Leica R Lenses

Leica R lenses are much heavier than Japanese made lenses. Three styles of Leica lenses are shown below: The new style having rubberized focusing ring; The R3-R7 lenses with purely mechanical interface with the camera and all metal construction; The older style lenses for Leicaflex having smaller lens barrels, to accept the same style filter, and lens hood as the M-series lenses. Modern style Leica lenses are certainly more appealing. They learned this from the Japanese lenses put out by Canon, and Nikon, making lenses with big front elements to make them look more expensive. The Summicron design adapted by Leica was the sharpest lenses made for SLR cameras, regardless of the diameter of their front lenses.

Summilux - R 50 mm f/1.4 E 55

Modern Leica R lens (above) with electronic contacts for Leica R9, and older generation Leica R lens (below) with mechanical links for R3 (right). Earlier Leica R lenses (below) had slim front lens barrels similar to M lenses. This allowed using similar lens hood, and small filter size as the M-series lenses. The big front lens were by the Japanese style in Nikon, and Canon SLR lenses that made them look more expensive.