What is a lens head?

[david_briggs1]

I'm trying to find a new leica m lens and the only two that the seller has that

I want are the heads only. Does this mean the entire lens or some component of

the lens?

[christopher_a._junker1]

Many of the Leica lenses have an optical unit that can be unscrewed from the lens mount. The "lens head" is then reinstalled in an adapter for use on the various Visoflex close focusing devices for macro use. You need the whole lens, both mount and lens head to put on a Leica camera body. Note that lens head and mount are matched for focusing accuracy on a camera body.

[david_briggs1]

So, I could take the mount off of my unusable 1969 50mm summicron and simply put in on the head of any other 50mm summicron from the same period?

[thinkofcole]

Some Leica lenses, David, can be taken apart, like some of the early Leica 90mm and 135mm Elmar lenses...The bottom part has no lenses; just the tube...The top part of the lens is the lens head...

 

They were made that way in earlier days before Leica introduced its own slr's so that Leica could compete with Nikon's slr's. You had to buy a so-called Visoflex and one of several adapters that you had to have with each Leica lens head...

 

You attached your Visoflex to your Leica; either the sm Viso to your sm Leica or your bayonet-mount Viso to your bm Leica...Then, depending on which lens head you wanted to use, you attached your adapter and then your lens head...

 

Then you had a Leica single-lens-reflex...It was big, heavy, clumsy but some people still love it...I used one until just a few years ago...

 

The lens head is of no use to you on your M camera [or any other Leica] with all the other stuff to make it work...

 

If you have further questions, just ask...

[thinkofcole]

So,David asks, I could take the mount off of my unusable 1969 50mm summicron and simply put in on the head of any other 50mm summicron from the same period?

 

No, David, if I understand your question...The lens head you mentioned is made to be unscrewed from certain lenses and used with the Visoflex...Your Summicron is definitely not made to be taken apart, with part of it used in some other way...You have to use the Summicron as intended -- on your Leica M...It's one of Leica's best lenses and it would be a shame to do anything except use it as it is...

[ronald_moravec1]

Optical units or lens heads are not interchangeable with the focus mount half of other

lenses. They are matched together and both have the same serial # so they stay that way.

 

If you put it on a focus mount for the visoflex, then it is focused optically on glass rather

than mechanically with a rangefinder and a "short focus mount" can serve all of one type

of lens.

 

Back to your original question, a lens head is only half the lens and would not be useable.

 

Google "Visoflex pages" for a site with complete diagrams.

[john_boyle3]

Don't buy a "lens head". You want the whole thing.

[thinkofcole]

Here's what a Visoflex looks like with all the stuff you would need with just one of several lens heads Leica made...

[john_shriver]

Leica lens heads are half of a future "mutt", a lens that will never focus accurately. Unless you want them to use on a Visoflex, Leica lens heads are useless. (Except for the unscrupulous to make mutts.)

[alastair_anderson]

In fact it is possible to put different lens heads on different mounts. I have successfully put a non DR head on a DR mount. Leitz produced a close up attachment (for non DR lenses) that specifically required the lens heads to be unscrewed from the mounts. Some of the above answers are incorrect.

[andy_piper2]

"They were made that way in earlier days before Leica introduced its own slr's so that Leica

could compete with Nikon's slr's. "

 

Actually, the first Visoflex-type device Leica made for turning their rangefinders into quasi-

SLRs was introduced in 1935 - 24 years before Nikon had ANY SLRs (1959) to compete with.

 

Exa/Exakta, maybe.