REVIEW – LEICA M 75MM SUMMICRON APO F/2.0

INTRO

As per usual I think I have all the lenses and gear I ever need and there is nothing else left to tempt me… what an idiot I am! Then something comes along, at first just a little spark of interest, then some casual online image browsing and before you know it – all out research.

If you are anything like me – that’s when you know you are done for! It’s also when my wife knows the bank account is too!

For quite some time I was content with the 2 lenses I had, the 21mm Super Elmar (REVIEW HERE!) and the 35mm Summilux FLE (REVIEW HERE!) and then I made the mistake of looking at Noctulix’s and that became a problem that ended in a purchase (REVIEW HERE!) So you can see the trend!

CONTENT

When I visited Leica’s factory in Wetzlar (location article HERE), I was leant the incredible and at the time, brand new Leica M 75mm Noctilux f/1.25. I loved it. But, it was huge and heavy. But something I didn’t expect to enjoy so much was the 75mm focal length.

I had wanted an APO lens, so I rented the 75mm Summicron from www.lensrentals.com – which is a great way to try something out properly before you buy. I also rented the 90mm Summicron APO as I had not shot with that at all. So it was a fun way to try both.

As much as I enjoyed the 90mm, I still found myself enjoying the 75mm focal length. I also felt that as a trio of lenes to take with me on vacation (21, 35 and 75) – it was a great combo. And so one found my way into my camera bag.

I had read a lot about this lens and knew it was designed the same way as the already beloved 50mm Summilux ASPH with a floating element and Aspherical glass. The exterior of the lens is very similar to – all brass and, solid as a rock and with a beautiful sliding out hood that clicks gently into place.

Another interesting component of this lens is that is able to focus to mach closer distance that many of the other M lenses. If you have come from another system, this is very much something that takes a bit getting used to the 1.0 meters. The 75mm Summicron focuses down to 0.7m which makes quite a bit of difference.

I have also paired this lens up with Leica’s Close up lens attachment, the Leica Elpro 52mm. This is so much fun! You have to use live view / EVF adapter to shoot in this mode – but WOW! With the incredible sharpness of this lens, the extremely shallow depth of field, you can get some very interesting results.

So what the heck is APO?

Without going into loads of technical detail which I profess is not my forte, my understanding is that to qualify for the APO title, the lens has been calibrated to the tiniest magnitude and tolerances to ensure the very best in color reproduction. This precision must be carried across all distances and apertures to ensure the lens captures color and moro-details in a very realistic and life-like manner.

So, for us, this means very vibrant, true to life colors and amazing level of detail that all attribute to that Leica or even medium format look. With amazing clarity in the in-focus areas that fall away to magic in the backgrounds – this is the look many of us are after, and why we start down the Leica rabbit hole to begin with.

The rendering of this lens is very modern – not like the more dreamy swirly bokeh lenses of Leica’s pre-ASPH past. The focus point is razor sharp – and this is no understatement. It’s incredibly sharp. The background blur however falls away gradually in a velvety smooth fade.

I highly recommend the viewfinder magnifiers that Leica produces. They are available in both x1.25 and x1.4 and simply screw onto the eyepiece of the viewfinder. I purchased the x1.25 after trying one in the Leica Los Angeles store with my 50mm Noctilux and was blown away by how much it made a difference.

The magnifier makes the focusing patch quite a bit larger with no loss of clarity, contrast or amount of light which really helps to get that accuracy for focusing. I prefer to not to use the EVF – its not great on the M240 or even the M10 compared to the likes of the Leica SL, Fuji’s or Sony offerings, and for me, the joy of the M is the viewfinder experience. This magnifier has really helped me to tame my harder to focus lenses like the 90mm Summicron and the 50mm Noctilux. I can’t recommend it enough.

As mentioned throughout this review, the colors this lens produces are exceptional. They are warm and vivid and I have found I use the saturation or vibrance sliders in Lightroom very little when processing images from this setup. I often convert many or most of my photos into monochrome, but I have found using this lens I have ended up keeping many in color because they just look so good.

CONCLUSION:

The Leica Summicron-M 75mm f/2 APO is an expensive lens, even for Leica, but with its top-class build and image quality, along with the APO title, it’s a lens you will treasure for a lifetime. I can wholeheartedly recommend this lens.

So, am I a tele-convert? The answer is, yes! I have used this lens all day in many different locations for a different and more intimate perspective that helps me to focus on the details my 35mm can’t get without being very close. It’s also been fantastic in locations where I have normally stuck to something much wider, like my 21mm Super Elmar when taking landscapes, capturing images of rock formation details in Sequoia and Yosemite National Park.