Leica APO-Summicron 35mm f/2 ASPH Lens Review – A Fine Piece that Makes Your Heart Skip a Beat
Leica APO-Summicron 35mm f/2 ASPH Lens Review
Lens Review
A Fine Piece that Makes Your Heart Skip a Beat
Leica APO-Summicron 35mm f/2 ASPH Lens Review – A Fine Piece that Makes Your Heart Skip a Beat
The Leica APO-Summicron 35mm f/2 ASPH Lens was not on my radar until Linden brought it up during our coffee meeting in Hong Kong. The thought of using it with the Leica Monochrom camera immediately intrigued me. I wasn’t specifically seeking extra sharpness, but I was curious about how an APO lens would perform on a Monochrom sensor. I had some great experiences with the Voigtlander 35mm APO and 50mm APO but ultimately sold them in favour of the Leica APO-Summicron 35mm and 50mm, mainly due to their compact size and build quality.
It wasn’t the APO feature or the size of the lens that attracted me; rather, it was the square lens hood that gives it a sleek look and makes my heart beat faster. It has a similar shape to the Leica Q lineup, with an inward square opening. The interior has a guard forming a rectangular shape. I have been a huge fan of this kind of shade, from the Hasselblad Xpan to the Leica Summicron 35mm f/2 IV King of Bokeh. Somehow, I find it looks unique and makes me want to use it more—kind of foolish, right? After offloading some lenses, I acquired this lens with help from Meteor HK.
Lens Build Quality and Handling
Firstly, having a 39mm filter thread is amazing for pairing with my color filters. The size is very compact; the APO-Summicron 35mm weighs around 300g—not as lightweight as a Summicron 35mm f/2 ASPH at 287g, but still comfortable to carry all day. The barrel design reminds me of the Summicron 50mm f/2 III (high leg) with its striped pattern for grip, but it includes a nice focusing tab. The only odd thing is the tab faces up almost 270 degrees. There was one reported case of the rear element detaching due to the use of glue. I’m not sure how all these lenses will hold up after 20 years due to environmental protection laws; materials are so different now that some sellers and collectors worry about potential deformations later. Oh well, that’s another 20 years away. Let’s enjoy it and worry less.
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Colour Rendering is Gorgeous
My wife looked at the screen on the back of my Leica M10-P camera and described the lens as very “airy.” She said it looks comfortable, and the definition is crisp—you can easily see the subject with exceptional clarity and extra details. With 10 elements plus four aspherical surfaces, floating elements, and apochromatic aberration correction, this lens makes a huge difference in the images. The deep blue is something that keeps coming to mind; I never thought I could achieve this look on an M10 camera.
I took this lens to Mount Aso in Japan, where the temperature was -3°C, and the camera performed perfectly fine. I took a few shots while waiting for the clouds to clear up a bit. You can definitely see how well this lens layers landscapes.
Apochromatic correction makes the colors more accurate, and flare resistance is very good. When lenses are not APO, they exhibit more fringing, such as purple fringing, which decreases contrast. “APO” stands for “apochromatic,” a type of lens designed to correct chromatic aberration, a common problem in photography where a lens fails to focus all colors of light to the same point, resulting in slight color fringes around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations.
Under strong light situations, shooting with this combination feels like shooting with positive slide film. It preserves highlights in a specific way. Images are in very high contrast thanks to the well-corrected glass. There is minimal to no chromatic aberration, making it pleasant to view.
APO lenses use special glass and design techniques to bring the three primary colors (red, green, and blue) into focus at the same point. This correction reduces color fringing and enhances the sharpness and clarity of images. Essentially, APO lenses help you capture photos that are more true to what you see with your eyes, making the colors look more accurate and the edges of objects crisper. This makes them particularly valuable for high-contrast scenes where you want every detail to pop without any color distortion.
Although it doesn’t have an f/1.4 aperture, it has a sharp fall-off, and objects really pop out. There’s no noticeable vignette at wide-open settings, making everything well-balanced from corners to the center. Even my wife, who is indifferent to my lenses, could tell this lens is very sharp and stands out among others. Sounds like a valid reason to convince ourselves to get one. With APO and modern lens design, this lens’s color and performance are top-notch, even at f/2. I prefer using it at f/5.6 to f/8 to get the best and sharpest result.
If the Leica Summicron 35mm f/2 IV Pre-a is the king of bokeh, offering you nice fin-like bokeh like van Gogh’s painting. When you start looking at a single point of his work, you zone out and the bokeh of the 7 elements will remind you of that. With the APO-Summicron 35mm, it’s more flat but not messy. It’s uniform and flat in terms of the direction of the bokeh. It’s pleasant for street photography or professional work too. It’s not distracting at all.
Depth and Dimension -3D Pop
That night, as I was editing the photos in Capture One, I thought the clouds were moving. I asked my wife, and she also saw similar things. I couldn’t imagine how much more depth it would result in on a 60MP sensor. I would describe this lens as having a sculptural quality; it makes things stand out with a nice dimensional depth that draws my attention. In simple words, it reminds me of looking at transparency (slide film) with my loupe. I guess it’s because of the 4 aspherical glass surfaces plus the APO that helps bring that color accuracy together.
Close Focus Capability
The lens has an extended focusing range starting from 0.7m to 0.3m. This is great for food photos and other details that you want to highlight, such as the smoke coming from a cup of coffee or when you are so close to your subject you want to compose something with this feature, benefiting all foodies. I didn’t have a chance to compare its close-focus capability with the latest FLE II Summilux 35mm. To engage the close focusing range, there is a soft click haptic feeling when you pass the 0.7m range, you will feel resistance at 0.7—just a gentle push, and you will be able to use close focus. This feels so good and something way better than the Voigtlander lenses. Usually, Voigtlander lenses already have a close focus feature, what you will be aware of is the rangefinder coupling stopped when you pass the 0.7m range. Some would notice and wonder why I took some blurry photos with the lens.
An Almost Flawless Lens with One Design Issue
One time, I wanted to see how the APO-Summicron 35mm performs on film. I mounted it on my Leica MP to do some test shots. While I was turning the focusing ring, the rangefinder coupling doesn’t move until it reaches 1 meter. My heart sunk at that moment, part of me worrying about paying a hefty price tag if the lens has an issue, another part of me thinking maybe there is something wrong with my MP. I did some research online and found out that Leica changed the lens rangefinder coupling design. The old design had a rangefinder coupling ring covering the whole of the rear focusing unit. With the new design, there is only a small carved-out area with a stick-like mechanism to push or pull to control the rangefinder coupling. There is a lens that has a similar focusing design: the Canon 50mm f/0.95 Dream lens (Non TV version). Just need to be careful when you want to use it on film bodies. It works fine with my Konica Hexar RF or any digital M bodies.
Perfect Street Photography Lens
My ideal street photography lens achieves a relatively high contrast. Highlight recovery is great for preserving details. Under all circumstances, the lens performs in a very consistent way. Vintage Leica lenses are not consistent at all f-stops. Also, sharp enough to capture all the little textures I want. Most importantly, it doesn’t have the Leica glow at its widest aperture. With this, you can easily capture things in harsh light. It’s a great lens for one who is shooting documentary style photography.
Final Thoughts
Is it worth buying it? Nothing is worth it unless you put the lens into action and capture photos that you love. If you are looking for just one lens to pair with one camera, compact enough, nothing too fancy, this is the finest piece of art you can find from Leica. I can see Leica put some effort into making this lens rather than just reissuing items. If you want a vintage look, then I would rather ask you to go for the Summicron 35mm King of Bokeh, but if you need to buy two lenses, maybe you can consider adding a Tiffen Black Pro Mist; it will do the job for you to have one lens, two different tastes. If I could only own one 35mm lens and only shoot digital from now on, this is the keeper.
All images have been resized to optimise webpage loading speed. For the highest resolution images, please refer to my Flickr account. Digital Leica images colour have been adjusted to bring out the texture and look that I want.
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11 Comments
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A great review Anson, and so nice to see the sensor/film performance in one place. I have no doubt this is a contemporary lens destined for future ‘legend’ status. All the corrections lead to super fidelity, and what the Japanese refer to as ‘thick’ or ‘wet’ images – nothing brittle. Do you see the same signature in the Leica 50APO? ;-D
Thanks Linden. Unfortunately, I think Voigtlander APO 50mm is better than the Leica but Leica has better colour tone. Also, Leica one is way more compact makes it more appeal than the Voigtlander. I am trying the Voigtlander 28mm APO and the handling is great, haven’t tested it on digital yet.
Great review. Leica changed the lens rangefinder coupling design, but my 35mm apo still focuses perfect down to 0.7 meters both on my M11 and my M6.
That’s good to know it works perfectly on your M6. It just need to do a little trick each time when I use it on my MP.
My 35mm APO also focuses down to 0.7m on MP. Maybe I have a newer batch and they fixed it? I bought mine in July 2022. Maybe this works on older MPs? My MP serial code starts with 29x, so made around 2003. When was your MP made?
Hey Alan, my MP serial number is 294 similar time to yours. It can focus down to 0.7m but the transition from 1m to 0.7m can be a bit awkward sometimes.
Did you offload your Summicron V8 1 as well?
https://tahusa.co/lens-review/leica-summicron-35mm-f2-v1-8-element/
Thanks for the coffee. I still have the Summicron 8 elements, but I haven’t used it much.
Well deserved….your reviews and very informative and very valuable to me….have a nice one.
First of all, gorgeous photos, and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and opinions on all these lenses, gear and film stocks. However, I’m struggling with the internal logic here. Many of the qualities you praise in the APO-Summicron 35, such as extreme correction, high contrast, flat and controlled bokeh, consistency across apertures, lack of glow… are almost identical to the traits you criticise in the 50mm Summilux ASPH, where they’re framed as “too perfect”, “too clinical” and lacking character.
That’s not a technical disagreement so much as a shifting standard. Clinical precision seems to be a virtue at 35mm but a flaw at 50mm, without that preference being acknowledged as subjective or focal-length-dependent. It would be more convincing if the reviews made that bias explicit, rather than presenting opposite value judgements for essentially the same modern Leica design philosophy.
Thanks for the thoughtful note, and really appreciate the kind words on the photos.
The reviews were based on how I personally use the two lenses, not as a direct comparison. The APO-Summicron 35 is mainly for landscape and streets, where its correction and consistency really suit what I’m shooting. The 50mm Summilux ASPH I use mostly for portraits, and when I called it “too perfect,” it wasn’t a dismissal, more a reflection of how, in that context and at that time, it felt very refined, even though it clearly has its own character and strengths.
It’s also a lingering thought for me, and one I’d like to revisit again!