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

Light Lens Lab 50mm f/1.5 "Z21"

Light Lens Lab · Leica M · 2025

our own finding

Also known as: LLL 50mm f/1.5 Z21 · Light Lens Lab Z21 50mm · Light Lens Lab 50mm f1.5 Z21 · LLL Z21

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Matte Black Paint Leica M 2025 — —
High Gloss Black Paint Limited Edition Leica M 2025 — —
  1. SHIPPED. Announced available 21 May 2025 with shipping from 1 June 2025, at a stated MSRP of $1,099. This entry describes the production lens, not a prototype.
  2. ELEMENT COUNT IS PUBLISHED FOR THE COPY, NOT INHERITED FROM THE ORIGINAL. "Six elements in a four-group design" is Light Lens Lab's own specification line for the Z21. That the original S21 is also given as six in four — by both PetaPixel and Digital Camera World — is a separate statement from separate sources, and the two happen to agree rather than one standing in for the other.
  3. THE FIDELITY CLAIM IS THE MAKER'S, REPEATED. Nobody consulted has compared the two prescriptions. "Closely follows the original element design and performance characteristics" is Light Lens Lab's sentence from its own product page; Digital Camera World reproduces it and attributes it explicitly to the Z21's specifications rather than to any test. No published side-by-side against an original S21 was found.
  4. WHICH MOUNTS THE ORIGINAL CAME IN IS DISPUTED. PetaPixel gives the S21 as made "for the Exakta mount... as well as for the M42 screw mount". Digital Camera World says it "was available in various mounts including Leica M39, Exakta and LTM". The two lists overlap only on Exakta. Both are recorded; neither is preferred.
  5. The declared departure from the original, in the maker's own words: frame coverage is extended to 44×33 mm digital sensors, which its page calls a significant change to the original design. The original covers 24×36 mm. Everything else on the page is framed as fidelity; this one line is framed as difference, and it is the only one.
  6. Light Lens Lab calls this lens the beginning of its Z21 project, with other focal lengths to follow. A 75mm f/1.5 Z21 appears in the maker's product feed dated 4 June 2026, so the project did continue past the 50.
  7. Stock, read from the maker's product feed on 4 September 2026: the High Gloss Black Paint Limited Edition orderable at $1,199, the Matte Black Paint sold out at $1,099. Both prices are the storefront's, not the launch announcement's.
  8. What the original sells for is the reason this lens exists. Digital Camera World reports an S21 in B+ condition, believed to be from 1953, realising €40,800 at Leitz Photographica Auction — around $46,637. PetaPixel's reviewer puts genuine examples above $15,000. The recreation is $1,099.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Engraved Z21 — the maker's own code, and the only name it gives the design
  • E52 filter thread with the hood screwing into the front of the barrel rather than clipping over it
  • Aluminium, not brass: 313 g against the 266 g and 345 g of the brass 50s in the same range

Matte Black Paint:

  • Matte black paint finish; the $1,099 list price quoted at launch

High Gloss Black Paint Limited Edition:

  • High gloss black paint; listed at $1,199, a hundred dollars above the matte version

Specifications

Construction
6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/1.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
10
Min. focus
0.7 m
Dimensions
60.7 × 64.2 mm
Weight
313 g
Filter
52 mm
Years manufactured
2025
Country
China
Material
Aluminium alloy
Original price
$1,099 (2025 launch MSRP, Matte Black Paint); $1,199 for the High Gloss Black Paint Limited Edition

What reviewers say

History

Light Lens Lab never says what this lens is a copy of. The product page offers one line — homage to the legendary 50mm f/1.5 “S21” — and the word Angénieux appears nowhere on it. The identification comes from outside: PetaPixel and Digital Camera World both name the original as the P. Angénieux Type S21 50mm f/1.5, dated 1953, and both give it as six elements in four groups. They part company on what it was made for — PetaPixel says the Exakta bayonet and the M42 screw mount, Digital Camera World says M39, Exakta and LTM — so only Exakta is common ground. Six in four is separately the count the recreation publishes for itself, on its own specification line, rather than a figure borrowed from the original and quietly reused. And the coincidence of the code letters is not a coincidence at all: S21 is Angénieux’s own type designation, and Z is the initial of the man whose workshop this is.

So the claim under test is unusually narrow and, in principle, unusually checkable. Six elements in four groups, said to closely follow the original element design and performance characteristics with improvements in contrast and line transfer. In practice nobody has checked it. That sentence is Light Lens Lab’s, printed on its own product page; Digital Camera World repeats it and says where it got it, which is the specification sheet rather than a bench. No published comparison of the two prescriptions turned up, and at what an S21 costs, one is unlikely to. Everything else in the specification is new hardware around old glass: a rangefinder coupling the original never had, described as a newly developed focusing mechanism with tighter tolerances; lanthanide-infused elements made in the workshop’s own furnaces; ten blades; 0.7 m; f/1.5 to f/22; an E52 thread with the hood screwing into the barrel. The body is aluminium alloy, which is worth noticing in a range where almost everything else is brass — 313 g here against 345 g for the SP II and 266 g for the Rigid.

There is exactly one departure the maker declares, and it is the interesting one. Coverage is extended to 44×33 mm — medium-format digital — and the page calls this a significant change to the original design. An Exakta lens of 1953 was drawn for 24×36 mm and nothing larger. Extending an image circle by half again while claiming to closely follow the original element design is a tension the page does not resolve, and it is the place where a buyer expecting a faithful copy should look first. Chris Niccolls’s review of the production lens reports central sharpness that is quite good and edges that fall away sharply through field curvature, which is what a stretched image circle tends to look like from the middle of a 35mm frame.

The price gap explains the project. Digital Camera World traces an S21 believed to be from 1953 through Leitz Photographica Auction at €40,800, about $46,637; Niccolls puts working examples above $15,000. This is $1,099 for the matte version, $1,199 for the gloss limited edition, and on 4 September 2026 only the limited edition could actually be bought. The original is not in this catalog and probably never will be at those numbers, which makes the recreation the only version of that design most people will ever put on a camera.

One line on the announcement is worth keeping. Light Lens Lab called the 50 the beginning of its Z21 project, with other focal lengths to follow — and a 75mm f/1.5 Z21 duly appears in the maker’s own product feed dated June 2026. The Z21 is a platform name, not a single lens, which is the same thing the Rigid and SP II names turned out to be.

Expand Collapse

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/1.5 "Z21"? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,800 across 8 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $1,400–$1,900). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $1,800.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$1,800$1,400–$1,9008
2026-09-06$1,800$1,400–$1,9008

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

Sources (6)

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.