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

Light Lens Lab 50mm f/2 "Rigid-SPII"

Light Lens Lab · Leica M · 2024 · Double Gauss

Also known as: LLL 50mm f/2 Rigid-SPII · Light Lens Lab Rigid SP II · Light Lens Lab 50mm f2 Rigid-SPII

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Chrome Leica M 2024 — —
  1. SHIPPED, AND NOT ON THE STRENGTH OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT. Ordering opened 19 December 2023 at an introductory $849, with first deliveries given as late January to February 2024. The evidence that it reached customers is independent of the rumour post: Thomas Pindelski reviewed a copy he had bought in January 2026, and the maker's storefront lists a single chrome SKU at $899, sold out with the page live, on 4 September 2026. This entry describes the production lens. Richard Clompus's PetaPixel review, by contrast, was written from a prototype whose aperture clicked in third stops, and he records that production copies would move to the even half stops the specification now lists — a reminder that the earliest published review of this lens is not a review of the thing that shipped.
  2. SAME OPTICS, DIFFERENT BARREL — THE MAKER'S OWN FRAMING. Photo Rumors describes the lens as the 50mm f/2 Speed Panchro II optical block housed in a new Type Two Rigid 50mm f/2 body. It gives no element count of its own; the counts come from Light Lens Lab, which publishes "Optics: Double-Gauss Design, seven elements in five groups" on this lens's own specification block and the same figure on the SP II's. Seven in five is therefore stated for this lens directly, not inferred from the sibling or from the 1940s original. The name decodes accordingly — Rigid barrel plus Speed Panchro II optics.
  3. WHAT NOBODY HAS DONE IS COMPARE THEM OPTICALLY. That the two share an optical block is the maker's claim, repeated by Photo Rumors; no published measurement or prescription comparison of the Rigid-SPII against either the SP II or a Cooke Speed Panchro Series II was found. The two reviewers who handled both compared handling and rendering, not glass.
  4. WHAT ACTUALLY DIFFERS, side by side. This lens is multicoated with eight blades, E39, an A42 hood, 45.5 mm long, 43.2 mm diameter, 250 g. The SP II is single-coated with ten blades, E43, a Reid-style hood, 61 mm long, 51 mm diameter, 345 g, and carries a removable UV filter built into the lens. The coating change is the only difference that touches the image; everything else is mechanical or cosmetic.
  5. THE PRICE HAS THREE PUBLISHED LIST VALUES AND NO TWO SOURCES AGREE. Photo Rumors gives $849 as the early-order price and $1,049 as the regular price from 1 January 2024; the maker's own product feed on 4 September 2026 lists $899. The $1,049 figure never appears on the storefront in this survey. All three are recorded rather than one chosen. A fourth figure is a street price rather than a list price and is kept separate for that reason: Thomas Pindelski paid $800 for a new open-box example from an unnamed US vendor.
  6. THE MOUNT THAT DID NOT ARRIVE. Photo Rumors reported an LTM version to follow later in 2024. The storefront lists M only, and the maker's feed carries no LTM part number as of September 2026.
  7. Hood not included, unusually for this range. The A42 mount is on the lens; the hood is a separate purchase.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The SP II optical block in a Rigid barrel: 45.5 mm long and 250 g against the SP II's 61 mm and 345 g
  • Eight aperture blades, where the SP II has ten
  • E39 thread and an A42 hood mount, where the SP II takes E43 and a Reid-style hood
  • Multicoated, where the SP II is single-coated

Chrome:

  • The only finish offered; chrome over a solid brass body

Specifications

Formula
Double Gauss
Construction
7 elements / 5 groups
Aperture range
f/2–f/22
Diaphragm blades
8
Min. focus
0.7 m
Dimensions
43.2 × 45.5 mm
Weight
250 g
Filter
39 mm
Years manufactured
2024
Country
China
Coating
Multicoated
Material
Solid brass
Original price
$849 introductory (December 2023); $1,049 given as the regular price from 1 January 2024; $899 on the maker's storefront in 2026 (today $874–$1,080)

What reviewers say

History

The name is the whole specification. Rigid, meaning the barrel drawn from the 1956 rigid Summicron; SPII, meaning the Speed Panchro Series II optical block Light Lens Lab had already put into production a year earlier. Photo Rumors described the lens in exactly those terms when it was announced — the 50mm f/2 Speed Panchro II optical block housed in a new Type Two Rigid 50mm f/2 body — and the maker’s own page says the same thing more briefly: a recreation of the famous Speed Panchro II 50mm f/2 cinema lens from the 1940s, in a classic 50mm f/2 Rigid format.

The published formulae bear that out, and it is worth saying where they come from. Photo Rumors offers no element count; Light Lens Lab prints one on each lens’s own specification block, and the two read alike — Double-Gauss, seven elements in five groups, for this lens and for the SP II. The count on this page is therefore the maker’s figure for this lens, not a number carried over from the sibling or from the 1940s Cooke. What nobody has done is test the claim: no published measurement compares this lens with the SP II, or either with a Speed Panchro. What changes is everything around the glass, and the list is short enough to hold in the hand: eight blades here against ten there, E39 against E43, an A42 hood against a Reid-style clip-on, 45.5 mm and 250 g against 61 mm and 345 g, and — the one difference that reaches the picture — multicoating here where the SP II is deliberately single-coated. The SP II also carries a removable UV filter built into the barrel; this one does not.

That makes it the strongest variant candidate in the range. This catalog treats a real optical redesign as grounds for a separate entry and a mechanical or cosmetic difference as grounds for a variant, and on the evidence published these two are one optical design in two barrels. They are kept apart here because the maker launched them separately at separate prices and because a coating change is not quite nothing — but the case for folding them together is real and is recorded above rather than left implicit.

Reviewers who have handled both prefer this one, though one of them was not holding a finished lens. Richard Clompus, comparing them for PetaPixel, likes the rigid version more: more compact, and multicoated in a way that keeps flare under control — but his copy was a prototype, clicking in third stops where production lenses take even half stops, and he says so. Thomas Pindelski’s was a lens he bought, two years later, and he calls it a delight to the eye and is precise about what has been given up — eight blades where the originals had ten, a lens head that does not detach, a smooth rear flange that needs hand-applied 6-bit coding and will wear, and the word China on the front ring. He also notes the recreation focuses to 0.7 m where the cine originals stop at a metre.

Two things in the record do not settle. The price has three published list values — $849 as an introductory figure in December 2023, $1,049 announced as the regular price from January 2024, and $899 on the maker’s own storefront in September 2026, where the lens is sold out and the page still live — and a fourth number that is not a list price at all: Pindelski paid $800 for a new open-box copy from a US vendor. And the LTM version Photo Rumors reported for later in 2024 has not appeared: the shop lists M only, with no screw-mount part number in the maker’s feed. The same promise, unkept in the same way, appears on the Rigid of a year later.

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/2 "Rigid-SPII"? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $990 across 6 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $860–$1,100). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $990.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$990$860–$1,1006
2026-09-06$990$860–$1,1006

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.

Related: Light Lens Lab 50mm f/2 "SP II" · Light Lens Lab 50mm f/2 "Rigid"

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.