Focusing tab lock, wanna get rid of it.

Reading how pleased we all can be about focusing tabs, made me remember of two lenses I own with focusing tab locks (Summaron 35/2.8,and SA 21/3.4); nice pices of glass, I even had gotten used to live with the locked tabs, but after useing newer lenses those have become a pain to use, any sugestion on how to solve that.

The lenses I own that have the tabs have little or no focusing ring

on them. I would think that without the tab, you'd have to really

fuss with them to focus. By the way, as a "tab advocate", I can say

that after having a chance to shoot with the current 50mm recently,

the tabbed 50 is faster to focus, but I think I was able to fine tune

the focus better on the newer lens for shots where I had a moment to

do so. My wide-open in-focus success rate for more leisurely

shooting was definately better with the current lens, where I feel I

have more control over small increments of barrel rotation. In

reading what I just wrote and thinking about all the other posts

recently about the focusing tabs etc., I am coming to wonder if we

all going nuts or what?

It's possible to grind down tab lock so that the tab no longer clicks

in at infinity. If I had one of these lenses, I would get rid of the

lock in an instant. They're a pain and they've never made any sense

to me. Bear in mind that grinding down the tab lock is equivalent to

removing the ear tag from a Beanie Baby. You make the item more

functional, but you kill the resale value.

They already don´t worth much in a resale value, specialy the 21 that

is so beat up no one would give a cent for it, but cristal is clean

as well as mecanicaly, I have fix the tab lock problem with crazy

glue, gum and pieces of wood, but it hasn´t been a definitive

solution, I´m thinking now in disasembling it and get rid of the

locking sistem, just don´t know how.

Sherry Krauter told me she'll remove the locking mechanism from the

tab during a CLA and send the parts back to you in a little plastic

bag. I forgot to put a note in with my 50 Summicron so she'd do it.

 

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She apparently uses her locking tab lenses without the locks in this

way.

Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to the question carefully and

thought you were asking to remove the actuall tab and not the lock.

That's what I get for logging on when I haven't totally woken up yet!

I have an infinity lock on my 35 f2.8 I'd love to have removed as

well.

Funny, my SA 21/3.4 #2292xxx, Wetzlar, has a tab, but no lock.

Mine is the 2035559, glad your lens arrived late to tabs

distribution, and as if it were little it got chromed too.

I took the lock mechanism off a Nikon 28/3.5 LTM. I just unscrewed

the screw-in post from the back, and pulled off the housing and

spring. It could easily be put back on. It's still easy to focus, it

just doesn't lock. I haven't messed around with any of my Leitz

lenses, though.