The Leitz Summaron 2.8cm f5.6 Red Scale LTM (Leica Thread Mount) is a rare lens we don’t see often at Central Camera Company. Only 7,000 units were produced between 1955-1963, so it’s unusual to find these days. This lens is currently available in our shop.

What’s special about a 28mm f5.6 rangefinder lens? It’s a classic symmetrical 6-element design, which means very low distortion and high resolution on both film and digital. The rendering of this lens is quite unique due to moderate light fall off, which puts extra visual emphasis on the center of the frame.

Design and handling features make this lens ideal for street photography: compact and inconspicuous, depth of field is deep and clearly marked in meters on the lens mount, and scale focusing is simple due to the long focus throw. If you set focus on the 2.8cm Summaron to 3 meters at f8, 11, or 16, you’ll have focus-free depth of field from about 5 feet to infinity!

Digital photographers are increasingly seeking lenses with more unique rendering characteristics to give their images more distinctiveness, depth, and emotional impact. This is what inspired Leica to revive the 2.8cm f5.6 Summaron and release an M-mount version with the same classic optical formula. The new Leica Summaron-M 28mm f/5.6 retails for $2,595.00, and mounts only to M cameras. The original 2.8cm f5.6 Summaron LTM described here will mount perfectly to any LTM camera, and to any M camera using a simple adapter ring.

Here are some images made on the Leica M10 with the Leitz Summaron 2.8cm f5.6 LTM. These images are straight out of camera at f5.6 & f8. Monochrome images are are included to show the extraordinary look of this lens when used for black and white photography.