It’s about time for another camera nerd article. Today’s question is: Can a lens that’s almost 100 years old still cut it on a modern 60-megapixel camera? Short answer: Yes. The long answer follows now, featuring aperture, bokeh and a pre-war ego that remains unbeatable to this day.
The 1930s: The first telephoto lens for Leica cameras
The Leitz Hektor 7.3 cm f/1.9 was launched in the early 1930s, fittingly at the time when the Leica I (Model C) – thanks to its standardised flange focal distance – evolved from a DIY project with individually adapted lenses into the first true system camera. From then on, every lens fitted every body. For this new generation of Leica cameras, the Hektor was the first telephoto lens. The Leica II, launched in 1932, was the first to feature the coupled rangefinder, which is why the early Hektor models still had to manage without this coupling. The lens remained in the range until the early 1940s. A total of just over seven thousand units rolled off the production line: by today’s standards, a small production run; for the 1930s, a respectable success. With an f/1.9 aperture, it was also fast enough to actually make a difference with the rather limited film emulsions of the time. Anyone wanting to capture usable images in low light had to make the most of every half-stop of aperture.
Anyone wishing to buy a Leica camera in Germany in the early 1930s had to pay more than a month’s salary at the shop counter. I haven’t been able to find a price list in German Reichsmarks, but I have come across a list from a British Leica dealer’s catalogue dated August 1933. In it, the Hektor is listed at £26 as the most expensive lens in the entire range, whilst a complete Leica II with a standard lens cost just £22 in the same catalogue. The lens was therefore more expensive than the camera it was fitted to – anyone who treated themselves to the Hektor was serious about photography.
A brief digression on the naming convention
The Leitz Hektor 7.3 cm f/1.9 does not bear the name ‘Leica’ but ‘Leitz’, and there is a good reason for this. The camera had been marketed under the brand name Leica since 1925 – a portmanteau of ‘Leitz’ and ‘Camera’. The company itself was officially called Ernst Leitz Wetzlar, and it was precisely this name that appeared on the lenses.
And because it fits in with the naming convention: today’s lenses are called, for example, Noctilux, Summilux or Summicron – these names reveal something about their light intensity. With the ‘Hektor’, it’s different. There’s no systematic logic behind it; it’s simply the name of the dog belonging to Max Berek, the lens designer who created this lens.
At that time, Leitz generally specified focal lengths in centimetres, which is why the lens is marked ‘7.3 cm’ rather than the 73 mm that is standard today. In the early 1960s, the focal length specification was changed to millimetres.
It was not until 1986 that the photographic division was spun off and the brand was fully rebranded as Leica. The engraving ‘Leitz Wetzlar’ was changed to ‘Leica’.
So it’s only fitting that my 1938 test lens still carries the old company name Leitz — while the camera it would have been paired with back then already carried the brand name Leica, just as the M11 it’s mounted on today does. Two names, one fairly unbroken family history.
My test model: built in 1938
My test lens from 1938 is coupled to the rangefinder, but of course still requires a tiny adapter. With this, the screw-mount lens works surprisingly smoothly on the M-mount camera. The rangefinder even displays a reasonably accurate field-of-view marker – specifically, the one for 75 mm. For a lens from an era when no one had the faintest idea about M-mounts, that’s astonishing enough. As far as I know, Leica is the only brand that manages to pull this off so seamlessly after all these years.
What makes the Hektor so interesting is that it behaves completely differently to any modern lens. It renders subjects differently at close range than at a distance, and the look can be adjusted via the aperture setting almost as if using a second control.
The characteristics of the Leitz Hektor 7.3 cm f/1.9
Two photographs of the same subject, differing only in aperture: one taken at f/1.9, the other with the aperture slightly stopped down to f/4.5. (All images can be enlarged by clicking on them.)
Contrast is low by today’s standards, and that gives the rangefinder little to grab onto. It relies on contrast edges to lock onto the point of focus, so manual focusing takes a bit more care. The lens’s real strength, though, lies in the medium-close range. Even up close, it stays acceptably sharp across a good two-thirds of the frame wide open. The bokeh is circular but anything but restrained — typical of lenses this age, from a time before anyone had coined the word “buttery” for it. Colours render warmer than on modern glass; distortion, on the other hand, is surprisingly well controlled, right up there with today’s lenses.
Sometimes, though, a subject doesn’t need to be pin-sharp. In the final shot from this little test, it’s precisely that soft rendering that gives the image its charm.
Conclusion
Almost 100 years old, and still not the least bit quiet. The Leitz Hektor 7.3 cm f/1.9 more than holds its own today — even mounted on a modern Leica M11, it can produce genuinely lovely images. That said, I wouldn’t recommend it for every job.
The look simply doesn’t match my own style, which is why the lens went back after the test. Many thanks to Leica Hamburg for this fascinating journey into the history of lenses.
