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

Summilux 50mm f/1.4 (v1, 1959)

Ernst Leitz · LTM + Leica M · 1959 · Seven elements in five groups

Also known as: Leitz Summilux 50mm f/1.4 · Summilux 5cm f1.4 first version · Summilux-M 50/1.4 v1 · ズミルックス 50mm F1.4 · Summilux 5cm f/1.4 (first version) · Summilux 5cm f/1.4 (first version) · Summilux 50 v1 · Summilux 50mm v1

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Screw mount LTM 1959–1961 — 548 lenses, on Schouten's figure as quoted by the Leica Wiki
M bayonet Leica M 1959–1961 — The remainder of about 19,600 lenses
Scalloped focusing knurl (SKF) Leica M 1959–1961 — No separate figure published
Black anodised Leica M 1959–1961 — No separate figure published
  1. The optical difference from the second version is a matter of which elements are cemented, and two independent accounts agree on it. Ken Rockwell's version table gives the first design as "elements 2 and 3 are cemented and elements 6 and 7 are separate, unlike the later lenses where the first three elements are separate and the last two groups are cemented"; Jonathan Slack, writing on the 2025 reissue, describes the same swap. Both designs are seven elements in five groups, which is why the specification tables do not show the change.
  2. Serial 1,844,000 is the boundary. Rockwell dates the first optical design to numbers at or below 1,844,000 and the second to 1,844,001 and above; Keith Wee, reviewing the second version, gives 1,844,001 as the start of its silver-chrome serials.
  3. Around twenty pre-production lenses were built for field testing in 1957 and engraved Summarit 5cm 1:1.4 rather than Summilux. Leitz Photographica has sold two: screw-mount no. 1546038, €4,320 against a €5,000–6,000 estimate, and M-mount no. 1546060 (code SOOIAM), €14,400 against €10,000–12,000, its lot note recording that "only around 20 of these lenses were made for field testing".
  4. The filter thread is 43mm at a 0.5mm pitch rather than the usual 0.75mm, which is why modern 43mm filters frequently will not start on it (Rockwell's specification table; Flavio Bosi makes the same point about the second version).
  5. A third pre-production lens has since been offered, and it complicates the Summarit story. Leitz Photographica's 45th auction catalogued no. 1546044 as "Summilux 1.4/50mm pre-series", an M-mount lens of 1957 with the enlarged aperture-scale engraving of the pre-series examples, delivered to Munich in March 1959 — from which the lot note reasons that Leitz changed the designation from Summarit to Summilux during the pre-series run rather than at its end. Van Hasbroeck illustrates the adjacent no. 1546045. It went unsold against a €30,000–34,000 estimate, three times the estimate carried by the Summarit-engraved M-mount example that made €14,400 in an earlier sale.
  6. An ordinary example of the first design has a price too. Leitz Photographica sold chrome M-mount no. 1702871, dated 1960 and so below Rockwell's 1,844,000 boundary, for €2,040 against a €2,400–2,800 estimate, with its XOOIM hood and the "Lens made in Germany" engraving on the rear. The lot is catalogued under order number 11114, the number this entry records for the bayonet version.
  7. The screw-mount code word is confirmed outside Rockwell. Leitz Photographica's 45th auction offered lot 36 as "Leica IIIg with Summilux 1.4/50mm SOWGE", unsold against a €4,000–5,000 estimate — an auction house and a reviewer arriving independently at SOWGE for the 39mm-thread lens, and the camera it is paired with is the IIIg the screw version was made for.
  8. Rockwell's screw-mount figure disagrees with the one recorded here: he gives "600 pieces in the older screw mount from 1960-1963", against Schouten's 548 for 1959–1961, and assigns the screw version catalogue number 11014 or SOWGE.
  9. Buyers number the 50mm f/1.4 Summiluxes v1 to v4: v1 of 1959, the Summarit-derived design; v2 of 1961, the classic, and v3 of 1992, the same glass in a barrel with a built-in hood; v4 the ASPH of 2004. This entry uses that numbering; the other pages carry the rest.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Engraved SUMMILUX 1:1.4/50 LEITZ WETZLAR
  • 16-blade aperture with full click stops
  • E43 filter thread — not the E39 of the Summicron, so filters do not swap

Screw mount:

  • 39mm thread

M bayonet:

  • Order number 11114; 360g against 320g in screw mount

Scalloped focusing knurl (SKF):

  • A scalloped focusing ring rather than a plain knurled one

Black anodised:

  • Black anodised finish in place of the clear

Specifications

Formula
Seven elements in five groups
Designed by
Walter Mandler — optical design — filed 30 August 1958 · Erich Wagner — optical design
Construction
7 elements / 5 groups
Aperture range
f/1.4–f/16
Diaphragm blades
16
Min. focus
1 m
Dimensions
53 × 52 mm
Weight
320 g
Filter
43 mm
Years manufactured
1959–1961
Country
Germany
Material
Lacquer over chrome-plated brass

What reviewers say

History

The first Summilux is Walter Mandler’s, filed with Erich Wagner in August 1958, and it lasted two years. Leitz needed something faster than the Summicron and better behaved than the Summarit; seven elements in five groups at f/1.4 was the answer, and about 19,600 were made between 1959 and 1961 before Mandler redrew it into the second version that ran for the next forty years.

That short life is what makes it collectable, and the screw-mount version is the extreme case. Only 548 were built in 39mm thread — under three per cent of the model — in the years when the screw mount was already finished as a system, for the customers still buying IIIgs. The Leica Wiki’s 2010 prices put a screw-mount example at $3,000 against $1,000 for the bayonet.

In use it is a lens of its moment: flare-prone against the light and glowing wide open, with the correction improving quickly by f/2.8. It takes E43 filters rather than the E39 that had already become the Leitz standard on the Summicron, so nothing swaps between them — a small nuisance that persisted through the second version too.

The Summilux name outlived every part of this design. It is now on lenses from 21mm to 75mm, all of them aspherical, all of them corrected in ways Mandler could not have manufactured in 1958. This is where it starts.

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 taken with the Summilux 50mm f/1.4 (v1, 1959)
A chrome Summilux 50mm f/1.4; the photographer does not say whether it is the first or second version — Daft racer, via Openverse (wikimedia) (BY-SA 3.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Summilux 50mm f/1.4 (v1, 1959)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $2,200 across 28 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $1,900–$2,500). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: up 1% from $2,200.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$2,200$1,900–$2,50028
2026-09-06$2,200$1,800–$2,50028

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

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

Related: Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 ASPH (v4) · Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 (v2, 1961) · Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 (v3, built-in hood)

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.