By Ked · June 2026
June 2026
The Leica Noctilux is the marquee "night lens" of the M system, the family of extreme-aperture primes that defined what was technically possible at the wide end of the f-stop scale. For its first fifty-plus years the Noctilux name applied only to the 50mm focal length, where it went through three distinct optical generations. In 2017 Leica extended the line to a short-telephoto 75mm; in 2021 they reissued the original f/1.2 as a limited ASPH design; in 2026 they added a 35mm wide-angle. The line now spans three focal lengths and six distinct production lenses, each with its own design philosophy, optical formula, and used-market dynamics.
This post walks through every version in order: what each one is, how to identify it, what optical choices it represents, and most importantly what they currently trade for. The detail here (filter threads, hood designs, engravings, serial-number ranges, order codes) is what separates a casual identification from a confident one when you're spending five figures on a used lens.
The first Noctilux. Designed at Leitz Wetzlar by Helmut Marx and Paul Sindel, the original 50mm f/1.2 was Leica's answer to the question "how fast can a 50mm get?" The answer involved two hand-ground aspherical surfaces, produced on a specially built grinding machine operated by a single Leitz craftsman, and the result was the first serially produced lens in the world to use aspherical elements.
Production was small and slow: approximately 1,757 examples over the lens's nine-year run. The hand-ground aspherics made the lens expensive and slow to produce, which is why production ended in 1975 in favor of the more manufacturable f/1.0 design.
Identification: the lens reads "Leitz Wetzlar" on the front (Leica was still trading as Leitz at the time), the maximum aperture is f/1.2, and, importantly, the lens has no front filter thread. Filters attach via the clip-on lens hood using the Series VIII drop-in system. An E48 UVA filter can be applied through the hood per Leica's pocket-book documentation, but there is no direct screw-in thread on the front element itself.
Pricing today is collector territory, see "What They Cost Today" below for current figures. The f/1.2 is also the most-faked Noctilux, and third-party tribute/remake lenses (Light Lens Lab's 2021 "1966 Remake" among them) sometimes turn up in searches for the original, so provenance (original documentation, serial-number verification) matters enormously at these prices.
The 1976 redesign is Walter Mandler's work at Leitz Canada (Midland, Ontario). He was the same designer responsible for the Summicron-M 50mm Type 4, the Summilux-M 80mm, and a long list of other 1970s and 1980s M-mount classics. Mandler's brief was to make the Noctilux faster (from f/1.2 to f/1.0), keep the optical performance, and eliminate the production bottleneck created by hand-ground aspherics.
His solution was to use high-refractive-index glass instead of aspherical surfaces. The resulting design has seven elements in six groups, no aspherical surfaces of any kind, and a maximum aperture of f/1.0, half a stop faster than the f/1.2 it replaced. Production scaled dramatically: where the f/1.2 made ~1,757 lenses in nine years, the f/1.0 ran for thirty-two years (1976–2008) and made many tens of thousands. This is the volume-production Noctilux and the version most working photographers actually used.
The f/1.0 went through four cosmetic and accessory variants during its production run, all sharing the same optical formula. Order code 11821 is the most common across the line.
All four variants are optically identical: same Mandler seven-element formula, same rendering character. The differences matter for handling (does the hood get in your way?), for collectibility (early E58 variants command a small premium), and for filter compatibility (the E58-vs-E60 distinction matters if you're investing in filters).
See "What They Cost Today" below for current pricing by version; the four sub-variants trade close to each other but not identically, with the built-in-hood V4 commanding a modest premium over the earlier E58/E60 versions.
In 2008 Leica replaced the long-running f/1.0 with the current production Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH, designed by Peter Karbe at the Wetzlar facility. Karbe has been Leica's head of M-lens optical design since the early 2000s and is responsible for essentially every modern Leica M lens.
The f/0.95 is a wholly new design. Eight elements in five groups, with both aspherical surfaces (made by precision glass molding rather than hand-grinding, which is what made them economically viable in the modern era) and glass with anomalous partial dispersion, the specialty optical glass used in Leica's APO lenses to suppress color fringing. At f/0.95 it became the world's fastest aspherical lens for 35mm photography at the time of release.
Identification is straightforward: the front of the lens reads "LEICA NOCTILUX-M 1:0.95/50 ASPH", the filter thread is E60 (same as the late f/1.0), the lens hood is built-in and pulls out from the front of the barrel, and the lens is significantly heavier and larger than the f/1.0 it replaced. All current production f/0.95 examples include 6-bit coding for digital M bodies.
This is the current production 50mm Noctilux, retailing new above $12,000. The black and silver finishes trade at meaningfully different used prices, see "What They Cost Today" below; the silver version in particular is a real premium, not a marginal one.
Announced 29 November 2017 and shipping from 2018, the Noctilux-M 75mm f/1.25 ASPH (order code 11676, launch price $12,795) was the first Noctilux ever produced at a focal length other than 50mm. Designed by Peter Karbe.
Optical formula: nine elements in six groups, two aspherical elements. 11 aperture blades for round out-of-focus rendering. 0.85m minimum focusing distance, close for a 75mm. The 75mm focal length plus f/1.25 maximum aperture make this Leica's most extreme portrait lens, a working short telephoto with depth-of-field characteristics no other production 75mm matches.
The 75mm Noctilux has lower used-market volume than the 50mm; it's a more specialized lens that not every Noctilux owner needs. See "What They Cost Today" below for current pricing.
In January 2021 Leica announced a limited-edition reissue of the original 1966 Noctilux f/1.2, modernized as an ASPH design by Peter Karbe. The optical construction "adheres closely to the original" per Leica's marketing, with imaging characteristics intended to be nearly identical to the 1966 version. It is produced with modern precision-molded aspherics rather than hand-grinding, so the lens could actually be manufactured in meaningful (if limited) numbers.
Production was deliberately constrained:
Filter thread is 49mm on the modern reissue (vs. no thread / Series VIII on the original). That's the most obvious physical distinction between the 1966 lens and the 2021 reissue. All three finishes share the f/1.2 aperture, the 50mm focal length, and the aspherical optical approach, but they are physically and economically distinct from the original and, to a real degree, from each other.
See "What They Cost Today" below for current used pricing on all three finishes. The 100-piece silver heritage edition doesn't turn up in ordinary dealer/marketplace listings, but one confirmed result exists from a specialist auction house, and it's worth citing directly rather than repeating the vague "$20,000+" figure that circulates for it.
Announced 29 January 2026 at a launch price of $9,650 (order code 11635), the Noctilux-M 35mm f/1.2 ASPH is the newest Noctilux and the first wide-angle in the line. It's also the fastest 35mm M-mount lens Leica has ever made.
The optical formula is dense: 10 elements in 5 groups, three aspherical elements, manufactured using Leica's Precision Glass Molding (PGM) process, the same precision-molded aspherics used in the modern APO-Summicron line. A floating element maintains optical performance across the focusing range. 11 aperture blades, 0.5m minimum focus, 416g, dimensions 50.2mm × 64.6mm: surprisingly compact for what it is.
Identification: the lens reads "LEICA NOCTILUX-M 1:1.2/35 ASPH" on the front, is made in Wetzlar, Germany, and ships in a black anodized finish. Used inventory is extremely thin because the lens just launched, so we're tracking listings as they appear; see "What They Cost Today" below for the small sample gathered so far.
To be definitive: Leica has only produced Noctilux lenses at three focal lengths: 50mm (since 1966), 75mm (since 2017), and 35mm (since 2026). There are no others. Listings claiming otherwise are mislabeled at best and counterfeit at worst.
The Noctilux name is Leica-specific. Third-party lenses occasionally borrow the "noct" prefix or marketing language ("Noct-Nikkor," various Chinese-manufactured f/1.0 or f/0.95 50mm lenses), but these are not Leica products and trade in entirely separate markets.
Figures below use this site's standard fair-price method: median as the typical price, 25th-to-75th percentile as the fair range, duplicate listings and special editions excluded.
| Version | Order code | New retail | Typical (used) | Fair range | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50mm f/1.2 original (1966–1975) | 11820 | — (discontinued) | $30,794 | $27,770–$37,171 | 12 |
| 50mm f/1.0, V1–V3 (E58/E60, 1976–~1990s) | 11821 | — (discontinued) | $5,773 | $5,283–$6,979 | 22 |
| 50mm f/1.0, V4 (built-in hood, ~1990s–2008) | 11822 | — (discontinued) | $6,635 | $5,373–$8,001 | 17 |
| 50mm f/0.95 ASPH, black (2008–present) | 11602 | $14,400 | $8,950 | $8,150–$9,532 | 19 |
| 50mm f/0.95 ASPH, silver | 11667 | $14,800 | $13,586 | $10,897–$14,132 | 8 |
| 50mm f/1.2 ASPH 2021 reissue, black anodized | 11686 | $8,900 | $6,145 | $5,756–$7,624 | 12 |
| 50mm f/1.2 ASPH 2021 reissue, glossy black paint | 11731 | $8,875 | $8,106 | $7,985–$9,145 | 9 |
| 50mm f/1.2 ASPH 2021 reissue, silver heritage (100pc) | 11702 | not confirmed | $46,785 (auction) | n/a | 1 |
| 75mm f/1.25 ASPH (2017–present) | 11676 | $15,615 | $12,000 | $10,859–$13,451 | 9 |
| 35mm f/1.2 ASPH (2026–present) | 11635 | $9,650 | $10,625 | $10,125–$12,000 | 4 |
A few more things worth reading directly off this table rather than taking on faith. The f/0.95 ASPH's silver finish trades at a 50% premium over the black version. The 2021 f/1.2 ASPH reissue comes in three finishes: black anodized (11686), the silver heritage edition, and a black paint finish (code 11731) that trades roughly 30% above the anodized black. The silver heritage edition's one confirmed result, a €40,800 hammer price (about $46,785) at a specialist Leica auction house in June 2026, sold below its own €60,000–70,000 estimate.
Used prices for the current-production lenses sit below new retail by lens-specific margins:
Browse current Noctilux listings across all three focal lengths on UsedLensTracker. We track every active listing and identify the version, filter thread, and condition where the seller has provided enough detail.