On 17 Jul 1998 18:01:42 GMT, hrfoto@aol.com (HRfoto) wrote:

>Some time ago I obtained a broshure from Leitz, which stated various tolerances
>in the production of their cameras and lenses. For comparison I contacted a
>number of other camera and lens manufacturers and unfortunately did not get the
>replies I was hoping. Nikon claimed proprietery information. Canon did not
>answer, neither did Minolta. The worst answer came from Pentax, stating that
>this was a very complicated matter and that I wouldn't be able to understand it
>anyway.
[...most deleted...]
>Anyway, any additional input here would be very much welcome.

Heck, I can't resist... (though Jim Williams' answer was a darn good
one...! ;-). I check out a lot of lenses (see my "SLE{MN]", under "I
babble" on my web page), and have seen a lot of sample variation
in a VERY few Nikkors, some variation in some lenses, and very little
in most, especially the non-zooms. But I have seen manufacturing defects
in a rather surprising percentage of the small number of Leitz rf
lenses I've seen (and even a bit of visible misalignment in a
3-kilobuck 35mm f1.4 double-aspheric...). BTW, while I'm not fond
of the look and feel of the icky plastic AF lenses (with NONE of the
panache of Leitz rf lenses, or Nikkor MF lenses...! ;-), even with
the front optics flopping all about, they still can check out
well-aligned optically... A Leica rangefinder camera is fun to hold
and handle, but when it comes to picture taking, it would sit on my
shelf, and the F3 and 8008 would go out to work.