This lens is great because someone made it great. Some reviewers beat up Leica products because they're Leica and some reviewers revere Leica because they're Leica. 1608360 with a Leitz Summicron-R f/2 50mm. 1026251, chrome body, fitted a Leitz Summicron 50mm f2 lens, with cap. The body shows a lot of paint loss and has a worn appearance. A Leica R4 MOT Electronic 35mm SLR camera body together with a Leica SF20 flash. At the time, I was living in Boston, working towards my doctorate and hence the 5 frames summarize aspects of my daily life. That's too bad because careless criticism can stop others from enjoying something special. This Leica R4 camera comes with a Leitz Summicron 50mm lens. After 3 years of dilemma, which at some point also involved 120 format film, one fine day, I ordered Fujifilm Superia X-TRA 400 and loaded it into my Leica R8 equipped with the 50mm Summicron-R lens. I doubt whether those who criticized this lens have used it. Other lenses do similar special things-Olympus 50 1.8, the 35 on the Konica Hexar AF, the currednt Voigtlander Nokton 50 1.5, the Nikkor 50 f2 AI and others. I woudl reccommend over the R4 as the R4 was prone to electrical faults but the R5 has a very good reputation. This is a superior lens that delivers beyond the measurable numbers. Throughly reccommend this bit of kit - if you get a good one its a pleasure to use. If you just look at prints, the beauty of the tonal range and the perfect balance of all optical qualities (as opposed to pumping one or the other for visual effect) will be evident to anyone. and with the R4 61mp, I may only be able to use 50APO. But if you enlarge the negs to huge prints, the fine detail will astound you. LEICA APO-SUMMICRON-M 50MM F/2 ASPH LENS 11141 Unbox & brief afterthoughts Small Lenses with the Highest Quality. I don't know the exact technical terminology. The results: incredible fine detail with very fine gradients between objects in the frame. I had a 10 year old Canadian 50 f2 pre ROM. Yes the Zeiss Planar 1.4 was top dog in the Pop Photography review a few years ago. And what a lens It performs superbly from f/2 to f/16 and from edge to edge. This forum is for people who have used the lenses themselves. This is the lens which most people will buy when they enter into the Leica system. Ignore reviews where reviewers refer to magazine reviews.