[LRflex] Leica R lenses on a Nikon digital body using the Leitax bayonet

  • From: H&ECummer <cummer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: leicareflex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 09:17:33 +0800

Hi Flexers,

My Leitax bayonets came in today - just in time for the long Chinese New Year holiday - and in just over an hour I changed all three of the R lenses that I have here in Hong Kong. Lost no screws - lost no ball bearings and didn't swear once. A very successful session. ;-) There were no instructions for the 19mm Elmarit - so I followed what was posted on the Leitax website for the 21mm Super Angulon. It all went smoothly but it took me a couple of tries to get the new bayonet to seat properly - making sure that the ball bearing that controls the aperture click stops was in the right spot. Tomorrow I will venture out to try the 19mm in the real world. The 90mm Summicron was as easy as indicated on the website. I tried to remove the third cam step cam but couldn't and then discovered I didn't need to take it off. This is not emphasized on the website but is implied by the picture of the parts that are taken out of the lens. Putting on the new bayonet was very easy - place ball bearing and screw down the six screws in a cross tightening pattern. I could get good at this!! My 180mm Telyt APO is slightly different from the one on the website. It is the model at the end of the production run which takes a 60mm filters and it has a shroud which is not in the lens used to illustrate the installation of the bayonet on the website. You have to remove the shroud before you remove the bayonet. Other than that variation it is easy to make the change. Tomorrow we'll see how the lenses perform on the Nikon. Pictures will be posted, of course!!
Here are the lenses on my D700.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Howard+Cummer/R+lenses+on+Nikon+D700/

http://tinyurl.com/cq98dk

Cheers
Howard
Kong Hei Fat Choi to all my Cantonese friends
Gong Xi Fa Cai to the Mandarin speakers

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