LEICA SUMMILUX M 75mm
Large aperture medium telephoto lens for M mount
A review and photo examples of the Summilux 75mm F1.4
Table of contents
Gallery
- Photo examples were taken with LEICA M9
Review
1．Usage
When I had the Summilux 75, I used the LEICA M9, and it was difficult to focus at the maximum aperture of F1.4 using the M9’s viewfinder, and when attached to the M9’s light body, the weight of the tip of the lens felt heavy, so the weight balance during shooting was not good.
In the days of film cameras, you could use it at a narrow aperture. The only way to avoid focus problems was to ignore the cost of film and take shots with the focus position shifted using manual focus bracketing, but fortunately with digital cameras, the cost of focus bracketing is almost zero, so if you are unsure about the focus position, you can take a shot slightly forward or backward from the position where the double image coincides, and select the photo with the correct focus, and you can get an image with the center at the desired position. The center of the focal plane you want to focus on and the image that blurs from there to the background are the true joy of using a medium telephoto large-aperture lens.
In an era when bright medium telephoto lenses were more commonly used with SLR cameras than rangefinder cameras, I also got the SUMMILUX R 80mm, which seems to be a sibling of this lens, and this caused the usage rate of the Summilux-M 75 to drop further and it became a waste of time in my humidity-controlled storage cabinet.
I managed to bargain down the price to buy it at a camera market in Shinjuku, but it was traded in when I bought another lens. I think I paid more than I paid for it, but if I had sold it in the 2020s, it would have been worth about double the purchase price, so it may have been a waste, but there’s no point in saying that.
2．Lens overview
The Leica Summilux 75mm is a bright medium telephoto lens for the Leica M mount. It was released in 1980 and around 15,000 were manufactured by 2007. The early model had a hood that was added later and was the same as the second generation Noctilux 50mm, while the later model had the hood built in.
The early model is unknown, but the later model has a standard screw-on mount, so a 6-bit code for lens recognition that can be used with digital M-type Leicas can be added.
The minimum shooting distance is 0.75m, adhering to the 10x focal length rule.
The Summilux 75 was the brightest Leica M-mount medium telephoto lens until the Noctilux 75mm F1.25 was released in March 2018.
3．Mount adapter
Since it is an M mount, it can be attached to an L mount body using the genuine M lens adapter for L, black 18771, silver 18765, and mount adapters for mirrorless cameras are also available from various companies, making it a highly versatile lens in terms of the body it can be used with.
If I had owned it when the full-frame mirrorless camera, LEICA M typ240, was available with the VISOFLEX, the results of the utilization rate may have been different. It is romantic, but the price has risen, so I don’t think I will get it again. The Noctiluca 75mm costs about 2 million yen, so it may be said to be a reasonable lens in comparison.
Specification and Competitor
| Item | SUMMILUX M | NOCTILUX M | SUMMILUX R |
| focal length(mm) | 75 | ← | 80 |
| Maximum aperture | 1.4 | 1.25 | ← |
| Minimum aperture | 16 | 16 | ← |
| Lens configuration | 5groups in 7elements | 6groups in 9elements | 5groups in 7elements |
| Minimum distance(m) | 0.75 | 0.85 | 0.8 |
| Lens length(mm) | 80 | 91 | 69 |
| Lens max diameter(mm) | 69 | 74 | 75 |
| Filter diameter(mm) | 60 | 67 | 67 |
| Weight(g) | 560 | 1055 | 700 |
| Production number | 14,752 *1 | – | 12,250 *1 |
| Release date | 1980 | 2018.3 | 1980 |
Reference links
Update history
- 2024.9.16
- 2024.2.11:Update
- 2022.5.8:First draft
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