Leica 35mm F/2 Summicron ASPH ii Review
The Leica 35mm f2 Summicron is one of those legendary and aspirational lenses that 35mm lovers and Leica people want to own. These lenses are small compact, well built, and are known as some of the best glass you can buy.
But with this 35mm f2 Summicron ASPH ii (Version 6 as it is sometimes called) coming in at around $3500 is it worth that much when there are so many other options out there? I have some potentially controversial thoughts on this so let’s get started.
When I first bought the M I bought a 35mm Color Skopje because it was the smallest and cheapest M lens I could find and it was quite well respected. Someone commented “Try to get Leica Glass and your experience will be better” so here I am… Let’s see.
Full disclosure, I am not an expert at reviewing the minute technical aspects of camera gear. I’d look somewhere like Ken Rockwell for that. But I have used enough gear and spent enough time considering gear to have a solid perspective.
I also got this lens from Lensrentals. Partially with my own money and partially with credit left over from partnering with them. So if you are interested in a lens like this, follow the link in the description and use the code LIAM15 to get 15% off your order at Lensrentals. Using the link helps support this channel so thank you in advance for the support!
Let’s start with an overview of the 35mm Summicron. I’ll throw up some sample images throughout the review too
Size
As with all 35 Summicrons, it is a nice small lens that suits the form factor of the Leica M beautifully. It balances very nicely and when I hold the camera by the strap it sits pretty level which means it feels right at home when you’re carrying it.
That being said it seems bigger than other versions and I think that with the hood on it is actually about the same size as the Summilux.
Weight/Build
The weight seems to be focused towards the back of the lens which contributes to its balanced feeling. It’s not heavy but for its size, it feels heavier than you might expect. It’s clearly made of metal and quite dense. It’s probably one of the best feeling lenses I’ve held in terms of build quality. Even just putting the hood on felt like a precision product.
Now this being a rental, it’s seen some use so on this copy I can ever so slightly wiggle the aperture ring, and stop the lens just past f16. This may be from wear and tear but I don’t know. I had to look closely for these things so I might just be noticing for the sake of it. Nothing feels wrong here.
Sticking with the aperture ring I heard some reviewers say that it was a bit too easy to bump accidentally. I have not once done that so maybe that was a thing on older versions.
Ergonomics
I’ve already said it feels balanced but that helps with the ergonomics. Carrying the lens on the M with a strap is a nicer experience because there’s no tipping forward or backward.
The focus tab is prominent and seems pretty comfortable, it has these little grooves on the side so if you prefer to pinch it you have some grip. I like how smoothly and easily the tab moves. It’s looser than the Voigtlander lens I have but there’s a little friction there. I think Leica has the perfect balance there. The aperture ring seems to have nice solid clicks, I don’t bump it accidentally. It clicks in half stops which I prefer over 3rd stops or full stops.
Manual Focus Experience
I think people often scoff at Leica M because it seems ridiculous to have such an expensive camera with these outdated focusing methods. In many cases they are right and there may not be a tangible practical reason for using these.
But not always. I like the M for Street photography and there’s a reason it remains a popular camera among street photographers. Other than we are posers and hipsters.
One of my favorite things with Leica M lenses is the focus distance scale. With the tab at 6 o’clock, the focus distance is 3 feet. Pull it 45 degrees to the left side and it’s a little over 2.5 feet. 45 degrees to the right and its at 10 feet. At f11 10 feet will give you 5.5 feet to almost infinity in DOF which is perfect for street photography. This for me makes these manual lenses faster and more freeing than any AF system I have used. In a heartbeat, I can pull the lens to 3 feet and everything from 2.5 feet to 4 feet is in focus and I never even had to pick a focus point or look in the viewfinder.
Image Quality
This is where the Summicron shines. The rendering here is so good that some people complain it’s too clinical. There’s a touch of vignetting at f2 and it goes away quickly, it’s sharp edge to edge throughout the aperture range and it doesn’t seem to have much in the way of aberrations and it controls flares very well. I have a Leica UV filter on the front so I don’t know if that contributes to any flaring too.
The only lens I own for my Leica is the Voigtlander 35mm f2.5 Color Skopar so pitting the Summicron against this was no contest. It is the better lens. But it is also better than many other 35mm lenses on the market including the 35mm 1.4 I own for Canon and this lens is amazing too. But is it $3000 better, not necessarily for me, especially when shooting at f11.
That being said. At the same apertures, I was a stop lower in ISO with the Summicron than with the Color Skopje so there is also a stop worth of light transmission to gain making the Summicron feel far easier to shoot in low light than the Skopar.
So if pure image quality, especially wide open is your thing, the price tag might not deter you all that much.
The Leica LOOK
Over the years, I have owned and tried a lot of lenses on a lot of cameras. But I always heard in the depths of the internet that Leica glass produces a Leica Look. I’m no expert in the Leica look but I’ve been skeptical that it’s a real thing. I’ve never looked at anyone’s photos and thought that looks like a Leica photo. I’ve heard some people attribute the Leica look to a shallow depth of field with a beautiful rendering. I could almost certainly guarantee you both of those things to a similar degree with lenses from most other brands. The Leica look may be in the eye of the beholder and I don’t care about it enough or believe in it enough to chase it much further. What I do believe to be true is that a great photo without the Leica look is better than a mediocre photo with the Leica look. The Leica look will have no bearing on the perceived quality of your photography
Experience
This comment was just one sentence from someone who clearly had a better experience with Leica glass than I did. But the little Voigtlander works so well for me and was so similar in functionality to Leica lenses that I couldn’t imagine the experience was that different.
Well. It is better. At least with this lens. BUT! It’s not much better. It’s really quite a similar experience and the main experiential difference for me is the way it feels on the camera
Now overall the image Quality is better. Although I think the Voigtlander is perfectly sharp where I need it to be, the lack of vignetting and better light transmission in the Summicron make a difference in lowlight but I don’t tend to use this in lowlight, I have a couple of other cameras that I prefer for that
Ultimately, there’s an intangible element of using Leica glass and Leica cameras. It’s fancy. It’s out of reach. It’s aspirational. It’s a Rolex, It’s a Bently, it’s a luxury good and we don’t need it but it makes us feel special whether we acknowledge that or not. Even if it is the perfect tool for the job, other tools can achieve the same thing. I found I could manually focus an X100V in a similar way, it just didn’t have the experience of the Leica with a 35mm Summicron lens. And it’s important to remember before we sink too much money into gear, that most of the world’s best images were made on lenses far inferior to the 35 Summicron version 6.
So I’m not gonna keep this. When the day comes that I could burn 3.5k and my life would not change, I may buy myself something nice like this. Maybe I’d go for an older one for 2k. But until then. I’ll keep using the little Voigtlander lens instead.
