Leitz Cine HEKTOR T2.1 Mirrorless Hybrid Cinema Lenses

[sebben]

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Very interesting direction for Leica…

Maybe we will get a dedicated Cinema Camera in the form of the FX3 as Nikon and Canon have also jumped on the bandwagon  

https://www.newsshooter.com/2025/09/09/leitz-cine-hektor-t2-1-mirrorless-hybrid-cinema-lenses/
 

[Carlos cruz]

Saw ad in the morning, strange they don’t offer them in PL mount

[Stuart Richardson]

It seems like they are fully new designs? They don’t seem to relate to the APO Summicrons. I must admit, it would be nice to see 18, 25 and 100mm L mount summicron lenses from Leica. But it sounds like these are not as well suited to stills. 

[LocalHero1953]

1 hour ago, Carlos cruz said:

Saw ad in the morning, strange they don’t offer them in PL mount

Quoting from the linked article: "Due to the design of the lenses, they will not be available in PL, LPL, or Leica M mount.". So it looks like a deliberate choice for their target market - whatever that is.

[robb]

I have zero desire to put a 1930’s to 1950’s lens on my cine cameras…..

at $7k a pop.

love my apo’s or m mount 

Robb

[Carlos cruz]

8 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Quoting from the linked article: "Due to the design of the lenses, they will not be available in PL, LPL, or Leica M mount.". So it looks like a deliberate choice for their target market - whatever that is.

 

9 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

It seems like they are fully new designs? They don’t seem to relate to the APO Summicrons. I must admit, it would be nice to see 18, 25 and 100mm L mount summicron lenses from Leica. But it sounds like these are not as well suited to stills. 

 

4 hours ago, robb said:

I have zero desire to put a 1930’s to 1950’s lens on my cine cameras…..

at $7k a pop.

love my apo’s or m mount 

Robb

Long focus throw or just manual focus is enough to scare off average clicker(not to mention pricing) for serious cine use lack of industry standard mount is disqualifying, another problem is breathing (small change of fov when focusing) I’d love to see some more tests or better, conduct my own.

I highly doubt that lens construction  forbids use of PL mount, most cameras nowadays lack mirrors that could  physically interfere with bigger lens elements, probably pure marketing. If hektors will prove highly popular they’ll eventually introduce PL version.
I suspect that its sales dept decision as target segment of market is probably a bit bigger than professional.   

1930 provenance is just a marketing strategy, lenses have as much in common with original hektor as summarits from few years ago

Edited September 10 by Carlos cruz

[BernardC]

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3 hours ago, robb said:

I have zero desire to put a 1930’s to 1950’s lens on my cine cameras…..

The branding is a call-back to the 1930s, but the concept is very contemporary. A lot of new cine glass tries to balance the aberrations that people like while minimizing the ones that are distracting. For instance, chromatic aberrations are distracting in video because they can move around. On the other hand, cinematographers prefer a certain level of softness with human subjects. They also don't want a quick fall-off in sharpness because actors don't always hit their marks.

It will be interesting to see what cinematographers make of these in the real world. The demo shorts look good, but that's not enough to pass judgement.

[Carlos cruz]

33 minutes ago, BernardC said:

The branding is a call-back to the 1930s, but the concept is very contemporary. A lot of new cine glass tries to balance the aberrations that people like while minimizing the ones that are distracting. For instance, chromatic aberrations are distracting in video because they can move around. On the other hand, cinematographers prefer a certain level of softness with human subjects. They also don't want a quick fall-off in sharpness because actors don't always hit their marks.

It will be interesting to see what cinematographers make of these in the real world. The demo shorts look good, but that's not enough to pass judgement.

I’d rather see a Leica debut in anamorphic world,  there’s not much you can add to the crowd of summicrons, summiluxes, hugos, thalias and now hektors.

[plexi]

Looks rather good for stills!

[Stuart Richardson]

49 minutes ago, plexi said:

Looks rather good for stills!

They do, but I think for stills there are probably so many smaller, cheaper M lenses that can do a similar job. Looking at his video, they did seem nice (I guess the more extreme vignetting is stuff he is adding?), but I think you can get a similar vintage look from some of Light Lens Lab's lenses like the Speed Panchro, or any number of vintage Leica lenses, at least in 35mm and up.  It seems like the biggest strengths are the cine features, build quality and matched characteristics. Those are all big advantages. But for stills alone, they seem a bit overkill. 

[sebben]

Agreed. They seem very niche. 
 

Being T2.1 is kind of limiting as a T2.8 zoom offers so much more versatility in the one environment. If these were T1.4 they would add more to the table. 
 

For me the Zeiss Nanoprimes are more interesting. 
 

But like I said already, maybe this paves the way for a FX3 competitor from Leica. 

[BernardC]

14 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

It seems like the biggest strengths are the cine features, build quality and matched characteristics. Those are all big advantages. But for stills alone, they seem a bit overkill. 

They probably only make sense for people with a hybrid workflow (stills and video), but "making sense" isn't always a top criteria for Leica lenses! The price isn't outrageous when compared to many M lenses, or to the APO-Summicron-SLs, or to dedicated cine lenses from Zeiss, Sigma, Tokina, Schneider, Cooke, etc.. It's a lot less than Leitz Cine's other lenses.

The main markets for this type of lens are production companies and rental houses. 

[BernardC]

43 minutes ago, sebben said:

For me the Zeiss Nanoprimes are more interesting. 

Great lenses, but I like the fact that Leitz Cine used 80mm fronts for these lenses, instead of 95mm. That opens-up a lot of possibilities for handheld and stabilized shots where the Zeiss might be a bit too large and heavy.

[sebben]

This CVP video shows the characteristics of these lenses quite well for those interested.

 

 

 

[sebben]

17 hours ago, BernardC said:

Great lenses, but I like the fact that Leitz Cine used 80mm fronts for these lenses, instead of 95mm. That opens-up a lot of possibilities for handheld and stabilized shots where the Zeiss might be a bit too large and heavy.

Here are the approximate  weights for a few of the Leitz HEKTOR cine lenses: 
18mm: 0.84 kg (1.85 lbs)
25mm: 0.77 kg (1.7 lbs)
35mm: 0.72 kg (1.6 lbs) 
73mm: 0.72 kg (1.6 lbs) 
100mm: 0.97 kg (2.1 lbs)

Here are the approximate weights for the ZEISS Nano Prime lenses: 
18mm: 1.19 kg (2.62 lbs)
24mm: 0.87 kg (1.93 lbs)
35mm: 0.87 kg (1.92 lbs)
50mm: 0.92 kg (2.04 lbs)
75mm: 1.13 kg (2.48 lbs)
100mm: 1.26 kg (2.77 lbs)

The Nanos are impressively light considering they are a stop faster.

 

[BernardC]

That's still a few hundred grams per lens, except for the 100. The front size is more of an issue for me. I almost bought a CP Makro-Planar a few years back, because it's a wonderful lens, but that huge front made it unwieldy for any project that doesn't require a full cine setup (matte box, follow-focus, etc). Some subjects might even consider it distracting.

The Nanos have a smaller front than the CP.2s (95 vs. 115), but they are still bigger than they need to be. I'm glad that the fashion for making cine lenses look huge, like puffer fish, is now past us. We probably won't go back to tiny lenses like the Zeiss/Arri standards that were my intro to cinema lenses, but Leitz made a good choice by sizing these like R lenses.

[FrozenInTime]

The marketing for this level ( middle tier ) of cine lenses seems quite different to stills lenses : there is no technical description of the lens optical formula, MTF or distortion charts ; what we get is a 'look book', brief hands-on reports and expectation that prospective customers will either trial/rent the lenses through professional distributors, or have the funds such that buying a set is either a commercial expense or an inconsequential sum. This all makes the suggested crossover adoption by photographers a bit of a leap of faith.