Frilon 70mm f/1.5

Futura · Leica M + Other · 1955

Also known as: Futura Frilon 70mm f/1.5 · Futura Frilon 70mm f1.5 · Futura Frilon 1.5/70mm · Futura Frilon 1.5/70 · Frilon 70mm f/1.5 · Frilon 70mm f1.5 · Frilon 1.5/70mm · Frilon 1:1.5/70 · Frilon 1:1,5/70 mm · Futura Freiburg Frilon 70mm · フリロン 70mm F1.5

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Futura screw mount (lens head without focusing mount)	Futura screw mount (34mm thread; focused by the camera's own mount)	—	50095 (Deutsches Kameramuseum, on a Futura-S) 500xx (Flashback Camera, the last digits masked in the shop's photograph; now in a Leica M conversion, original parts with it)	—
No. 15096, lens in a Synchro-Compur shutter	Synchro-Compur shutter no. A515031 (what the shutter was made to fit is not recorded)	—	15096 (Leitz Photographica Auction 25, lot 517)	—
No. 15133, in a custom Leica M focusing mount	Leica M (later conversion: custom-machined focusing mount)	—	15133 (Leitz Photographica Auction 49, lot 313)	—
Lens head on a Leitz Visoflex focusing mount (Flashback Camera)	Leica M (later conversion: machined aluminium extension tube and a Leitz ZOOEP Visoflex focusing mount)	—	500xx (Flashback Camera, last digits masked)	—

Date. No launch year is documented. The year on this page is Leitz's c.1955 for no. 15096, the only dated example; Leitz gives no. 15133 only as 1950s. Futura sold its rangefinders from 1950 to 1958 (camera-wiki, Kameramuseum), and Eckman has the firm closing in 1957. The September 1952 US advertisement Eckman reproduces, with a price list, names the Frilon 50mm and the Ampligon 35mm but not the 70mm.
Mount. Sources differ on the Futura thread: the Deutsches Kameramuseum gives M34, Mike Eckman 33.8mm, and Leitz, describing a Futura-S, a '33.3cm screw mount' (Auction 48, lot 273; read mm). Eckman calls the mount a proprietary screw/breech-lock mount. No Frilon 70mm made by Futura in Leica thread or any Leica mount has been found: the Leica-mount examples are later conversions.
Design. Camera-wiki says the 70mm is 'basically the same construction' as the Frilon 50mm f/1.5. Camera-wiki credits the calculation of Futura's lenses to Werner Giesbrecht of Schneider, and the Kameramuseum says they were computed by Schneider-Kreuznach; Flashback calls the origin of the two Frilons a mystery. Flashback gives the 50mm as six elements in four groups; no source gives an element count for the 70mm, so none is given here.
Prices. Leitz Auction 25, lot 517 (in a Synchro-Compur, with box): €960 including premium. MW Classic: £999 (undated). Leitz Auction 49, lot 313 (Leica M conversion): estimate €4,000–5,000, start €2,000, sale 28 November 2026.

How to tell them apart (expand)

Front ring engraved 'FRILON 1:1.5/70', serial number, 'FUTURA FREIBURG BR.'; the 50mm Frilon is engraved 1:1.5/50
Aperture scale 1.5, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11
As Futura made it, the head has no focusing mount; any distance scale on the lens itself belongs to a later conversion

Futura screw mount (lens head without focusing mount):

Front ring engraved 'FRILON 1:1.5/70', the serial number and 'FUTURA FREIBURG BR.' (Kameramuseum and Flashback photographs)
Chrome head with a knurled aperture ring scaled 1.5, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11 and no distance scale of its own: the distance scale is on the camera (Kameramuseum photographs)

No. 15096, lens in a Synchro-Compur shutter:

Chrome barrel engraved 'FRILON 1:1.5/70 15096' and 'FUTURA FREIBURG BR.', with no aperture ring of its own (Leitz lot photographs)
Seated in a Synchro-Compur numbered A515031, speeds T, B and 1 to 1/400, with the aperture scale 1.5 to 11 on the shutter, a flash post and a self-timer lever (Leitz lot photographs)
Rear plate of the shutter held by screws (Leitz lot photograph)

No. 15133, in a custom Leica M focusing mount:

Front ring engraved 'FRILON 1:1.5/70 15133 FUTURA FREIBURG BR.' (Leitz lot photographs)
Original chrome head with its aperture ring 1.5 to 11 and a red index dot, on a chrome helicoid scaled in metres (4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 7, 8 …) and feet (15, 25, 50, ∞) with a depth-of-field scale 11, 8, 4, 2 either side of a red index (Leitz lot photographs)
Plain chrome tube, then a diamond-knurled ring and an M bayonet flange held by six cross-head screws; shown with a black Leica M rear cap (Leitz lot photographs)

Lens head on a Leitz Visoflex focusing mount (Flashback Camera):

Original chrome head with aperture ring 1.5 to 11 (Flashback photographs)
Leitz Visoflex focusing mount engraved 'CANADA', scaled in metres and in feet (red), with a depth-of-field scale 16 to 16 (Flashback photographs)

Futura screw mount (lens head without focusing mount): The form the lens was sold in. Futura cameras focus by turning the lens mount on the body, and the lenses screw into it: the Futura manual tells the owner to turn the mount to its close stop with the setting lever, unscrew the lens anticlockwise, set the mount to infinity and screw the new lens in. The Deutsches Kameramuseum's Frilon 70, no. 50095, is photographed on a Futura-S, no. S 12743, with the distance scale on the camera's mount; the museum gives the pair a weight of 1,137 g. MW Classic Cameras (London) listed one as a 'Fast screw mount Futura lens' with the Futura 70mm optical shoe finder, front cap and lens case at £999, graded Exc+, with 'smooth focusing' (undated listing, now out of stock). Whether this lens couples to the rangefinder on the first Futura bodies is not stated anywhere consulted. Mike Eckman writes that in 1953 the mount was changed slightly to give full rangefinder coupling to the wide-angle and long lenses, older lenses still fitting, and elsewhere that the change came with the Futura S, which he dates to 1952; camera-wiki says the later bodies, the Futura S in particular, have a modified baffle that lets the camera's coupling drive the longer lenses.
No. 15096, lens in a Synchro-Compur shutter: Sold at Leitz Photographica Auction 25, lot 517, for €960 including buyer's premium, against an estimate of €800–1,000 and a starting price of €400. Leitz grades it A/B, dates it c.1955 and describes a 'very rare Futura lens in good working Synchro-Compur shutter, very good lenses, both caps, Futura maker's box'; the photographs show a Futura-embossed front cap and a cream and brown Futura box. Futura cameras carry their leaf shutter in the body behind the lens mount, so this is not the camera-lens form; whether the shutter is a body's front assembly with the lens left in it, or a mount made for another camera or a test bench, the lot does not say.
No. 15133, in a custom Leica M focusing mount: Offered at Leitz Photographica Auction 49, lot 313, sale 28 November 2026: estimate €4,000–5,000, starting price €2,000, no bids recorded on 9 November 2026. These are auction figures, not a sale price. Leitz grades it A/B, dates it to the 1950s and calls it 'a very rare Futura Frilon 1.5/70mm, an exceptionally fast short telephoto lens from the 1950s, originally made for the Futura camera system', 'fitted with a custom-machined adapter for Leica M', with good optics showing only minimal haze. The focusing mount is part of the conversion: the lens as Futura made it has none. Leitz does not say whether it couples to the rangefinder, who made it, or when.
Lens head on a Leitz Visoflex focusing mount (Flashback Camera): Sold by Flashback Camera, Tokyo (listing first published April 2018, price no longer shown). The shop says the lens, helicoid and other parts were overhauled in April 2018; a tube turned from good-quality aluminium was fitted to the lens head and Leica's ZOOEP Visoflex helicoid was adapted to take it, focusing to 60 cm; the original parts come with it, so it can be put back as Futura made it. Flashback calls it rarer still than the Frilon 50mm f/1.5 and a lens almost never seen. Flashback does not say whether it couples to the rangefinder; the helicoid is one Leica made for use with the Visoflex reflex housing. The shop masked the last two digits of the serial in its photographs, so whether this is the lens the Kameramuseum now holds, no. 50095, put back in Futura form before the museum received it in 2025, cannot be told.

Serial-range notes

15096, 15133; 50095, 500xx: The 70mm Frilons traced here fall in two blocks, 15096 and 15133 (both Leitz lots) and 50095 and a 500xx (the Kameramuseum's and Flashback's). Flashback masked its last two digits, so the 500xx may be 50095 itself, restored to Futura form before the museum acquired it in 2025; the lenses traced are therefore three or four. A Frilon 50mm f/1.5 in a Futura-S outfit at Leitz Auction 48, lot 273, is no. 43320. No source explains Futura's numbering, and nothing dates either block against the other.

Specifications

Aperture range: f/1.5–f/11
Country: Germany

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History

The Frilon 70mm f/1.5 was the long lens of the Futura system, the interchangeable-lens rangefinders made in Freiburg im Breisgau from 1950 to 1958 by the firm Fritz Kuhnert founded and the Komorowski brothers later ran as Futura Kamerawerk. Futura made nearly all its own lenses and named several after Kuhnert’s family. The two fastest, the 50mm standard lens and this 70mm, were both called Frilon, and camera-wiki describes the 70mm as basically the same construction as the 50. The Deutsches Kameramuseum calls it one of the rarer Futura lenses and, for its day, one of the fastest lenses of its focal length.

As Futura made it, the lens is only a chrome head with an aperture ring scaled from 1.5 to 11 and no distance scale. Futura cameras put the leaf shutter (a Compur on most; the September 1952 US advertisement also lists a model with a Prontor SV) in the body behind the lens, and focus by turning the lens mount on the body; a lens screws into that mount. The thread is Futura’s own, about 34mm (the sources give M34, 33.8mm and 33.3mm), and it is not the Leica thread. No Frilon 70mm made by Futura for a Leica has been found.

What reaches the Leica market are conversions. Lot 313 at Leitz Photographica Auction 49, no. 15133, is the original head on a custom-machined focusing mount with a metre and foot scale and a Leica M bayonet, estimated at €4,000–5,000 with the sale on 28 November 2026. Leitz does not say whether it couples to the rangefinder. Flashback Camera in Tokyo sold another, no. 500xx with the last digits masked, on a reworked Leica Visoflex focusing mount; Flashback does not say whether it couples either. Neither fits a Leica screw-mount body. An earlier Leitz lot, no. 15096, came in a Synchro-Compur shutter with its Futura box and sold for €960 including premium.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

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Live listings

Futura Freiburg BR. Frilon 1.5/70mm Objektiv Sehr Selten — €2,999.00 · eBay

Listings updated 2026-11-09. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.