Egami spotted that Konica Minolta patent. So it’s not Leica, but Konica that likely designed the Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 MFT lens? Wondering what kind of role had Leica on that lens development…or are they only selling the Leica logo?
Note: There are differences in the design between that Konica patent and the real Leica lens. That said it is not unusual for a patent to show different kind of design variations. So we astill don’t know if it’s Konica or not that designed the Leica 45mm lens.
43 Responses
Expect to pay $700 for a $200 glass. Good one Leica.
A Konica Minolta design could mean better quality than “Leica” these days.
And the Sigma 60mm f/2.8 proves that there is not much in a name these days. Thanks to precise lens testing methods.
The Panasonic Leica 45/2.8 IS has 14 elements in 10 groups.
http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/systemcamera/gms/lens/dg_macro_45.html
The lens pictured in the patent description has 9 elements. The lenses aren’t the same.
+1
Honestly, it’s a great lens, even considering the price, so why should it be all that important?
Apex…thanks for being thorough and bringing ALL the facts to the table…I wonder how many people feel foolish about their assumptions?
I own the Leica 45mm and I think it is a GREAT little macro lens for the system…Never disappoints me…the images are very crisp!…..my only complaint it that it could focus a little faster (still best the speed of the 20mm f/1.7 that I had, though)…but I have the Oly 45mm f/1.8 if I need more speed for a situation.
Yeah, they aren’t even close, are they…
admin starts to shock us with bombastic headlines followed by the questionmark…just in case
Considering that Leica is willing to slap it’s logo on anything and everything, for a buck, it should come as no surprise that someone else entirely is making a “Leica” lens. Big deal.
Haven’t we seen this before, or was it a similar situation about a different lens.
As for Sigma, we’ve seen a similar post about their involvement with the Oly 75mm.
As for Leica, have they made anything lately (except for the monochrome camera)? I thought that they were mostly in the business of selling their name to Pany to put on their lenses, P&S cameras, etc., and put their name on Pany cameras. In fact, I actually own a Leica-branded watch. Don’t know who made it, but it’s never really worked properly. But, of course, it looks great.
even it has the same design, it doesn’t mean their qualities are the same.
Lens’ glasses and coating should be consider too.
Panasonic can use Leica Brand when the lens quality reaches the standard that is accepted by Leica.
By the way, I think the these 2 lenses are different.
Why is it that every time somebody on this site finds a patent, they immediately assume that the lens will be or has been produced? Surprise: these companies file hundreds and hundreds of patents and less than 1% of them ever make it to the mock-up phase of development. If you’d even bothered to look, you might have noticed that the Konica patent is for an 8-element/5-group design. Does that really look so similar to the Panasonic 14-element/10-group design to you? The Konica has 2 aspherical lenses; the Panasonic has 1. The egami post even says right in it that it’s an unrelated lens. Use you heads before you post this stupidity.
Does Admin have a retraction of his ill-researched conjecture at the top of the page as per Apex’s evidence????????
Indeed the post should be at least updated !
Jeez guys, give the man time to sleep and then feed his baby! It’s just gone 6am in Western Europe! Besides, it was someone else’s research he posted a link too……
Yup… Note that it’s also very tempting to feed the buzz: more hits, more links to stores, more cash to buy lenses and cam 🙂 Would you blame him for that? I won’t 😉
Good point. I should have put a smiley face at the after my comment above…it was half tongue-in-cheek…I love all the hard work admin does with the site…but he did pose a question that was waaaaaaaaaaaaay incorrect…:-).
Minolta and Sigma designed a lot of the Leica R lenses. The 16/2.8 fisheye. 24/2.8. 500/8. Almost all of the zooms. Minolta also made the lenses for the CL, but I think they were designed by Leica.
Zeiss designed the 15/3.5, and Schneider designed the 21/3.4, 21/4, 28/2.8 PC, and 35/4 PA. There are two M lenses that were designed by Schneider: the first 180/2.8 and the 50/1.5.
(Are there more?)
Leica is not too proud to put their badge on whatever lens or body they deem good enough. Of all these lenses, only the 50/1.5 is considered to have been a real disappointment, but even that has a cult following.
First, I agree that this doesn’t look to be the 45 Elmarit design. By the way, aside from the mismatch of elements, the Pana/Leica lens has OIS (and in macro mode, a first I believe) – it doesn’t look like this one is stabilized.
Second, neither Leica nor Panasonic have claimed that Leica-branded 4/3 or M43 lenses are Leica factory designs. Leica and Panasonic have a mutually beneficial relationship at the design, manufacturing and business level. Leica did more to help Panasonic designers years ago, but mostly Leica participates in the design reviews and evaluates the lens performance – but the design is typically Panasonic (very capable engineers). There is an interview where a Panasonic manager related the experience of having to re-design a lens (earlier in this relationship) that didn’t meet Leica’s expectations. Of course this caused some consternation but Panasonic realizes it was for the better.
The latest Leica “Nocticron” started life as a Lumix lens; see the early reports. I’m not sure whether the decision to go with Leica branding was purely business, or whether Leica brought more advice to the development than the usual review/approval activity.
It is pretty clear that lenses for Panasonic compact cameras have a different set of criteria to earn the badge. Software correction is a big part of those, while it seems that it is mostly off-limits for the M43 Leica lenses (BTW I don’t agree with that; it wouldn’t bother me at all to see a Leica-named M43 lens that depended on various digital corrections).
Third, Leica also has extremely capable and high-quality-conscious designers for their own lenses. Some of the sneering comments would suggest otherwise, but there is no doubt about this. Fixed “prime” lenses have been their specialty, and they have had less experience with complex zooms which in the past were often contracted out (e.g. Leica R zooms by Minolta and Tamron). Everyone in the industry uses outside design and manufacturing; this has been widespread since the very beginning of wet-plate photography. People who make fun of these arrangements, be they supposedly “outed” or blindingly obvious, might as well make fun of their own favorite photo brand, because they _all_ do it.
Did you really think Leica designed the lens? Leica is only selling specs. As someone else has already pointed out, Panasonic can use the Leica name when the lens quality reaches certain standard set out by Leica… I don’t think any of the MFT Panasonic Leica lenses were designed by Leica!
Right, and I suspect that those specs become lower as Leica needs more money. I saw the Leica name on a $400 (?) Pany P&S recently. The humorous thing is that many of those looking at a $400 P&S probably have never heard of Leica and might consider Panasonic a good Japanese company compared to some weird-sounding name from “old Europe,” an area that’s not known for technological advances.
Germany unknown for technological advances? You are hilarious….
I wrote “not known.” Name an advance. The only major advance since WW2 from Europe is Airbus, and that was mostly French. That’s what I was saying. I’m not trying to start an argument about this, but just relaying what my students (Asian) think. They think of Apple, Samsung, etc. Europe is something from the history books.
yes, Europe in History books and all those “crappy” high-end luxury european cars which are so much despised in Asia I wonder each time I see them around…..
German cars are the top sellers in China (high end), which drives Peugeot, GM, Ford, etc., crazy. The government loves Audi. GM has good plans and is improving, and Ford is trying; Peugeot just won’t make it. But, cars are not exactly technology nowadays.
Not exactly technology? O_o
It seems that your students need to acquire a more differentiated view of the world. For starters, there’s more to technology than consumer products. It’s true that Germany has mostly given up on optical consumer products. But the country is a hotspot of laser development. You just don’t see that as a consumer. There are many other examples. As far cars are concerned (the second most expensive product that the average consumer every buys), they are incredibly complex, and therein lies much of the production challenge. Car parts are also a big driver in many technological advances.
Hey, all the aforementioned companies are top notch though. I love Konica-Minolta and Leica!
If i remember correctly, a Lica manager said that the difference between their lenses and others is that thay throw away much more.
So that hopefully means less sample variation. Or they are just stupid manufacturers 😀
Incredible mistake and a shame for this website.. Update this news or it doesn’t make any sens.
The two design are completly different…
Does it really matter who designs the lens or manufactures it, if it performs as expected?
The only problem with PanaLeica lenses is the Leica-extra in price, but as far as I know, they have been serving a very high IQ – as designed.
Sigma and Samyang have proofed, that even a low cost lenses can deliver good images. I would welcome Konica-Minolta welcome to mFT-world anytime as a co-designer or with their own name. I have had Konicas and Minoltas earlier, and still use some of their lenses with my mFT-bodies.
IMO Leica nowadays is just an overhyped name. They probably still do a lot of Hi-Tech R&D, but not on the consumer level any more.
Konica lenses used to be the benchmark when testing the other japanese manufacturers lenses back in the 70-80 by the japanese officials. Konica lenses were considered perfection. Minolta also had great lenses.
Doing a Hasselblad badged Sony.
As expected, Leica will not go m43. The dream is over. No Leica branded m43 camera. Oh well. There’s still “Kodak”.
All Leica lens MFT are designed by Leica themselves.
Panasonic’s “Leica brand” and Sony’s “Zeiss brand” do not MEAN Leica/Zeiss made/designed them.
Those lenses are passed the criteria of them.
If Leica/Zeiss could make lenses, they directly sell them.
So
It not unusual that Konica-Minolta designed 45mm macro.
The design should be compliant with Leica’s criteria (condition to give “the logo”) and the product was checked by Leica as its compliance.
I think Leica and Zeiss augment the design capabilities of panasonic and Sony, respectively. It’s not that the latter two could not design nice lenses, but it doesn’t make sense for them to build up that much human resources for this purpose. And then there’s the brand name of course.
I have a circa-1955 Zeiss-Ikon Contessa camera which also has a 45mm f/2.8 lens. So this lens must have been designed by Konica-Minolta as well…?
It seems more likely to me that the patent similarity is an example of “design convergence.” Everybody has access to more or less the same catalog of optical glasses, everyone is using similar design software, and everyone is working with the same laws of optics… it shouldn’t be surprising if similar solutions emerge.
But I don’t blame Admin for suggesting the possibility. Remember, this is a RUMOR site!!! Evaluating the likelihood of rumors is part of the fun of reading it.
As others have said, it wouldn’t be the first time Minolta made a lens for Leica. But certainly Minolta learned something from Leica back in the 70s, just as Panasonic has learned from them recently. The $10-20 Rokkor PF 50/2 is rumored (D Kilpatrick) to have originally been a Summicron R that MInolta intended to make for Leica. Whatever the truth of it, it’s a hell of good lens for the money.
Through not sure about that particular lens, Minolta did act as second source supplier for lenses for Leica. One lens with a very likely Leica origin is the MD mount 28-85.