LEICA SUMMARIT 5cm F1.5

Leica’s early high-speed lenses

A review and Photo example of the SUMMARIT-L 50mm F1.5.

Gallery

Review

Overview
Usage
Summarit

1．Overview

The Summilux 50mm F1.5 is a bright standard lens released in 1939 and is the predecessor to the Summilux.

About 75,000 were produced between 1939 and 1957, and it is a lens that is often seen on the second-hand market.

The lens is available in M-mount and L39 screw-mount versions, and because the M-mount version has an older mount shape, it cannot be officially modified to add the 6-bit lens recognition code used in digital Leica cameras.

The aperture has 15 blades.

2．Usage

The lens I had also had some scratches on the surface, and was cloudy, so the image was soft and blurry.

When backlit, there was a lot of ghosting and a drop in contrast. This is not often seen with the latest Summilux and Summicron 50mm, and I think it can be enjoyed as an old lens.

Perhaps because the surface of the original Summilux is soft, many used lenses have scratches on the surface. Lenses with beautiful surfaces should be very expensive if they are guaranteed to be original, and cheaper lenses may have had their surface polished. Surface polishing can range from amateur to professional, and the quality is up to the user to decide.

I remember that the heavy hammer-tone hood I bought after acquiring the lens was extremely heavy and expensive. I still have it on hand because it is difficult to get accessories again if you let them go.

In the midst of the 2023 recession, the prices of lenses in good condition are being maintained, but lenses with defects such as cloudiness, lens scratches, and hits are back to the prices of the early 2000s. Cheap lenses may not perform as well as they should, but as mentioned earlier, they may be good if you enjoy ghosting and low-contrast photos.

The beautiful silver lens barrel and sturdy hood satisfied my desire to own it, but I ended up selling it because I used it less frequently than the other 50mm lenses I had. I bought the lens at Kato Kaiyodo, which sold medicines and cameras in the same store in Kannai, Yokohama. This store no longer exists.

3．Summarit

The name Summarit in the 1900s was the name of the lens seen on the Summarit 50mm F1.5 from 1939-1957 introduced above, and the 40mm F2.4 focal length lens that was installed on the 1995 compact film camera Minilux (MINILUX).

When naming Minilux lenses, there was only the 50mm F1.5 Summarit, so it is difficult to see any connection to the Minilux’s 40mm, F2.4.

If we consider the reason for adding the Summarit, the old Summarit’s maximum aperture F-number: F1.5 was between the Summilux (F1.4) and Summicron (F2), making it a lens that deviates from the normal lens naming rules.

The Minilux’s F2.4 also deviates from the lens naming rules, as its maximum aperture F-number is between the Elmarit (F2.8) and Elmar (F3.5-F4). So rather than adopting a new name for the lens, and instead of limiting the Summarite name to a focal length and F-stop, we can speculate that they redefined Summarite as a name that can be used generically for lenses that are not included in the Leica lens naming rules.

Lenses that used the Summarite name in the 2000s include the Leica M-mount and S-mount for medium-format digital cameras, as shown in the table below.

	Leica S mount (medium format camera)	Leica M mount
Focal length:35	F2.5(2013)	F2.4(2014)/F2.5(2007)
Focal length:50	–	F2.4(2014)/F2.5(2007)
Focal length:70	F2.5(2012)	–
Focal length:75	–	F2.4(2014)/F2.5(2007)
Focal length:90	–	F2.4(2014)/F2.5(2007)
Focal length:120	F2.5(2013)	–

However, Leica has always been careless with lens names, and even in the 2000s, it seems that they were not very strict with lens names, such as lumping all lenses slower than F3 under the name Elmar, calling F1.25 Noctilux, calling F1.5 and F1.7 Summilux, and ignoring the difference between the telephoto end and the wide-angle end for zoom lenses. For this reason, the name Summarit may have been given on a whim.

Specification

項目	SUMMICRON(Retractable)	SUMMARIT	SUMMILUX 1st
Focal length(mm)	50	50	50
Max aperture	2	1.5	1.4
Min aperture	22	16	16
Lens Construction	7 elements in 6 groups	7 elements in 5 groups	7 elements in 5 groups
Aperture blades	10	15	12
Min distance(m)	1.0	1.0	1.0
Lens length(mm)	–	43	52
Lens Max diameter(mm)	48	47	53
Filter Size(mm)	E39	A43/E41	E43
Lens hood	SOOFM / ITDOO / IROOA	XOONS	XOOIM / 12521
Weight(g)	?	?	?
Production numbers	253,314	74,643	19,600
Release date	1951	1939-1957	1958-1961