Leica has announced its $8,200 APO-Summicron-M 35mm f/2 ASPH lens
Mar 4, 2021
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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Leica has just announced its new APO-Summicron-M 35mm f/2 ASPH lens, coming in at the princely sum of $8,195. I’m never going to complain about the cost of a 70-200/2.8 again. The new manual focus lens is a Leica M mount lens with a 35mm focal length and a maximum aperture of f/2.
This “fast” wide-angle prime features an apochromatic design with ten elements in five groups. Six of those elements are high refractive index elements which Leica says “virtually eliminate chromatic aberrations”. Three aspherical elements also help to reduce spherical aberration and provide edge-to-edge sharpness.
Despite the choice of product photography used in this article to give the lens some context, there’s no camera included in that purchase price. But, really… come on. What can you expect for just over $8K?
Well, what you can expect is a 35mm f/2 lens with a minimum focus distance of around 30cm – which it turns out is the shortest difference available for M mount lenses. You get an f/2 aperture, which is pretty bright, although it’s not quite the f/1.4 or f/1.2 we see for other systems at much lower price points.
| Lens | APO-Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH |
|---|---|
| Mount | Leica M Mount |
| Format | Full Frame |
| Focal length | 35mm |
| Max aperture | f/2 |
| Min aperture | f/16 |
| Optics | 10 elements in 5 groups |
| Minimum focus distance | 30cm |
| Angle of View | 62.5° |
| Diaphragm Blades | 11 |
| Stabilisation | None |
| Filter size | 39mm |
| Dimensions | 53 x 40.9mm |
| Weight | 320g |
I’ve no doubt this lens will be good… because it’s a Leica. Whether it’ll be $8,200 good is going to be a personal and subjective question for people to answer individually. Personally, I think I’ll skip this one.
If you’re interested in getting one of your own, though, it’s available to pre-order now for $8,195 and starts shipping soon.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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4 responses to “Leica has announced its $8,200 APO-Summicron-M 35mm f/2 ASPH lens”
Eight grand for a fully manual lens? What the heck is the lens made of, Swarovski glass?
diamonds… with high refractive index!
This lens biggest feature is that it is disconnected from reality.
shortest difference – shortest distance ?