35mm Summilux Pre-Aspherical

I’ve been trying to figure out which (faster) 35mm to get in M mount for a while. There are a lot of options on top of the fact that I already own a 35mm Summicron ASPH that I love. It’s probably my favorite lens. It’s small enough, light enough and performs very well on both film and digital. But when the GAS hits, it hits hard. And so I weighed out the pros and cons of the options available to me.

It eventually came down to the Summilux FLE (v1) and the Summilux Pre-Aspherical (v2.) Both 35mm, but both are very different. The FLE, as far as I can tell is near perfect, but it’s kind of large and heavy. The Pre-Aspherical, however, it’s super small. But it has some things I dislike about it. You can only focus down to 1 meter, which isn’t a huge difference from most M mount lenses which focus down to 0.7 meters, but it’s noticable. There’s also those damned aperture flaps. I guess this is a design choice because the lens is so small. I’ve had a clone of the Pre-Aspherical Summilux before, the first version of the Voigtlander Nokton Classic. Every time I’d try to shoot portrait orientation I’d struggle to find the flaps to adjust the aperture, therefore missing some shots or frustrating people I’m photographing by making them wait more than the one second it takes to snap a cell phone photo.

Another controversial characteristic of the Pre-Aspherical is, well, the character. This lens is soft wide open. At f/1.4-2.0 it’s going to look like you missed focus (kinda.) Also wide open the Pre-Aspherical gives you what people call the “Leica glow.” It also flares bad. Like, really bad. These are actually features in some peoples eyes, and the reasons many love the lens so much. When stopped down the Pre-Aspherical is crazy sharp for a design from the 1960s. The lens was actually in production from 1961 to 1995. The only real, actual negative to me, which put me off for so long is that you can only use drop-in filters with the lens hood. The hood is kind of large and defeats the purpose of the small size for me.

All that said, I went for the Pre-Aspherical with the idea that if I didn’t like it I could easily sell it for what I paid. I ended up finding a good deal through friends on a copy that had been professionally recoated. The seller also included a lot of filters since you can basically only use those filters with this lens and hood. I’m sure there are other lenses, I just don’t know what those are.

I also learned of an eBay listing for an adapter that turns this Pre-Aspherical (v2) into a Pre-Aspherical ( v1 ) aka the steel rim. The steel rim is the original version that allowed for screw-in filters and featured an infinity lock. They also go for roughly $20,000 or more depending on condition, so that wasn’t happening. There’s also the steel rim reissue that Leica released last year. That’s still more than what I would want to pay for a camera lens. Even used, if you can find one, the reissue is a bit much.

The adapter lets me use 43mm screw filters, the only downside is no hood. Which is fine, I bought it for the size. I also think it looks nice. 🙂