It’s a warm and sunny sunday here in central Germany, and after spending the first half of the day in our beautiful garden I decided the sun’s become too hot and went inside to share with you some more interesting news and articles I found this week.

Leica Freedom Train
Ernst Leitz II, son of Leica-founder Ernst Leitz, helped many people — Leitz employees as well as fellow citizens — to flee the Nazi regime before and during World War II. The Amateur Photographer recollects the story and reports on the ongoing efforts of a british Rabbi to find the last living survivors.

Sigma SD1
According to this post in an Australian Sigma user forum, the release of the new Sigma’s new flagship DSLR SD1 is postponed to June 2011, to coincide with the company’s 50th anniversary.

The first digital camera
The blog “ISO50” reports on the first digital camera, built by Kodak in 1975. The “camera” that looks more like a projector fitted to an early PC, took 23 seconds to save a single image onto a datassette. The whole story’s available at Kodak.com.

Leica Summarit-M 90/2.5 review
Olivier Giroux reviews Leica’s affordable tele lens, the 90mm f/2.5 Summarit-M, and finds that it suffers from severe focus shift — a side effect of the lens’ simple, spherical design. In another article, he explains why fast M-mount lenses longer than 50mm need floating elements.

Leica Summarit-M 35/2.5 on the Sony NEX-3
Wolfgang Spekner, photographer and photo-blogger from Austria, tried the “cheap” 35 on his Sony NEX-3, comparing it to the more affordable but faster Zeiss Biogon 2/35 ZM. The little Summarit really shines on the NEX! Now is that a praise for the lens or for the camera? Or maybe for both?
(The 35 Summarit is in stock at B&H photo as I’m writing these lines — hurry if you want one!)

Thanks for stopping by, and have fun reading!