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If I were to call it “the perfect fifty” it would need to have a considerably lower cost. The Summilux 50mm f/1.4 ASPH’s price is $3895 USD. It easily beats the Summicron 50mm f/2 v5.
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Now that’s value! The Zeiss Planar 50mm F/2 ZM costs around $900 USD new, and performs fantastic on any M-mount camera. Even Canon and Nikon’s 50mm f/1.8 lenses are great performers, and the Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM costs $110 USD brand new. 50mm lenses are in general very good today, regardless of brand. It’s a great lens for sure, but it also comes at a hefty cost. Well, I can’t completely agree with that. People tend to say that the Summilux 50mm ASPH is “the perfect fifty”. I’d recommend trying out the lens before purchasing it to make sure to get a good copy. So there are copy variations on these, that’s for sure. One of the lenses was very firm, while the other was kinda loose. One of the lenses focusing helicoid was uneven across the focusing range, and the other had a sticky focusing barrel. All I can say is that both lenses that I owned had to go back to Leica for servicing to get them perfect. I have no hands-on experience with the silver lenses, so I can’t really say. I’ve heard talk about the silver versions being smoother and nicer built than the black versions. The black version weighs 335 grams while the silver version, which is made from brass rather than aluminium, weighs in at 460 grams. I’ve grown fond of smaller and lighter lenses over the last years, and I consider the Summilux 50mm to be too big and heavy for what I want now. The lenses I owned was both black anodized aluminium, and I didn’t consider purchasing the silver version, simply because of the extra weight. It retains most of it’s character on film also, except the images are less prone to becoming “glossy” or too smooth (personal opinion), simply due to the nature of film grain, which actually helps this lens look more organic and punchy in my opinion. The lens performs flawlessly on film of course, since it initially was designed for film in the first place. I’ve also used this lens extensively with film (on a Leica MP) but none of the pictures shown here were made with film. The difference compared to the Summicron 50mm f/2 version 5 is very noticeable, and this is the main reason I purchased my first Summilux 50mm instead of the Summicron 50mm v5 I was comparing it to. I’ve shot directly into the sun with this lens countless times, and never ever seen any ghosting or flare. One thing I really love about this lens is that it’s basically immune to flare. The corners sharpen up nicely at f/5.6-f/8, but the two samples I’ve owned (production samples from 20) never got completely sharp in the extreme corners like more modern lenses do (the Summilux 35mm f/1.4 FLE for example).
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I guess the perfect look for me would be the look that the Lux 50 has but with a littlemore character, as I sometimes feel the images can look a little dull.Īt f/4 and beyond the lens is pretty much perfect, and still retains some of it’s smoothness. I seem to never be able to make up my mind about what I prefer. Some people like the smoothness and some people prefer more character. I sometimes feel that the bokeh is a little bit too smooth even, as it seems to lack character and definition. At the same time the bokeh is always creamy and smooth. It has zero distortion, and it’s contrasty, colorful and punchy. I’ve also compared the Summilux to the Sony Zeiss FE 55mm f/1.8, and also Fujifilm’s 35/1.4 and 35/2 WR lenses, which are excellent 50mm equivalent lenses.Īt f/2 and up the lens is very transparent. The signature is very different from the Summicron f/2 version 5, the Noctilux f/0.95 ASPH, and the Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2 ZM, which is the M-mount lenses I’ve compared it with so far. It shows a strong signature look that I haven’t seen in any other 50mm lens. The one exception is at f/1.4, where this lens is all but transparent. The images was made with either Leica M Monochrom or M Typ 240, and were processed mostly in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, with some of the images being processed in Nik Silver Efex 2. I guess the most suitable words for this lens is transparent and smooth. This review is gonna be somewhat photo-heavy, to showcase how this lens performs in most scenarios. I’ve considered writing about my experience of it for a couple of years now, but every time that I’ve considered starting this review I haven’t really had any clear idea about what to write about this lens. The Leica Summilux 50mm f/1.4 ASPH is a lens I’ve owned twice in the last five years.