LEICA SUMMILUX M 35mm (2nd)

Review and Photo example of the SUMMILUX M 35mm F1.4 Titan color.

Gallery

Sample photo taken with the HEXAR-RF + KODAK ELITE CHROME 100.

Review

The second generation Summilux M 35mm F1.4 is a lens of which approximately 28,000 units were manufactured starting in 1967.
The titanium color was produced for three years from 1990 to 1992, and 4,500 pieces were produced during that time, including the black color. Since some percentage of them are titanium colored, it would be reasonable to think that the number of pieces manufactured would be around half that number, about 2,000 pieces.
This lens has this titanium color as an alternative color to black, but there is no silver color. The early model Summilux, which is considered the first generation, comes in black and chrome finishes.

The Summilux M 35mm has been in production for a long time, 28 years, so there are many variations, including one with M3 glasses, a focus lever stopper, and different colors.
The lens configuration is 7 elements in 5 groups, and the 12504 hood is commonly used, and SUMMICRON hoods can also be used, but filters cannot be attached.

The one I have was purchased second-hand in 2008, and it has a serial number of 3.6 million units and was manufactured in 1992.
When I got it, it was before mirrorless cameras became fully popular, and demand for rangefinder camera lenses was extremely low, so the prices were unimaginable today.
As a side note, Noctilux was sold at a symbolic price of 200,000 yen. If you had bought about 3 of them, you could sell them now and get a good return, but it’s a meaningless story because it’s already past.

As the lens is new and in good condition, there is some light falloff at the edges even when the aperture is wide open, but it’s not so violent that it’s unusable, and it’s easy to adjust the focus.
The minimum focusing distance is 1m, so you can’t get close to the lens, but I think it’s a lens that can be enjoyed even with this limitation.
For a while, I owned an old Summilux M 35mm with a stopper, which was in poor condition, but this one was extremely violent. I’m sure there are some people who like lenses like this, so I think it would be a good idea to keep them on hand, but unfortunately I don’t have them anymore.
The world’s impression of the Summilux 35mm may be based on descriptions of the lens like this.

This lens has the nostalgic “sh” mark (sign of Siebel Hegner’s official import product).
Siberhegner had been an official distributor of Leica products since 1974, but ceased to be a distributor when Leica Japan was established in 2005.
I still see lenses with this “sh” mark on the used market, but I don’t think this mark has any special meaning as the quality is the same regardless of whether it is an officially imported product or a parallel import product.

Specification

Item	Value	note
focal length(mm)	35
Maximum aperture	1.4
Minimum aperture	16
Lens configuration	5groups 7elements
Leaf blade	10
Minimum distance(m)	1.0	Camera distance meter interlocked in all areas
Lens length(mm)	28.8	Distance from mount flange
Lens max diameter(mm)	51.5	Focus lever excluded
Filter diameter(mm)	–	Series 6 filter mounted inside the hood
Weight(g)	245
Release date	1967
List price(Yen)	–