LEICA SUMMICRON S 100mm

A review and Photo example of the Summicron S 100mm with LEICA S Typ007.

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Gallery

Sample photo taken with the Leica S typ007.

1．Overview

The Summicron-S 100mm is the only large-aperture Leica S lens to bear the Summicron name.

The other S lenses are the Summarit at F2.5, the Elmarit at F2.8, and the remaining Elmars.

The lens consists of seven elements in five groups, four of which are aspherical lenses, with a minimum focusing distance of 0.7m, a total length of 102mm, and a weight of 910g.

The hood is a special bayonet hood, model number 12402, which is the same as the APO Macro Summarit 120mm F2.5.

This lens is not available in a leaf shutter (CS) version.

2．Usage

The Summicron-S 100mm and Super-Elmar-S 24mm were the Leica S-mount lenses I wanted to use. Timing is strange when you’re looking for a lens. When I was looking to purchase the Summicron-S 100mm, the Super-Elmar-S 24mm was also available on the second-hand market at a similar price, but I didn’t have the financial means to buy both, so I couldn’t resist the appeal of the large-diameter lens and chose the Summicron-S 100mm.

There were many overlapping items, and at the same time, the CONTAX 645 Planar 80mm F2 was also available on the second-hand market at almost the same price. This lens was always available as long as I had the money, so I passed on it for the time being.

This lens is called the 100CRON in the Leica Red Dot Forum.

After the purchase procedure, I was scared by the posts on the Leica Red Dot Forum such as “S 100mm autofocus is a total failure, no matter how much you adjust it, it doesn’t work” and “S Typ007 is no good, but S3 is OK”. I regretted the purchase a little after seeing the not so good reviews about this lens, but I pulled myself together and went outside with the lens that arrived, thinking that I wouldn’t know until I tried it myself.

I don’t know if it was because my skills were not up to par or the level of satisfaction was different, but my worries were unfounded and the shooting results were excellent. Although it includes materialistic compensation, it is a satisfactory lens and the accuracy and speed of the autofocus (AF) are well within the acceptable range. For photographers who are used to using poor AF cameras and lenses, it is not at a level that will cause complaints.

I experienced overfocusing a few times, but there is almost no problem if you aim at a high contrast area. It can’t be helped that the probability of missing increases in low light.

It works well if you use your imagination when shooting and aim for as high contrast as possible, so it’s a matter of how you use it.

Regarding AF: To begin with, I think it’s a mistake to think that a 100mm F2 lens can easily focus on a medium-format digital SLR camera.

It’s good that it has AF and wasn’t released as a manual focus (MF) lens.

The minimum shooting distance is 0.7m, which is quite close for a lens with a focal length of 100mm. The Hasselblad HC 100mm F2.2 is 0.9m, so it can’t get any closer, so this difference of 20cm is very valuable.

It doesn’t have the APO designation, probably because purple can appear at the edge of the light in tricky situations, but in general there is no noticeable color bleeding. They could have added the APO designation and raised the price for marketing purposes, but I’ll just be grateful that they were kind enough to release it as a regular Summicron.

3．Add info.

Summicron has a long history as an F2 lens, and has produced iconic lenses for the R mount, M mount, and SL mount. In recent years, the APO SUMMICRON series has been gaining in presence, but these lenses are made for 35mm format, and the Summicron S, which is compatible with medium format sensors (45mm x 30mm), is one of the special lenses in the Summicron series.

It is an impressive lens among the several Summicron lenses I have used, and I think it is a lens that is at the “pole”.

If you do not use it with a Leica S, the mount adapter is expensive, but if you use the S-LENS Adapter-L (16075, list price about 200,000 yen), the versatility of being able to use it with L cameras is also an attractive feature of this lens.

However, the L-mount camera that this mount adapter is compatible with is only the Leica SL series, and it does not work with the Leica T series due to insufficient power supply capacity, and other L-mount alliance cameras do not work for an unclear reason. The battery voltage of the SL series is 8.4V, the battery voltage of the LUMIX S is 7.4V, and the battery voltage of the SIGMA fp is 7.4V, so the reason it doesn’t work is probably due to a power supply problem, just like the Leica T.

Looking at the number of units produced, it seems that there are less than 500, so it is valuable, but the drawback is that it can only be used with a limited number of cameras. I saw an announcement that it can be used with Leica mirrorless medium-format cameras via a mount adapter, but the price of the mount adapter seems to be about the same as the price of a single lens, which is a problem.

Compared to the Hasselblad HC100mm F2.2, the AF of this native lens is faster. However, it is obviously slower than the focus speed of a fast 35mm lens.

The filter diameter is 82mm, so general filters can be attached. I’m using a Leica 82mm that I bought previously, but I don’t feel that there is much difference between it and other companies’ high-end filters.

Specification

Items	SUMMICRON	HASSELBLAD HC
Focal length(mm)	100	100
Max aperture	2	2.2
Min aperture	22	32
Aperture blade	8	?
Lens Construction	5群7枚	5群6枚
Min distance(m)	0.7	0.9
Lens length(mm)	102(lens only) /146(+hood)	80.5(lens only)
Lens diameter(mm)	91(lens) /104(hood)	87.5(lens only)
Filter Size(mm)	82	77
Weight(g)	910(lens only) /965(+hood)	780(lens only)
Release year	2013 or 2014	?
Price(Yen/No-tax)	?	?