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On MacFilos website

 

Snip from the article:-

 

 

A few weeks ago I ordered the new Leica lens poster, containing pictures and details of 112 Leitz and Leica lenses through the ages.

I unravelled it today and I was astonished how up to date it is. In fact, it is positively futuristic and includes one lens with a very strange maximum aperture that isn’t yet in the public domain. Poster boy should have kept this one in his budgie smugglers.

Shiver me timbers, I thought, as I spied this unicorn of an optic — a Leica 90mm Summilux-M ASPH with a very odd f/1.5 aperture.

Edited by Keith (M)
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Except this lens (at least as written on the poster) is specifically a Summilux-M ASPH lens by Peter Karbe which suggests it is a new, modern design and not "retro".

 

The choice of F1.5 rather than the more usual F1.4 of a Summilux is presumably because of an enforced limitation – perhaps relating to the maximum width of the lens barrel (minimising finder occlusion) or due to RF accuracy – rather than a deliberate nod to the Summarex. Otherwise, why not just call it a Summarex-M?

Edited by wattsy
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The existence of this lens was hinted in M cameras' latest firmware: https://leicarumors.com/2017/11/29/new-firmware-for-all-leica-m-cameras-released-new-summilux-m-90mm-f1-5-asph-lens-rumors.aspx/

 

The max aperture of F/1.5 is very likely due to the restriction of rangefinder focus accuracy, according to Peter Karbe himself in an interview on the design of Noctilux 75/1.25: 

 

"The diameter of the entrance pupil – in other words the ratio between focal length and aperture – should not exceed 60mm in order to facilitate the operation of the rangefinder."

 

So my guess is that: yes, the Summilux-M 90/1.5 ASPH does exist, and it should be a modern optical design with very high performance on par with that of Noctilux 75/1.25.

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I hope it's arrival will persuade owners of the 90/2 APO-Summicron-M asph to trade up and release their Summicrons into the wild, which might bring their price down on the used market, and persuade me to reacquire a much-loved lens (until mine suffered from separation).

 

I can hope can't I?  ^_^

 

Pete.

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1,5 on a 90 is exactly the same focal/aperture ratio of 1,25 on a 75,  which has been already introduced (and brings to the above mentioned 60mm of entrance pupil)  : probably (let's wait for specs) there is also a relationship between the 2 designs.

Edited by luigi bertolotti
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