Before camera manufacturers one-upped each other with the number of megapixels, they one-upped each other with the zoom range of their lenses. And before that, in the 1960s, the "speed" of the lens, its ability to gather light, was the big selling point.

Now, Leica Camera AG, a prestigious but small German maker of high-end cameras and lenses, is going for the speed crown again, making the world's "fastest" lens for still cameras.

This week, Leica said it has created a new version of its Noctilux lens with an aperture number of 0.95, which in the inverted math of optics means it gathers 11 percent more light than the old version, which had an aperture of 1.

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