Summicron-M 50 mm 11817 acquired the GOAT of lenses (and a small melancholy)

Today I did it. After years of circling around, debating, buying “almosts,” and rationalizing detours, I finally picked up a Summicron-M 50 mm 11817 for 1,500 EUR. CLA’d, clean, no surprises. Just the lens. The one.

I know, there are dozens of technically sharper, clinically perfect options out there. But this lens… it’s the end of all discussion. The GOAT. It’s the lens that quietly sits in the middle of Leica’s history — small, unassuming, but with that gentle vintage rendering that gives scenes a kind of built-in melancholic poetry. Not dreamy or “character” in a forced way; rather, a soft authority. It doesn’t shout. It remembers.

There’s also a particular melancholy attached to owning the Summicron. Because once you mount it, the search is over. The excuses, the browsing, the “maybe if I tried this lens” phase — gone. It’s both comforting and strangely final. The smallness of it — that classic 11817 profile — just seals it. It doesn’t need to prove anything.

And it aligns perfectly with Mike Johnston’s “A Leica for a Year” idea. One lens, one body, one film. Learn. See. Photograph. Not fiddle with gear. My go-to film is Ilford XP2, and this lens will sing on it.

The only thing left now is to find a clean, black, CLA’d M6 body — something that I can simply trust and use daily. Once that’s in hand, I can finally stop the endless search for meaning in gear and focus on the work.

There’s something about a black M6 paired with a classic M lens (especially the compact Summicron 50) that evokes that period when serious photography was still analogue, deliberate, and quietly ambitious. Think: photo students saving for years to buy a single Leica; Magnum photographers working in B&W; battered Domke bags, Ilford XP2 or Tri-X in the fridge, and the idea that “mastery” meant discipline, not presets.

The black finish reinforces that mood — less glamorous than chrome, more focused. It’s the camera of someone who means business, not someone collecting objets. A black M6 with a Summicron 50 is almost anti-aesthetic chic: pared down, serious, slightly melancholic because it belongs to that pre-digital, pre-irony era when one camera and one lens were meant to last decades.

RezaLoghme said:

There’s something about a black M6 paired with a classic M lens (especially the compact Summicron 50) that evokes that period when serious photography was still analogue, deliberate, and quietly ambitious. Think: photo students saving for years to buy a single Leica; Magnum photographers working in B&W; battered Domke bags, Ilford XP2 or Tri-X in the fridge, and the idea that “mastery” meant discipline, not presets.

The black finish reinforces that mood — less glamorous than chrome, more focused. It’s the camera of someone who means business, not someone collecting objets. A black M6 with a Summicron 50 is almost anti-aesthetic chic: pared down, serious, slightly melancholic because it belongs to that pre-digital, pre-irony era when one camera and one lens were meant to last decades.

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RezaLoghme said:

meant to last decades.

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meant to last a lifetime.....

RezaLoghme said:

There’s something about a black M6 paired with a classic M lens (especially the compact Summicron 50) that evokes that period when serious photography was still analogue, deliberate, and quietly ambitious. Think: photo students saving for years to buy a single Leica; Magnum photographers working in B&W; battered Domke bags, Ilford XP2 or Tri-X in the fridge, and the idea that “mastery” meant discipline, not presets.

The black finish reinforces that mood — less glamorous than chrome, more focused. It’s the camera of someone who means business, not someone collecting objets. A black M6 with a Summicron 50 is almost anti-aesthetic chic: pared down, serious, slightly melancholic because it belongs to that pre-digital, pre-irony era when one camera and one lens were meant to last decades.

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Very well said.