Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Light Lens Lab 50mm f/1.2 ASPH "1966"

Light Lens Lab · Leica M + LTM · 2023 · Aspherical double Gauss

Also known as: LLL 50mm f/1.2 ASPH 1966 · Light Lens Lab Noctilux replica · LLL 1966 50/1.2 · Light Lens Lab 50mm 1.2 ASPH

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Leica M bayonet Leica M 2023 — —
Leica Thread Mount LTM 2023 — —
  1. One of the three declared improvements does not survive comparison with the original. The maker offers half-stop aperture detents as an advance on the 1966 lens, but the Leica Wiki records the original Noctilux 50mm f/1.2 as having a sixteen-blade diaphragm with half and full stops already. On the evidence published by both parties the detents are a match rather than an improvement. No source found makes this comparison.
  2. The code is a date. 1966 is the year Leitz introduced the Noctilux 50mm f/1.2, the first production camera lens with hand-ground aspherical surfaces, of which 2,450 were built to 1975. It is not a part number and not a nickname.
  3. Every published optical number matches the original: six elements in four groups, an aspherical double Gauss, f/1.2, and a 1 m minimum focus with rangefinder coupling. The recreation does not shorten the focusing distance, which is the change most modern remakes of old fast fifties make first.
  4. The fidelity claim goes further here than on any other lens in the range. The maker names the glass — elements "made in-house with lanthanide and lead-infused code-named '900403'" — and describes "classic high-temperature grinding and polishing processes" for the aspherical surfaces. The original's two aspherical surfaces were figured by hand on a manually operated machine, which is why so few exist. Neither claim can be checked from outside a workshop.
  5. THE GRINDING CLAIM IS REPEATED, NOT TESTED. PetaPixel writes that Light Lens Lab "uses a type of glass that almost exactly matches the vintage formula and even hand grinds and polishes the twin aspherical elements that made the original so famous", which is the maker's own account of its process in a reviewer's words rather than an independent finding. Nothing located here compares the two prescriptions, and no published measurement of either lens's aspherical surfaces exists to compare them with.
  6. Declared improvements over the original are three: half-stop aperture detents, better sharpness, and the E49 thread in place of Series VIII. The filter change is real and significant — Series VIII filters drop into the dedicated hood rather than screwing on, so a 49mm thread makes ordinary filters usable for the first time.
  7. Weight is published per material: 450 g aluminium, 545 g brass, 506 g titanium. The original is 470 g. Only the aluminium version comes in under it; the brass version is 75 g heavier.
  8. The hood is described as a "12503 Style Clip-On Hood", the pattern the original was sold with, and is excluded from the titanium grey set, which carries a custom titanium hood instead.
  9. Dating is staged. The maker's May 2023 production post estimated Q3/Q4 2023 for the first pre-order round and 2024 for the second. The March 2024 shipping post says the 2024 pre-order customers had begun receiving lenses and aimed "to complete all pre-orders by mid-late 2024". The 2023 date is therefore an estimate the maker published for the first round; the only shipping confirmed in writing is 2024. The Leica Lens List dates the lens 2023.
  10. THE 2023 REVIEW IS OF A PROTOTYPE. The earliest published test, Macfilos on 23 August 2023, is the piece most often cited as evidence the lens was out that year, and it says otherwise in its own text: "Two finished lens prototypes were made by LLL, of which I received No.1 for testing", arriving in mid-July 2023, engraved "Noctilucent 1:1.2/50 ASPH 1966 Prototype 01". Its measurements belong to that copy — 438 g without the hood, against the 450 g the maker publishes for the aluminium version — and none of them describes a lens anyone had bought. Chris Niccolls's PetaPixel review of 31 August 2024 is the first fetched here that is unambiguously of a shipping lens.
  11. Brass weight is disputed. Light Lens Lab publishes 545 g. Chris Niccolls, reviewing for PetaPixel, gives about 632 g for the brass version while agreeing with the maker on aluminium (450 g) and titanium (506 g) — so the disagreement is confined to the one finish, and 87 g is too large a gap to be a rounding difference. Neither figure has been weighed here.
  12. Prices, from the maker's own product feed on 4 September 2026: aluminium black paint $2,149 in M and $2,299 in LTM, brass black paint and brass silver chrome $2,419 each, titanium grey $2,599. Five configurations, every one of them out of stock. The product page headlines only the lowest figure, $2,149, which is why "from $2,149" and "up to $2,599" are both true statements about the same lens and neither is the price of anything on its own.
  13. The launch prices were lower and the finish list the same length. The Macfilos review of 23 August 2023 lists aluminium black paint at $2,099, brass chrome and brass black paint at $2,199 and titanium grey at $2,499 — a $50 to $220 rise across three years, with the LTM version added since.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Engraved 1966 — the year the lens it copies was introduced, not a serial or a batch
  • E49 filter thread, where the original takes Series VIII drop-in filters
  • Six elements in four groups, matching the 1966 original
  • 450 g in aluminium, 545 g in brass, 506 g in titanium

Leica M bayonet:

  • M bayonet; the finish determines whether the barrel is aluminium, brass or titanium

Leica Thread Mount:

  • 39mm screw thread

Specifications

Formula
Aspherical double Gauss
Construction
6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/1.2–f/16
Min. focus
1 m
Filter
49 mm
Years manufactured
2023
Country
China
Material
Aluminium, brass or titanium, by finish
Original price
$2,099–$2,499 at launch (four finishes, 2023); $2,149–$2,599 on the storefront in September 2026, LTM included (today $2,160–$2,570)

What reviewers say

History

The name is a date. 1966 is the year Leitz introduced the Noctilux 50mm f/1.2, the first camera lens in series production with aspherical surfaces, and the reason only 2,450 of them exist is that in 1966 an aspherical surface had to be ground and figured by hand. Light Lens Lab put that year on the barrel rather than a nickname or a batch code, which states the ambition without a word of description.

On the published numbers it is the closest match in the range. Six elements in four groups. An aspherical double Gauss. f/1.2 to f/16. One metre minimum focus with rangefinder coupling — and that last one matters, because shortening the focusing distance is the first thing a modern remake of an old fast fifty usually does. This one leaves it where Leitz left it.

The fidelity claim also goes deeper here than anywhere else Light Lens Lab makes one. Other lenses in the range get a glass type; this one gets a code. The elements are described as “made in-house with lanthanide and lead-infused code-named ‘900403’”, and the aspherical surfaces as the product of “classic high-temperature grinding and polishing processes” — which is a claim to be doing the difficult thing the difficult way, on a lens whose whole historical interest is that the difficult way was the only way. Neither statement can be checked without a workshop, and neither has been checked in print.

Three improvements are declared: sharpness, half-stop detents, and an E49 filter thread. The thread is a genuine gain, since the original takes Series VIII filters that drop into the dedicated hood rather than screwing onto the front. The detents are not. The Leica Wiki records the 1966 Noctilux as having a sixteen-blade diaphragm with half and full stops, so the feature offered as an advance is a feature the original already had. That comparison is this project’s; no published source sets the two claims against each other.

Where the two lenses actually part company is weight and mount. The original is 470 grams. The recreation is 450 in aluminium, 506 in titanium and 545 in brass, so two of the three finishes are heavier than the lens they copy. And it is sold in screw mount as well as bayonet — the only recreation outside the Eight Elements to be — which is a version the original never had and so a version with nothing to be faithful to.

The dating deserves care, and the review record is the reason it does. The maker’s May 2023 post estimated delivery of the first pre-order round in the third or fourth quarter of 2023 and the second round in 2024. The next confirmation in writing is March 2024, announcing that 2024 pre-order customers had begun receiving lenses, with an aim “to complete all pre-orders by mid-late 2024”. 2023 is what was promised; 2024 is what is documented as having happened.

The trap is the earliest review. Macfilos published a full test on 23 August 2023, with measurements, MTF comparisons against both the 1966 original and Leica’s 2021 reissue, and a verdict — everything a reader takes as proof that a lens is out. It was not. The reviewer says in his own text that Light Lens Lab made two finished prototypes and sent him No. 1, in mid-July 2023, engraved as prototype 01, and his 438 g is a prototype’s weight rather than the 450 g the maker publishes. Read as a review of a product, it moves the shipping date back a year on evidence that does not support it. Chris Niccolls’s PetaPixel review of August 2024 is the first test located here of a lens someone could have bought, and it is worth reading against the fidelity claim too: PetaPixel repeats that Light Lens Lab hand-grinds and polishes the two aspherical surfaces, which is the maker’s account of its own workshop rather than anything a reviewer could see.

Prices have been misreported in both directions and the maker’s own feed settles them. Four finishes at launch, $2,099 to $2,499; five configurations in September 2026 — aluminium black paint at $2,149 in bayonet and $2,299 in screw, brass in black paint or silver chrome at $2,419, titanium grey at $2,599 — every one of them out of stock. The headline figure on the product page is the lowest of the five, so “from $2,149” describes the cheapest version of the lens and not the lens.

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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

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Light Lens Lab 50mm f/1.2 ASPH "1966"? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $2,600 across 3 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-06 (middle half $2,600–$2,600). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.

Listings updated 2026-09-05. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Noctilux 50mm f/1.2

Sources (9)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.