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This is one of Old Fast Glass’ most exclusive, as well as most beautiful lens sets. At the heart of the set, are some of the most legendary Leica M lenses from the 1960s. Think of this set like Full Frame Cooke Speed Panchros, with more beautiful lens flares. Yes…they are that good.

Leica confidently declared the 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm Summicrons to have “unequaled optical qualities.” The lenses use expensive, exotic, and high-performing “rare earth” optical glass including lanthanum glass (non-radioactive) to achieve such incredible optical performance more than 60 years ago! These lenses have been coveted by photographers for decades, and they have never been rehoused for cinema use, until now. This is currently the only set of Zero Optik rehoused vintage Leica M lenses available for rental in the world.

The lenses are sharp wide open, produce zero chromatic aberration. They have medium contrast, and pronounced, gorgeous, magenta, gold, and purple lens flares. They flare easily, but they still handle backlight amazingly well for their age. They truly are the ultimate balance of vintage character and impressive optical performance. Bokeh is unique, with a subtle texture, and it’s totally consistent across the set. Their coatings give the lenses a slight shift toward cyan, which removes some of the red hue from skin, resulting in gorgeous, flattering skin tones.

One of the many things we love about this set is their consistency. They are nearly the same T stop, color matched, and have flare and bokeh character that is consistent with each focal length. That is really the case with rehoused lens sets based on still photo lenses, where you typically have 2 or 3 lenses that stand out from the rest of the set. The lenses are truly uniform from wide to telephoto. Our set was built choosing the best donor lenses from 4 sets of primes to get the best performing, color matched set possible.

These lenses are made to shoot wide open, which is where their beauty really come across. They are perfectly fine for S35, but where these lenses will really shine is on Full Frame sensors. That’s when you can take full advantage of the wider field of view Full Frame offers, and you can see all the beauty of their bokeh, flare, and subtle focus fall off.

Zero Optik’s gorgeous housings offer matching gear positions, 95mm fronts, new matte-finished perfectly rounded irises, LPL mounts, generous 330 degree focus rotation, and greatly improved close focus distances. These are also some of the smallest and lightest lenses we offer. The 35mm is just over 1 pound!

Due to the incredibly short flange distance of the Leica M rangefinder camera system, and how close the optics sit in relation to the film/sensor plane, PL mounts were not possible with this set. LPL is an industry standard now, and we have LPL mounts for every professional camera system. LPL allows maximum image circle, best possible close focus distance, and a robust, reliable, shimmable mount.

The 25mm and 125mm will be available January 2024!