Introduction

Like many of the 50mm lenses available in Leica M mount, the Summicron doesn’t really have any significant flaws. It’s sharp, compact, well-built, and makes beautiful photos.

About this lens

The Summicron is a simple double-Gauss design and is almost identical in design to the Zeiss 50mm f/2 Planar. Leica has used this design since 1979, but updated the mechanical design in 1994. There are no aspherical surfaces or floating groups, but this lens doesn’t need them to perform excellently.

Build quality

Fantastic. All metal construction. Both the focus and aperture rings feel really, really good. The built-in hood feels solid and works well.

Size and feel

Perfection. I absolutely love how this lens looks on an M camera, and it feels delightful to use. There is no focus tab, but gripping the focus ring directly feels very natural.

Image quality

Distortion: None.

Vignetting: Minimal.

Chromatic aberration: Minimal/none.

Bokeh: The Summicron has very smooth and pleasant background blur. An f/1.4 lens will give you more bokeh, but personally I think a 50mm f/2 lens already has plenty. For most people, I would recommend against going for a wider-aperture 50mm lens since you sacrifice size, image quality, and price.

Sharpness: The Summicron is tack-sharp through almost the entire frame at f/2. There is some smearing/haze in the edges and corners, which quickly sharpens up by f/2.8-f/4. Here are two samples at f/2 which give an overview of corner-to-corner performance:

When shooting high-contrast subjects wide-open, it’s possible to get some purple fringing. It’s not enough to bother me but it’s worth mentioning:

Image quality stays good even at minimum focus distance. Here’s a sample shot wide-open at 0.7m:

In summary, the Summicron isn’t 100% perfect but will deliver razor-sharp images in almost all real-world circumstances.

Focus shift: I remember seeing some focus shift when I tested for it at 0.7m, but I never noticed significant focus shift in my photos.

Summary and recommendations

The 50mm Summicron is a fantastic standard lens. It’s tack sharp throughout almost the whole frame even at f/2, which is way better than your classic nifty fifty from Canon/Nikon/etc. The edges/corners don’t get sharp until around f/2.8 or f/4, but this almost never matters. The Summicron delivers this excellent image quality in a small package with perfect handling.

The only real downside is its price, which although low by Leica standards, is still very high at above $1,500 on the used market. This is particularly problematic since the Zeiss 50mm f/2 Planar is almost identical for a much lower price (review). The most significant difference between those two lenses might be that the Zeiss doesn’t have a built-in hood. Another very strong alternative is the Voigtlander 50/2 APO-lanthar (review), which offers truly perfect performance at the cost of being slightly larger and heavier than the other 50/2 options. If you want a wider aperture, your best choice is probably the Voigtlander 50mm f/1.5 II (review) or the Leica 50 Summilux ASPH. But keep in mind that neither of these will give you quite the same corner-to-corner sharpness as one of the 50/2 options.

I used my Summicron for about a year and sold it, since I wasn’t using 50mm much and I wanted the funds to try out other lenses. Since then, I’ve realized I miss having my 50 Summicron for travel, landscapes, and portraits. I might buy another one some day, if I can swallow the price difference versus the Zeiss and Voigtlander offerings.

Good
Image quality
Build quality
Size and feel
Built-in hood

Bad
More expensive than Zeiss/Voigtlander alternatives

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Other alternatives

Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron ASPH
This lens offers similar performance to the Voigtlander APO and is a bit better in terms of size and ergonomics. But that’s not enough to overcome its price tag of over $8000.

Voigtlander 50mm f/3.5 Heliar
This lens offers optical perfection with a fairly limited f/3.5 aperture in a tiny but odd-looking package. For a similar price you can just get the Zeiss 50/2 Planar, so I’m not sure who this lens is for.

Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 Sonnar
This is a very compact lens with a vintage optical design. It’s never interested me as it has a lot of focus shift, which makes it a pain to use on rangefinders.