Quick test: Leica Summicron 50mm DR (Dual Range)

Last Friday, one of my customers was looking for a Leica Summicron 50mm. When i was skimming my stock of Leica lenses for a nice classic Summicron 50mm, the Summicron 50mm DR caught my attention. I bought this lens some years ago in near mint condition. Will Van Manen, owner of Kamera Service, did a complete CLA.

Contrary to SLR camera’s, rangefinder cameras cannot focus closer than about 1 meter in front of the camera. This is caused by the technical limitations of the parallax correction. The parallax is the effect of the different point of view of the finder and the lens. For this reason Leica made a spacial lens with connected close focus goggles to correct the parallax.

Although I have owned the lens for several years already, I never really used it for shooting. Today i decided to do a quick check to decide if I would like to keep this lens or just sell it. Usually, prices differ a lot, between about € 750 and € 2.500.

Leica M3 with Voigtlander VCII

To test my Summicron 50mm DR i used one of my stock Leica M3’s, one of the later versions (Sn > 1000000). This camera was also serviced several years ago by Will Van Manen. The DR lens is made for the M3 but can also be used on an M2, M4 or M6, perhaps even more M’s. Leica M3 does not have a built-in light meter, therefore I used my Voigtlander VCII - it’s a lovely combination.

Leica Summicron M 50mm DR

The Summicron, with near focussing range was made from 1956 - 1968. According to the review of Ken Rockwell, this lens is the greatest 50mm Leica lens ever! I must admit that this lens is in many ways, very good. Once you feel how smooth the focus and aperture ring rotates, you will almost certainly agree with Ken Rockwell on this one.

Critical is the quality of the frontlens. These generation Summicrons have very soft glass that can be very easily become damaged by cleaning etc. Thus, nice optics are hard to find.

Ilford FP4plus

I used a low iso film with neutral-high contrast to get a good view on the sharpness and the contrast of the film. I developed the film in ADOX XT-3 1+1 (10 min).

Conclusion

Shooting with this lens is a true joy. Focussing feels very smooth yet accurate. Results are wonderful and exceptional, the close focus option gives lots of creative opportunities you cannot achieve with other Leica M lenses.

Keep or sell?

KEEP!