PhotoEd

It's been a while, but... I checked the Black Chrome hood against the standard Alu 12586 hood. On my scale the black chrome weighs 62 g w/o the plastic cap, while the 12586 weighs 25 grams. No a huge difference of course, but because the weight is at the end of the lens (which is slightly longer than the pre-asph) it feels a bit front heavy with the black chrome hood. The standard 12586 fits perfectly and makes the combination feel better in the hand.

Thank you for the link. I'm eagerly waiting for a copy of this beauty 🙂

I think they were refering to the 1757 units originally made back in the old days. What I understand is that the black version is now standard issue and part of the classic range, while the silver version is limited to 100 units. So, no need to run. Just hurry... 😉

Absolutely! I don't care about laboratory test results. What counts for me are the pictures you bring home and the emotions they pull. I most probably will combine it with a late Elmar-M 50 for when a faster focus speed is needed.

Yes, shows some funny curves, doesn't it? And the messured aperture starts with 1.3 instead of 1.2. Perhaps that proves to be a typo.

Thanks for testing! I was reading into the lens a bit more and it looks like the new Noctilux is more different to the original than we may think. In the 'Leica M-lenses' book from Leica-Guru Erwin Puts I found some info about the original lens. The MTF curves look quite different compared to the new edition. Normaly I don't care much about these, because it's all about the looks of the pictures a lens produces. But still, I found it remarkable. The first one with the red lines is the present edition.

Thanks a lot, I'm interested to hear about your focus shift findings. I always believed this had nothing to do with floating elements, but with blocking the light rays (with a different focuspoint) from the sides of the lens by closing the aperture. By this, the 'hotspot' of focus is shifting. And I can imagine the aspherical lens elements are used to counteract this unwanted effect by focusing the side-rays to the same focus point as the center rays. But I'm not a optical expert, so I may be wrong here. Anyway, I love the classic rendering and just had me put on the waiting list. Anyone interested in a brand new Summilux-M 50 ASPH Black Chrome Edition...? 🙂

Thank you so much Jono for this nice write up. Looks like a very nice character lens to me. Like one of the previous repliers I wonder if there is any focus shift when closing the aperture. One other classice design I used to have (Zeiss Sonnar 50) had enormous focus shift and made it quite challenging to use. I also wonder about the hood. Can you use it with a filter attached to the lens? Last month I bought the Black Chrome Summilux-ASPH and there is no way to mount the hood with a filter attached to the lens. A major error for such nice design, if you ask me. And is it possible to mount the hood reversed on the Noctilux for storing in a bag. On all the pictures of the new lens so far I don't see any plastic protection cap that can be put on the back side of the hood. I'm afraid I have to sell my brand new Summilux-ASPH black chrome edition again to step up to this newest classic...

Thank you so much. Looks like the old hood will fit as well then. That will make quite a difference in weight. Now I only have to find a solution for the filter-hood combination and the the combo will be perfect.

Thanks, but that threat is about the hood in combination with a filter. I'm wondering about the outer diameter of the pre-asph Lux with the 43mm threat. I'm guessing the outer diameter of the lens is the same, but I'm not sure. The Black Chrome Edition of the ASPH version has a filter threat of E43 and an outer diameter of the front side of the lens of 45mm.

Does anyone know the outside front diameter of the Summilux-M 50mm Pre-asph? I have the Summilux-M 50mm ASPH edition in Black Chrome and I'm wondering whether the old 12586 hood will fit on the new lens? The solid brass lenshood supplied with the new Black Chrome edition weighs a ton! I think the 12586 makes it all feel a bit more balanced on the camera. The Black Chrome edition has an outside diameter of exactly 45 millimetes. Thanks!

I'm curious about the B+W T-Pro filter as well. Might be a good interim solution.

I'm reading this threat with increasing disbelief. What I understand is that Leica was willing to take all the effort of fitting the modern floating lens element design of the Summilux-M 50 into a brass barrel design from the old days. They even went the extra mile with duplicating the beautiful matching hood. Still they are unable to make a simple UVa version of the old 13206 with 43x0.75 threat?!?!?! People are put off with a rediculous modification of the hood (which ruins the looks!) instead of supplying the correct filter...? I just bought this Black Chrome Edition and didn't realize the different filter threat until reading this post. I used to have the old Summilux 50 E43 (black-1982) with the silver coloured 13206 UVa and I kind of liked the combo. It easily reminded me there was a UVa screwed on. I could use the lens with- or without the hood, with- or without the filter, whatever was needed. I think the ONLY solution Leica must come up with is to produce a 13206 type UVa with the correct threat to fit the Black Chrome Edition without restrictions to using the hood. Especially now it seems the lens is not limited edition, but standard supply.

Thanks, I just found other topics about this lens... Lazy me, as an analog person I'm not much of a forum searcher. It seems this is a standard production lens, and it is a very nice one indeed. Item closed.

Hello all, I just bought a Leica Summilux-M 50 ASPH Black Chrome Edition. I've not read much about this version on internet, but some reports suggest this is a limited edition with a production run of 500 pieces. It would have been available as of April 2015 according the Leica website. At the moment more of these show up online as 'in stock'. Mine has a serial number of 4789xxx which suggest a more recent production run, so I wonder if this was indeed a limited production run. Does anyone know? I'm not looking into selling again, just nice to know. I really like the looks of this lens and the optics are brillant of course. Thanks!