Just saw on one of the rumors sites that the 50mm Summilux-SL has been discontinued. My guess is that they never made more than one or two runs of it anyway.

Having been a victim owner of the lens twice, I endured its 1..25kg weight with hood and filter in the hope that it would impart some of its pixie dust onto my images. In the right settings in daylight it produced some nice images. But no one wants to pay what that thing costs for a piece of optics so dependent on software corrections.

One shortcoming that software couldn’t correct, which was its death knell for my purposes, was when I shot it at night and saw that even strong, bright LED lights washed out, characteristic of an “el cheapo” lens, not one that comes from the holy land of Wetzlar.

By the time I let it go, I deeply regretted having parted with a ‘lux ASPH M prior to acquiring it. The ‘lux was two pounds lighter and optically far superior. My current ‘cron-SL ASPH may (or may not) “only” be a re-badge, but its images are at least worth its weight.

Goodbye, oil drum lens, and welcome to ebay . . .

SL2/135mm Elmarit-R . . .