Cross-sections of Leica lenses

Hefting and peering through a high-end camera lens, you get a sense of the craft, the precision engineering, and the thoughtful design that went into it. But look at it in cross-section, as with this photo a neatly bisected Leica Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50mm lens and the hellish, gorgeous complexity is revealed in a visceral way: "These were actually made by Leica students as a graduation project and boxed as a 'cutaway model' of the lens."

Cross Section Views of Leica Lenses (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

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candycritic

I now understand why a little grain of sand can mess one of these things up so badly.
sockdoll

That cross-sectioned lens is simultaneously fascinating and heartbreaking.
psemkl3

(Martians from Toy Story) Oooooooooohhhhhhh!!!!!!
nixiebunny

Lots of stuff in there. Note how the two types of glass in the achromatic groups have different appearance. (follow the link!)

Making cross sections is fun. I’ve only ever made one, of a tiny gear motor.
tmdpny

Went to this link and even found a more awesome post – a war faught with cameras instead of guns. nifty

http://youtu.be/awq90APEVgw

but cross cut leicas are pretty awesome.
PaulR

1) $995 for a half a lens? Where do you get the half a camera? And won’t the film always be fogged?

2) Me, I’d like to see how they grind aspheric lenses.
- flink
  
  Only half of it ;-)
duncan

I’ll see your lens and raise you a camera: http://www.petapixel.com/2011/05/17/sony-alpha-sliced-down-the-middle/
htafari

Nikon often has a split camera & lens at their expo booths. Here’s a D3 and 14-24 f/2.8.
M

For when 500 words are sufficient.
- Anonymous
  
  @ M #5
  FTW! You win teh interwebs for today.
millrick

laser?
diamond saw?
ninja wielded katana?

drat. text reveals that it’s hours of work by industrious technicians to chop the lens in half.
still Ã¼ber cool for all us camera geeks though
God of DIrt

I’ve seen one of these in person, and its quite a sight. Pictures don’t do it justice.
jaytkay

What’s a “Leica student”?
- Gulliver
  
  > What’s a “Leica student”?
  
  You know, like a student.
- PaulR
  
  What’s a “Leica student”?
  
  Someone who learns at the feet of mongrel bitches.
Anonymous

Given that a used Tri-Elmar 28-35-50 sells for about $4000, half of one for $995 seems like a bargain. Buy two and you’ve got the real thing!

More seriously, there were only 360 of the actual Tri-Elmar 28-35-50 made, and a used one sells in the $4000 range. The glass used in the front element is no longer available from the 3 big optical glass manufacturers so there will never be any more of them. Leica is the land where mass production has never been heard of, with many lenses that were only produced in three or four figure batches.

A cutaway like this is an exceedingly rare art object, depicting an extremely rare industrial tool, and collectors will buy it.
Anonymous

@jaytkay – Student at the factory’s school for technicians.
Anonymous

And then think of a zoom lens that has 20-24 lenses in it so that one will have the right focus for the magnification. That’s 40 to 48 air-to-glass surfaces to show lens flare and so lowers contrast. This is a “simple” lens but elegant.
victorvodka

looks a little like the ruins of the coliseum in rome
Remus Shepherd

That’s “Laika”, and we should all learn that way.
flink

That is something. I’ve never really wondered how a lense was constructed beyond a hazy thought about tubes and glass lenses. Seeing this cutaway brightened my day.
- Gulliver
  
  > I’ve never really wondered how a lense was constructed beyond a hazy thought about tubes and glass lenses. Seeing this cutaway brightened my day.
  
  Arguably the coolest intersection of engineering and physics.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction
Wally Ballou

“A cutaway like this is an exceedingly rare art object, depicting an extremely rare industrial tool, and collectors will buy it.”

Leicas in general have moved from the “for photographers” category into the “for posers and collectors” world over the last couple of decades.

Doesn’t particularly bother me that so much of their current production is now “special editions” destined to go into glass cases and never see so much as a single frame of film, other than (grrrrr) it pulls up the prices on the used market too….that M4 with Summilux I’ve always wanted seems forever just out of reach.
DocBosch

While working on cruise ships in the photography dept (I made the video) we used to sell some of the lower end point-n-shoot Leica cameras. When passengers would bring us their personal cameras with jamed lenses, wondering what was wrong, I’d show them the Leica promotional book with a cross-section like this, so they could begin to understand how delicate the inside of their lenses are.