Nice Leica Lens
I often get approached by friends who are interested in “getting a nice Leica lens.” We talked about the budget. Some of them may be in the position of getting his first Leica lens, others may hold Leica Summicron looking for an upgrade .
Wide Aperture
Low light performance and bokeh aren’t the benefits to a Summicron f/2 lens, and a Summilux can give you great low light performance by providing a wider f/1.4 aperture. The wider aperture not only gathers a lot of light, it also produces good bokeh . A Leica Summilux lens is usually the way to go if you want to shoot with a wide aperture.For many people, a wide aperture lens is going to open up a lot of creative opportunities that a narrow aperture one won’t.
Old Lens Life
Leica old lenses often have an added bonus, they maintain their value very well compared to new lenses. If you buy a Leica Summilux 50mm f/1.4 E46 and find you don’t use it much, you can often resell it and get most of your money
Street Photography
Leica Noctilux 50mm f/0.95 ASPH is a big, expensive lens and people definitely take notice when you walk around with it. It’s a fantastic lens, but also costs three times more than a Summilux e43. I didn’t use it much on my street photography because it’s bulky and heavy.
Version
This E46 version sort of transitions between earlier E43 and the current ASPH:
The E43 is optically the same(designed by Mandler), but it only focuses to 1 meter vs 0.7 meter for the E46 version. The E46 and ASPH have the same built in hoods(designed by Peter Karbe).
Weigh
Basically Leica kept black chromed lenses in aluminum body, lighter weight, silver chromed in brass body, heavier. The brass body lenses are more solid than aluminum body lenses. It weighs 275g/9.7oz in black, and 380g/13.4oz in silver and titanium.
