Summilux 50mm

I’ve always been a 50 mm person at heart, and for years I told myself I’d eventually pick up a Summilux. Naturally, I did everything except that – right down to buying the 35 mm APO instead. Then a pristine silver 11892 popped up on Yahoo Auctions (no close‑focus, but I can live without bending my spine), so I finally caved. Here are a few shots with it. The rendering is exactly what I wanted: wide open it’s perfect for portraits without drifting into “clinical autopsy,” and by f/2 it becomes surgically sharp.

What still amazes me is how, over the past twenty years, most manufacturers have chased “perfection” by making lenses progressively bigger and heavier – and lately, in some cases, seemingly giving up on optical engineering altogether in favour of software corrections. The result is large heavy glass that’s technically impeccable but – in my opinion – completely soulless. Leica, meanwhile, has simply stuck to its tradition: relying solely on optical engineering to keep producing compact lenses that need no digital correction and still retain a soul.