If you’ve ever chased that vintage “Super Six” look and given up because the originals cost a fortune and rarely mount cleanly on a modern body, DK-Optic just handed you another route. The new DK-Optic Chiaro 1.5-inch f/1.9 is a from-scratch recreation of that legendary mid-20th century British optic, built for native Leica M-mount and priced at $1,600.
🛒 DK-Optic Chiaro 1.5-inch (38mm) f/1.9
Price: $1,600
Where to Buy: DK-Optic
What DK-Optic actually copied
DK-Optic pitches the Chiaro as a copy rather than a reinterpretation. The company says it kept the six-element, four-group arrangement of the original instead of adding the corrections a modern designer would reach for by default. Its own marketing calls this a 1:1 restoration free of “clinical” additives, which is a roundabout way of saying the quirks are the whole point.
That lineage traces back to J.H. Dallmeyer, the British maker whose Super Six series ran from 1 inch to 8 inches, nearly all at f/1.9, built on a double Gauss formula and produced from roughly 1930 until sometime in the 1970s or early 1980s, depending on which reference you trust. DK-Optic’s page only says “British Super Six,” but Leica Rumors and PhotoRumors both name the Dallmeyer Super Six 1.5-inch f/1.9 as the specific ancestor here. Surviving Super Sixes now sell at collector prices, which is exactly the gap a recreation like this is aiming at.
How it renders wide open
Wide open at f/1.9, the promise is depth. DK-Optic describes a subject that reads as lifted away from its surroundings, with the falloff behind it going soft and swirled rather than just blurred, and that distinction is the entire reason a lens like this exists.
Stop it down and the company says the lens tightens up, gaining contrast and biting harder as the aperture closes. Taken literally, that means you’re buying two rather different lenses on one barrel, and which one you get comes down to where the ring sits.
A 10-blade diaphragm keeps the opening rounded across the range, which should help out-of-focus highlights stay circular instead of turning into hard-edged shapes. All of that is DK-Optic’s own characterization rather than measured results, so the real question is how the lens behaves outside the company’s own sample images.
Specs that matter
The DK-Optic Chiaro 1.5-inch f/1.9 covers 135 full frame at 38mm, a focal length that sits just wide of normal and works for street and environmental portraits without making you back up. Its aperture runs from f/1.9 to f/22 as a manual preset with cinema-grade dampening, so the ring glides instead of clicking through stops. There are no electronic contacts anywhere in that description, so everything from focus to aperture stays mechanical.
Minimum focus lands at 0.75m and it’s coupled for rangefinder use, so that’s your practical close-focus limit on an M body rather than an adapted mirrorless one. The filter thread is 37mm on the body, with 46mm and 49mm options depending on how you stack accessories. Physically it’s 48mm long with the hood mounted, 53mm at its widest, and roughly 188g, light enough that it won’t unbalance a compact rangefinder. You also pick between blue-coated and uncoated glass, which is a rendering decision rather than a cosmetic one, and it’s the kind of choice that likely shows up most in flare and contrast.
Build, mount, and what’s in the box
This is where DK-Optic leans on its cinema-lens background. The outer shell uses 7075 aluminum, the light option, while the moving parts inside run on brass, the heavy one. That split looks deliberate, giving you a barrel that stays manageable on the camera and focus and aperture action with real mass behind it.
Assembly happens by hand in DK-Optic’s own shop, with the brass parts cut on 5-axis CNC machines. The detail the company pushes hardest is the glass, which it says was ground from decades-old stock rather than current production. That’s an unusual thing to advertise at this price, and it’s plainly meant to be the reason you’d pick this over a modern equivalent.
The native M-mount matters more than the spec sheet lets on. It means the lens couples with a rangefinder rather than pushing you into live view, which is the whole point of buying M glass in the first place. You can still adapt it to full-frame mirrorless bodies with the right adapter if that’s your system.
In the box you get the lens, a precision metal front cap, a vintage-style threaded metal hood, a bamboo presentation box, and a one-year warranty. The hood is detachable and threads on, so you can leave it off when you want a more compact profile.
The case for and against
The strongest argument for the Chiaro is the mount. A genuine native Leica M fit with real rangefinder coupling is rare at this end of the market, and it means you aren’t stacking adapters just to chase a vintage look. Add the aluminum and brass construction, the hand assembly, and the low weight, and you’re getting a lot of physical quality for the money.
The case against it is just as clear. At $1,600 you’re paying serious money for a single rendering signature, with no autofocus and no electronic coupling to fall back on. Shipping runs from China on a 7 to 14 business day estimate, and DK-Optic says pre-order batches can take longer than that. The bigger question is whether that look is worth the outlay, and no spec sheet settles that one for you.
Price and availability
DK-Optic sells the Chiaro directly and ships worldwide from Shenzhen or Hong Kong through DHL, UPS, or FedEx, with an estimated 7 to 14 business days in transit. It’s offered in blue-coated and uncoated versions.
🛒 DK-Optic Chiaro 1.5-inch (38mm) f/1.9
Price: $1,600
Where to Buy: DK-Optic
For context on where this sits in the range, DK-Optic lists the 2-inch (51mm) Chiaro at $1,599 and the 3-inch (76mm) at $1,899. Leica Rumors and PhotoRumors have both published a $100 off code, DKOPTIC202607, for DK-Optic’s M-mount lenses, though it isn’t on the product page and the code reads like a July 2026 promotion. Treat it as worth trying at checkout rather than a guaranteed discount.
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(as of August 3, 2026 09:35 GMT -05:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
