

I have the same problem--about 1mm higher on one side (and correspondingly lower on the other) ... How skewed can the alignment be before affecting the image area? This is my 3rd 35 summicron in a month; the first had a large speck of metallic dust, the second had a sticky focus ring ... so I've decided to keep it until it really begins to bother me and return it under the Passport warranty ...

-- Dave Y (dhy@pantheon.edu), December 24, 2001.

Count me in, too. My 35mm M-Summicron Asph also has a crooked lens hood, exactly as you describe. What's up with this? Is this common to all of them?

-- Dennis Couvillion (couvilaw@aol.com), December 24, 2001.

I think it only affects those lenses that do not suffer from large specks of metallic dust smack dab in the middle of the elements ... except, of course, those unlucky ones that have both features ...

-- Dave Y (dhy@pantheon.edu), December 24, 2001.

My old 21 pre-asph did the same thing until I bumped hard into something... Then it listed the other direction! I found thereafter that I could twist that shade within its mount and thus line it up. I have not tried this on any other lenshood though.

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), December 24, 2001.

Wait. I'll be right back. Let me go outside and bump the lens hard and see if the hood aligns properly. I'll let you know if it works on mine. (Seriously, you'd think Leica could do a better job than this. Cosmetics aside, does anyone know if the misalignment may present any focusing problems?)

-- Dennis Couvillion (couvilaw@aol.com), December 24, 2001.

I once bought an unused shade for a 21/4 R lens and when I put it on the lens the rectangular part was about 45-degrees off center. I noticed that there were no screws attaching the plastic part of the shade to the inner metal part, so I just pulled them apart and re-- glued them back together in the right orientation. For a company whose high prices are premised on superior German workmanship, if they're going to assemble parts with glue instead of screws, you might figure they would apply some of that German engineering toward making an assembly jig that consistently lines things up.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), December 24, 2001.

My 21/28 pre-asph, same crookedness. But I never use the hood on it because what good does it really do. I'd be miffed as well on the 35, though.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), December 24, 2001.

I had exactly the same problem with the same lens one year ago. I took the lens and hood back and we tried out a new hood and it was perfect and thus exchanged it. Had that not worked, we would have exchanged the lens (itself, with or without the hood). No problem here. My feeling -- and I know you may have a different experience here -- is that if none of this exchange practice works, then exchange the whole store too.

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), December 24, 2001.

You know, I wasn't sure if it was the lens hood or the front part of the lens assembly that was not properly aligned; that's why I asked whether it might affect the functioning of the lens. I'm still not positive but, after looking at it again, I'm inclined to believe it's just the lens hood. No sweat, then. But, just for future reference, how do you separate the plastic hood from the metal inner ring. Thanks.

-- Dennis Couvillion (couvilaw@aol.com), December 24, 2001.

Dennis et al: My advice is to use the lens and not worry about hood alignment too much unless it somehow clips your image...

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), December 24, 2001.

PS: Now you know why all the hoods used to be round!

;-) Cheers,

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), December 24, 2001.

I have observed this problem too but it didn't affect the photographs, so I'm not sure it matters too much, although it does seem like there could be a better way of fitting a hood. I find the mechanical fit not that good anyway. I much prefer the pull-out hoods that many Olympus lenses have, and some of the Konica lenses.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), December 24, 2001.

I have exactly the same problem with my one year old 35/2 Asph. The agent said that they would ship it back to Germany for repair. No thanks I said. Annoying as it is, the lens is razor sharp and I've learned to live with it.

It could be the hood or the lens. I'm inclined to think that it is the mounting flange at the back of the lens because the infinity (and hence the hood too) rotate slightly past the 12 o'clock position before the lens release button clicks into place.

-- sam smith (Ruy_Lopez@hotmail.com), December 24, 2001.

I think this falls into the "who cares?" range of questions, but here's my experience. 20 years ago my 28/2.8 liked to do this same trick. Whereas on the longer lenses, say 50mm and up, the lens screws into the focus mount and bottoms out much like an LTM lens mounting on a screw mount camera, the lenses (the ones I'm familiar with, anyway) shorter than 50 mount on the focus mount as a large format lens does on a board, with a slip fit through the focus mount and a lock ring to hold everything in place. These lenses, if the ring is loose (you'll know there is such a ring by looking on the back of the lens--the first thing you'll see inboard of the focus cam ring is another ring with two cuts in it for a spanner wrench, and that's the lock ring--it won't appear to be attached to the lens elements part of the lens), can turn 360 degrees, and only the tension of the ring holds them in the right angular position. If you grabbed the hood on a lot of them (and I'm not saying you could or should do this) you could simply twist them to the right position. That's not an excuse, it's an explanation. The bottom line is that this is a cosmetic problem, not a functional one. If it bothers you, send it back and get it fixed, or buy a Nikon. :-)

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), December 24, 2001.

Thanks for all the responses. I had no idea this cosmetic problem was so prevalent. I feel much better knowing that many are suffering along with me, but that doesn't make it right.

<< The bottom line is that this is a cosmetic problem, not a functional one. If it bothers you, send it back and get it fixed, or buy a Nikon. :-) >>

Ok, point taken. But the bottom line should be that if Leica is making a product that is touted (and revered) as the last word in 35mm quality, there should be zero tolerance for cosmetic defects before the item leaves the factory floor.

I already have a Nikon system, two SLR's and six lenses. NEVER had a problem with them for over 20 years, but none of the lenses have rectangular hoods. Japanese are tops in the cosmetic area. Bar none. :)

-- Sikaan (Sikaan4@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

Sikaan,

"But the bottom line should be that if Leica is making a product that is touted (and revered) as the last word in 35mm quality, there should be zero tolerance for cosmetic defects before the item leaves the factory floor."

Good point, especially for the serious money one has to fork out to buy Leica glass. However I think you'll find that your 35/2 Asph is a real performer. Nonetheless, Leica quality control seems to have slipped somewhat in the last few years judging by the number of complaints being posted. Or maybe the net is bringing these problems out into the open. Having said that however I have yet to see someone complain about the optical quality of their newly purchased Leica lens despite large specks of debri, bubbles, loose aperture rings, hood alignment problems etc. in some of those lenses.

-- sam smith (Ruy_Lopez@hotmail.com), December 25, 2001.

That's right, the Japanese redefined quality control in the area of consumer products and electronics. It is easy to forget how, before modern Japanese cameras with their JCII stickers entered the marketplace, people always used to worry a lot about whetherthey had a "good piece". This applied to everything, from cameras to toasters to cars.

Having an inside connection to the manufacturers, or at least a shopkeeper always helped, and people stored up arcane knowledge about good "batches", presumably.

Leicas are up to very high modern quality control standards, but the Japanese still have the edge over the Germans in this regard. In the last 25 years, I have not bought a single Japanese product that needed to be returned, had any cosmetic blemishes, did not function exactly as specified.

There used to be a joke about a Sony rep who asked an American wholesaler what level of quality control was acceptable to him. "99% defect free on average", said the American, ordering 100 Sony TVs.

The Sony guy came back in a truck, and lifted out 99 boxes. He struggled with the 100th box placing it slightly away from the others. "That's the 1 defective TV you wanted"...

Of course, YMMV.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), December 25, 2001.

Ahhh! Leica quality control strikes again, look at this - Leica Quality Control?

Merry Christmas!

-- Giles Poilu (giles@monpoilu.icom43.net), December 25, 2001.

Giles, thanks for referring to this old posting of yours. I can't help saying that, yes, I am aware that not everybody in the forum lives here in Leicaland, but I myself am indeed happy that I have never had any problem with trading something in that I didn't like (e.g. the hood problem) or exchanging one lens for the other (which I bought earlier in the same store). I know there are good stores and bad stores here, but I have also read that there are apparently some whole countries where this type of guarantee/exchange/rebate is just not possible.

Inspite of all this controvery -- everybody -- Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), December 25, 2001.

All demos I have seen of the new 35mm Summi has had a crooked hood. Standard answer from every dealer: " Just the demo, ones in the box are perfect". Leica needs to look at this - obviously a gremlin in the manufacturing process. And yes, it does matter!!! How about driving around in a Mercedes with a crooked hood ornament? Doesn't affect the performance of the car, but sure is annoying. Thought it was my imagination first, glad to know others see this as well.

-- Stephen Dominick (sdstudio@vaxxine.com), December 25, 2001.

As a matter of fact, as soon as I saw the trhread title, I guessed the lens in question was a 35mm ASPH "cron. That's because there have been two or three similar posts. Is this the lens that has the glued-in carbon fiber tube? Or was that the 4th version pre-ASPH?

I suppose the new Leica lens construction might be partly motivated by wanting to make the lens lightweight. But if the penalty is a crooked sunshade, or anything else that feels cheap, I'd rather they go back to the way they made my DR Summicron. Now, there's a sturdy lens!

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), December 25, 2001.

I noticed that there were no screws attaching the plastic part of the shade to the inner metal part"

My 21mm R hood has screws. Mind you they have fallen out, but they were there once. I hate hoods on superwides and often use the 21mm without it.

My 35mm 'cron ASPH is perfect. I wouldn't worry about it myself. I bet there is enough leeway for it to not matter even at full aperture.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 28, 2001.