New M Lenses set from Leica

[Ed Albesi]

Hi to all
Early this week, Leica issued a press release about four new lenses for its M line of analog and rangefinder cameras. These four lenses will be available from November '07, with an entry level (in Leica terms) price tag of around Euros 1000-1250. They are hand assembled in Germany, share a non-aspherical design, and a maximum aperture of f/2.5, along their "Summarit" designation.
- Summarit-M 35/2.5
- Summarit-M 50/2.5
- Summarit-M 75/2.5
- Summarit-M 90/2.5
The four new offerings cover the entire 35mm negative frame, being suitable for both the Leica film cameras from 1954, as for the digital M8. Due to this latter's crop factor of 1.33x, the new lenses behave grossly as a 45mm, a 66mm, 100mm and a 120mm respectively.

Here's Leica's official press release, and below the official images of these four beauties.

Cheers,

Ed

[jlipkin]

I wonder why so long? There's no wide-angle lens. Wouldn't it make sense, if these are intended for the M8, to have something like a 20?

[Ed Albesi]

This low cost Summarit-M series is meant to be complemented on the wide side by the Elmarit-M 28/2.8 asph issued around October 06 together with the M8.

There are rumours that Leica has wider lenses in the works, possibly a 15/16mm, a 21mm and a 24mm.

In any case, I agree that a line of lenses especially tailored for the M8 (taking into account the 1.33x crop factor and with internal IR-Cut filtration) would be very welcome...

Ed