Prediction on new 50 Nocti

If we accept the 50 1.0 is history soon, may I predict there is something

even better in the works.

 

The original Noct 1.2 was made with hand ground asphers with large failure

rate making it commercially not acceptable.

 

Version 2, the 1.0, was developed with the Noct glass. I wrote below about

the difficulty of making the Noct glass melt and cooling so it probably is no

more. They are working off the last melt decades past.

 

The version 3 will be made with the blank press aspherical elements so we are

back to asphers again, but they have proved that technology and it is in use.

 

So why can`t there be a new 50 1.0 Aspherical? My crystal ball tells me it

is coming and will be $6000+. The reason the price on the old was raised so

the new will not seem to be such a jump!

 

Total speculation on my part as, I do not have an inside track. The sales

rep does not even know my name. BTW, he is a very nice young man who used to

sell Canon.

OK...

Plastic: Easy to mold and cheap.

I also would like to see a new 50 1.0 Aspherical, but not at a price more than $3000.

PT Barnum, former Canon salesman, now a Leica insider.

At least I admit to this being a wild guess.

Ronald, this has occurred to me also, and I think your prediction has a high probability of being right. And the new Noct might even be smaller and lighter, owing to the asphere(s).

When I talked to the guy's at Leitz Canada (whatever they are called now, Raytheon ...) about a year ago, they had about a 5 year supply of 50F1.0's on the shelf. They have been sitting there for the last 10 years or so, before the nasty enviro laws went into effect, they got all the glass they could, cranked the production line up and went to town. The big issue isn't making the glass, the issue is the EU and it's lead laws, so if they decide to make a new version it will need to be a different optical formulation.

 

FYI they still can and do make the M6 special order versions (out of Titanium).

"When I talked to the guy's at Leitz Canada (whatever they are called now, Raytheon ...) about a year ago, they had about a 5 year supply of 50F1.0's on the shelf. They have been sitting there for the last 10 years or so"

 

Absoultely true.

There are a few things I don't understand about the lead issue and how it relates to glass lens elements. Some lenses, like my Canon 35mm f/2 FD SSC, contain radioactive thorium. Eventually other types of glass were developed so the thorium was not needed. The problem was not so much that the lenses were "hot" but that grinding the elements produced a dust which could be harmful to the technicians doing the work. As I understand it, lead in glass is not a great health hazard. One of the methods proposed for containing hazardous waste is called in-ground vitrification. Electrodes are put in the ground and powered up. The soil in the affected (electrified) area heats up so much that it turns into a glass-like substance and traps the waste. Glass is a fairly stable material. If you look at glass windows in very old churches you can measure the drift which has occurred over time where the bottom of the pane is thicker than the top but the glass itself degrades very slowly.

 

Is the problem with lead in glass lens elements that the lead will somehow escape from the glass and cause contamination or that the grinding process or other handling of the lead is hazardous to the technicians?

"One of the methods proposed for containing hazardous waste is called in-ground vitrification."

 

Too expensive to be practical or usable. Even more expensive than dehalogenating dioxins with molten Sodium.

 

I think Schott have developed Lead free flints with same characteristics so that a new "environmentally friendly" legislation could be approved.

 

This follows, of course, the reality of disposing off of the millions of lenses containing lead. Ground fills get more and more toxic. Glass/rocks, etc are not that stable once they are buried. They do interact with their environment.