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I just got the LLL Elcan 50mm f2 and went out with it today, so thought of sharing my thoughts here given there isn’t a lot of info about this lens online. This is the second remake done by Light Lens Lab, after the 35mm 8 elements and it is slowly rolling out to more people outside of China / Hong Kong. Here are my quick thoughts, not technical at all; this review is simply a summary of my thoughts (a Leica user who has used pretty much all 35mm and 50mm available for the L-mount and M-mount). Build Quality: Simply amazing. On par with any Leica lens I’ve tried. I also own the LLL 8-elements and both lenses are amazingly well built. The lens is pretty much the same size as the 8 elements, so it’s very small for a 50mm lens, around half the size of a regular 50mm summicron. That being said, the lens is all brass so it weights around 230g (similar to the 50 cron weight wise). I got the chrome version, but it’s also available in black paint and other finishes such as titanium, olive, etc. Ease of use: The lens design remains true to the original Elcan, which means that the focus knob is the largest on any Leica lens I’ve tried (so that it can be easily focused when wearing gloves), and there is a small knob to move the aperture, like the summicron 35mm 6 elements. The only downside with the Elcan (original and remake) is that for some unknown reason the aperture turns in the opposite way as all other Leica lens, so it does take some time to get used to it. Focus throw is very similar to any old Leica lens, which is a bit longer than modern Leica lens (I actually prefer a longer focus throw). Optics: I never used the original Elcan so it’s hard to compare, but the shop I got it from had the original and told me that after testing them side by side they were 98% identical. That being said, I’ve shot the lens wide open & at around f4~f5.6 today, so I will share some shots with you today so that you can make your own conclusions. My initial impression is that it has a very nice, old style bokeh, and it is very sharp in the center even wide open (similar to the rigid Summicron 50mm, Summicron 50mm v3 or similar lens from that period). To my surprise, the Elcan also has a nice 3D pop, which I feel it is more pronounced than the Rigid / V3. I did not notice any chromatic aberration in all of my shots (about 100 shots) but I also did not pixel peep. Flare resistance is much higher than the 8 elements; I stress tested it and tried hard to make it flare, but was not able to get any washed out shots even when shooting directly against the sun, I’d rank it similar to the V4/V5 Summicron 50mm in terms of flare resistance. Overall, this is yet another amazing remake from Light Lens Lab. I wish Leica will continue to make more remakes, including the 8 elements or the Elcan, but for now the LLL is the next best thing and on par with anything coming out from Leica. I highly recommend LLL to anyone who doesn’t want to pay collector prices for the original lens. This is pretty much it, here are some photos of the lens mounted on the Leica M9-P so that you can see how it looks, and I’ll post a few pictures shot with the lens below. Hope you find it useful. If anyone owns this lens I’d love to hear your thoughts as well. Thank you!

Seen on eBay: leica KE-7A military w/ELCAN 50mm f2 | eBay What makes an M4-2 with a Summicron 50mm f2.0 so valuable to collectors??? Guy