Thypoch’s Tiny, Collapsible Eureka 50mm f/2 Rangefinder Lens

There is undeniable appeal in vintage gear and Thypoch is proving this point with their Eureka 50mm f/2 lens—a vintage-styled lens that’s still quite modern in performance. Classic cameras, retro lenses, photo gear that evokes the past … it’s been a trend for the past several years in the photo world, with the approach being split between contemporary products shielded in a vintage exterior or deliberately dumbed-down products meant to evoke the limited technology of the past. Thypoch’s Eureka 50mm f/2 lens is very much in the former camp, melding a very traditional exterior with current, high-quality optics. It’s a lens for those who genuinely enjoy making photographs, as it requires some patience, but will reward you with a surprisingly fun experience with few drawbacks.

At its core, the Eureka 50mm f/2 is a contemporary 50mm f/2 lens with the exterior of a historic collapsible rangefinder lens. This lens is a collapsible rangefinder lens, though—just like the century-old Elmar 5cm f/3.5 and all subsequent iterations of this most compact of normal-length primes. Using a collapsible lens nowadays takes patience but it has the benefit of making your complete camera kit quite portable compared to a rangefinder camera body with nearly any other lens attached. When collapsed, the lens measures just about 1” long; when fully retracted, it’s about 1.6” long—or, put even more practically, this lens plus a Leica camera body measures only 2.5” to 2.75” thick depending on which camera you have.

The tradeoff for this compactness and collapsible design is the motion required to manually extend the lens prior to shooting. Before shooting, you need to remove the friction-fit lens cap, pinch the knurled front ring, pull the tube straight out, and then rotate about 90° to lock the lens in place. You get used to the motion after a bit of use, but there’s no denying that it’s not as simple or straightforward as a so-called “rigid” lens.

Another caveat to the slim and sleek design is the miniscule focusing tab. It’s a small, locking cylinder here, compared to a scalloped tab, and is easy enough to pinch between the index finger and thumb to smoothly rotate between minimum and infinity focusing distances. A (literal) snag here is the locking pin once you hit the infinity position; you’ll need to press the front of the focusing tab/infinity lock to release it from this position and rotate back to closer focusing distances.

This is a consequence of the collapsible design (and an inherited attribute/defect of screw mount lenses), and both provides a fixed, non-rotating place from which to grasp while locking the front of the lens into place after extending it and it also keeps the lens in its most slim form factor for travel and storage. In the case of this Thypoch lens, though, this is a nod to historic lens design and aesthetics, and its key functional benefit would only be if you’re solely photographing very distant subjects. In use, it’s only an annoyance when focusing on subjects placed on the boundary just before you hit infinity (~30’) and you need to rack focus, requiring keeping the lock pinched for smooth focusing movement.

One other quirk of the unique design is a stepless, clickless aperture ring, which glides between f/2 and f/16. You’ll need to visually check your aperture before shooting since there are no clicks and lens Exif data can’t be communicated with this lens. With a design like this, I’d usually ‘set it and forget it,’ opting to either be shooting wide open at f/2 for depth of field control or generally somewhere in the middle and let the camera’s aperture priority metering or the auto ISO settings do the work of figuring out the exposure. I don’t think the clickless, stepless aperture is a drawback, though, it’s just something you need to be cognizant of with regard to how you’re metering.

Beyond these couple idiosyncrasies, using this lens feels familiar, smooth, and akin to pretty much any other M-mount lens. The classic design, while unique, doesn’t affect the actual performance of the lens. Looking at the optics, specifically, this is a case where the modernness of the lens stands out—it’s a surprisingly sharp prime but still a character-driven lens with a distinct bokeh quality. There’s some texture in the out-of-focus areas, which adds some bite compared to a totally washed, smeared effect, and the f/2 maximum aperture still affords some subject separation at middle distances.

There is smooth tonality and a very contemporary rendering. It feels very synonymous to digital rangefinder cameras; they’re classically styled, traditional, and forgoing of more modern styling, yet have up-to-date technology. This lens has modern rendering and optical attributes, but its classic design puts you in a vintage headspace thanks to its appearance and handling.

As a Leica M-mount lens, meant for rangefinder cameras, the lens is a perfect fit. The collapsible and lightweight design match the slim profile of a rangefinder camera, and since it only extends 1.6” it doesn’t affect your viewfinder image.

While testing the lens, though, I also decided to adapt it to a (much) larger mirrorless body. It’s a comical pairing to see this tiny lens on a flagship body, but I was also pleasantly surprised to see how well the design held up to the difference in handling and mindset when working with the two cameras. The lens feels a bit delicate on a rangefinder body but doesn’t feel too flimsy for assured use on a larger body.

The other reason I adapted the lens to a Z9 was just to see how the optics handled color rendering (since the rangefinder camera in use was a Monochrom) and, not surprisingly, the color rendering is on par with sharpness and clarity. It’s very much a modern and clean optical design; it has a signature look but it’s not heavy-handed with regard to unnatural sharpness or color aberrations.

Pros & Drawbacks

Pros:

• Collapsible design makes the lens super portable, especially when attached to a camera

• 50mm f/2 is a great focal length/aperture balance; it keeps the size and weight down while remaining versatile and fast

• Available in either Aluminum or Brass variants with a minimal difference in weight (<100g)

• Nice modern-ish rendering; image quality feels natural without being too clinical or too cloying with aberrations

• Machining and design elements feel solid and reliable. Also, a nice press-fit front lens cap

Drawbacks:

• Infinity lock takes some getting used to when focusing at medium-long distances; I wish this could be overridden so the focus wouldn’t accidentally get locked when racking between infinity and other distance positions

• A36 filter size, while a nice nod to classic collapsible lens designs, is a relatively useless filter size. If wishing to use any filters besides the included UV one, you’ll need to source used ones or find a SOOGZ or similar adapter to use 39mm threaded filters. I wish the front ring was threaded rather than needing to use this clamp-on, tension-based filter attachment method

• Minimum focusing distance of just under 3’ (0.9m) isn’t quite the 0.7m standard of most rangefinder lenses; I wish I could focus a bit closer

After spending some time shooting with the Eureka 50mm f/2, I was more surprised that I wasn’t surprised with the using the lens. That is, it’s a very straightforward and practical lens considering some of its inherent quirks. The quirks can feel a bit novel at times, but once you have the rhythm of shooting with the lens, they recede to the background, and you appreciate the ultra slim profile of the lens and the benefits of how packable your camera kit can be for a day’s worth of shooting. I think the image quality of the lens is good—it’s classic but not annoyingly so. It’s not ultra sharp and clinical, but also not deliberately full of aberrations and soft, blurry effects. This is a tremendously versatile lens for how specific of a mindset its design places you in during use.