[LRflex] Re: Summicron 50mm take apart?

Hi Steve,
   Congrats on the purchase. I was wondering how 'dark' it was in your backyard 
because with a f2 lens, you should have been able to boost your iso in your 
canon enough to get better shutter speeds than 1/15th.  In my experience with 
my 20D, 800iso is quite usable when 'getting the shot' starts taking precedence 
over absolute image quality. I keep a tight leash on cropping and enlargement 
playing around at 800 and even higher, but it really helps come away with the 
shots people aren't expecting or regularly experience. Certainly you might have 
been coping with depth of field challenges or something like that, so please 
don't take my inquiry the wrong way. Quoting Wayne Gretzky "You Miss 100% Of 
The Shots You NEVER Take!", so you had nothing to lose giving 1/15th a go!!!!

Richard W.





________________________________
From: Steve Lang <stevelang@xxxxxxxxx>
To: LeicaReflex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 11:57:05 PM
Subject: [LRflex] Summicron 50mm take apart?

Hi everyone,

I recently picked up a Leicaflex SL and 50mm Summicron for a relative song on 
EBay (well, compared to M prices...) I've always been intrigued with Leica, but 
simply don't have the means to get a film or digital M + lenses. I will 
primarily be shooting the Summicron with a Canon DSLR + Leica adapter (the new 
focus confirmation adapters are pretty neat, couldn't do it otherwise.) The 
Leicaflex is a very nice body, love the finder (some dirt spots but still easy 
to focus) so I will have to 'force' myself to shoot some rolls soon.

It's basically a "user" lens and camera. The camera is fine, the lens has some 
small marks on the front element (not a big deal.) There also appears to be 1 
or 2 specks of dust/particles inside the lens. So my question today is, is it 
possible (or even desirable) to unscrew/take apart the lens? I thought I had 
read somewhere that this lens actually comes apart quite easily. If so, I 
thought I might try to get rid of those 1 or 2 flecks inside. If not, no 
worries- in my very brief usage so far the lens is fine.

I unfortunately haven't shot enough to really get a good impression of the lens 
yet. My main point of comparison is going to be the Canon 50mm f1.8 (as I said 
I'm on a budget!) This is not actually so far-fetched a comparison, considering 
the price I paid for the Summicron (minus the Leicaflex, roughly speaking) is 
about the same as the price of a new Canon 50 1.8. I took a few shots of the 
kids in the backyard today, but it was starting to get dark and my shutter 
speeds were 1/15 or so. Amazingly I had a couple of shots that turned out 
surprisingly sharp considering the shutter speed and 50mm * 1.6x crop factor 
for the Summicron. The keepers are not critically sharp shots, but they're a 
lot sharper than I would ever expect handheld 1/15 to be- I attribute that 
partly to the lens and partly to luck. Color and rendition (contrast) looked 
great, but need more shooting to really assess this aspect. But I can already 
tell the bokeh is much better! ;-)

Thanks,
Steve

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