Light Lens Lab First 75mm F2 SPii - The Cinematic Portrait Lens

This is Light Lens Lab first 75mm in the SPii line — the Light Lens Lab 75mm f/2 SPii prototype in Leica M mount — and it genuinely feels like the SPii Series starts getting real. I’ve been hoping they’d release this lens ever since they first announced it, because it got teased, then the news disappeared, and now it’s finally here in my hands. In this video, I treat it as step one toward the full cinema series Light Lens Lab has been promising. If you’ve followed their tribute lenses, you already know they don’t just do the “vintage shell” thing — they chase the optical behaviour, the rendering, the flare/veil, and the focus transitions that make classic cinema glass feel the way it does. That’s why the 50mm f/2 SPii was so polarising and why it put Light Lens Lab on the map. This isn’t a technical lab review. I’m not doing charts or corner tests. This is a real-world take on what the lens does to a scene: contrast behaviour, veiling/flare, background blur, and the way it separates a subject in a messy environment. I took it to a market for candid portraits, shot wide open, and I’ll be honest — I missed more than half my frames. 75mm at f/2 is brutal. But when it hits, it’s ridiculously rewarding, and it reminded me that this focal length, at least for me, is where home is. I also talk about the cinema references people will inevitably bring up — including the Cooke Speed Panchro 75mm (Series II) — but I’m clear about the context: the original was built for Super 35, this is full frame coverage in Leica M mount, and I’m not pretending I’ve used the original. The goal here is the look and behaviour, not a one-to-one shootout. If you’re into character lenses and you want a 75mm that can organise chaos without turning everything clinical, this is worth paying attention to. And if Light Lens Lab really wants to complete the set they’ve promised, this feels like the first proper sign. They promised a full set. This 75mm is the first sign. Now I just want them to keep going and complete the Cooke and Angenieux series soon.