Leica Camera AG today (3 September 2026, Wetzlar) added a Summicron-M 66 f/2 to its Classic Line: a limited run of 660 M-mount lenses based on the Elcan 66 mm f/2 that Dr Walter Mandler designed at Ernst Leitz Canada in the late 1960s for the US Navy. About 200 of those originals were made, and they were never a normal M-shop lens.
Mandler’s brief, as Leica retells it, was a lens that looked ordinary but resolved at a military level. Sixty-six millimeters was the compromise among resolution, contrast, and a compact barrel — long enough for stand-off detail work, short enough to stay discreet on an M body. Later accounts tie many Elcan 66s to the Leica KE-7A, a military M4 variant; kits even shipped with instructions for destroying the camera and lens if captured. For decades, that glass lived in collector lore and auction footnotes rather than on a Leica price list.
This reissue is the first time Leica is selling that focal length to anyone who can find one of the 660. The optical layout follows the original and has been updated for current production. Mechanically it still does not behave like a standard M lens: the aperture ring turns the opposite way, and the distance scale follows military layout. The front ring reads “Leitz Wetzlar” in place of Elcan, plus a serial, optical calculation B1047, and a 12-digit material number. A small engraved “60” on the barrel is the old precision-lens habit of writing 66.0 mm without the decimal.
We are not inventing MTF charts for this reissue. The story is historical lineage and a capped Classic Line run — not a lab-sheet dump. Serial 001 is being held for the Leitz Photographica Auction in Wetzlar in November 2026, which underlines how small this Classic Line edition really is.
On Leica’s published sheet the Summicron-M 66 f/2 is order number 11099: six elements in five groups, f/2–f/16 with nine blades, focus from 1 m to infinity (max reproduction 1:13.4), E49 filters with a screw-on hood, and about 60.1 mm long by 60 mm diameter at 456 g. Recommended retail is €9,850 incl. VAT; same-day US/UK coverage cites $10,900 and £8,410. Dealer notes that dispute 6-bit encoding stay flagged — we list Leica’s tech page claim and do not invent a reconciliation.
