Leica APO-Summicron-M 75mm f/2 ASPH Review

I’ve been wrestling with several lenses in my inventory over this past year; specifically the Leica Summicron-M 28mm f/2 ASPH, Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2, and the ZEISS Distagon T* 35mm f/1.4 ZM lens. I love the image quality of the ZEISS Distagon T* 35mm f/1.4 ZM lens, but the weight of the lens was not conducive to hiking on long treks. When I was in New Mexico last year for the balloon festival, I often felt the Leica Summicron-M 28mm f/2 ASPH lens was a little too wide-angle for my taste. Sadly, the Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2 lens was not long enough from a telephoto perspective to capture balloons in the sky at the festival.

Facing this dilemma, I decided to sell all three lenses and purchase the latest version of the Leica Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH lens to replace the Leica Summicron-M 28mm f/2 ASPH and ZEISS Distagon T* 35mm f/1.4 ZM lens. I’ve always in my heart been a 35mm shooter and confirmed my suspicions in New Mexico. I also purchased the Leica APO-Summicron-M 75mm f/2 ASPH lens to replace the Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2 lens for telephoto style shots to isolate objects shooting wide open.

So with the new Leica APO-Summicron-M 75mm f/2 ASPH lens in hand, I headed to the Sacramento Autorama Car Show at Cal Expo. I always love a good car show! People spend a lot of time and money detailing their classic cars which make for a plethora of excellent photographic subject matter.

I’ve never shot the Leica APO-Summicron-M 75mm f/2 ASPH, so I had no idea what to expect from the lens. Yes, I’ve read online reviews raving about the image quality of the lens, but everyone has their opinions when it comes to camera equipment. I’ve purchased lenses and cameras based on past reviews only to learn that a lens or camera didn’t meet my expectations. Only you can determine if you like the image quality from a particular lens or camera.

After paying for our tickets to get into the show, we jumped right in to capturing images of classic cars. The first vehicle was an old Volkswagen bus, which is so cool – a California icon. I captured a couple of images wide open then reviewed the images using the EVF on the Leica M10. WOW! I was amazed at the image quality of the Leica APO-Summicron-M 75mm f/2 ASPH! With no exaggeration, the Leica APO-Summicron-M 75mm f/2 ASPH is one fantastic lens. Talk about 3D pop and smooth bokeh. As you can see from the images I captured with the Leica M10, the detail of the subject matter and buttery background of the bokeh was nothing short of phenomenal. We continued to walk around the car show and captured many keepers in the below gallery.