Discover the inside story of Leica’s legendary Noctilux ‘King of the Night’ low-light lenses – the optics that were decades ahead of their time

In 1966, Leica made a significant impact on the lens world at the Photokina show in Germany with the introduction of the Noctilux 50 f/1.2 prime lens. This lens was regarded as an optical landmark, being the fastest aspherical lens in 35mm photography at the time of its release. The name Noctilux is a combination of 'Nocti', derived from 'nocturnal', and 'lux', the Latin word for 'light', highlighting its ability to shoot in extremely low-light conditions.

Leica had been working on aspherical lens surfaces since 1957, producing a prototype Summaron 35mm f/2.8 ASPH with two aspherical surfaces in 1958. However, due to image quality issues when the lens was wide open, the project was not brought to market. The first prototypes of the Noctilux 50mm f/1.2 were produced in April 1964 by designers Helmut Marx and Paul Sindel. Marx succeeded Professor Max Berek as the head of photographic lens design at Leica's HQ in Welzlar, Germany.

The Noctilux 50 f/1.2 was first publicly introduced at the October 1966 Photokina show in Cologne, Germany. Initially presented as suitable for the 35mm Leica M3 rangefinder camera, the lens was initially produced in limited numbers - only 1,757 ever being manufactured before production was halted in 1975. This limited production was due to the lens being hand-made, with each lens having its two aspherical surfaces hand-ground by master machinist Gerd Bergmann.

The production process was challenging, as the tight tolerances resulted in the abandonment of a large percentage of the ground glass elements and approximately 50% of completed lenses failing quality control.