LEICA ELMARIT M 21mm

A review and photo examples of the Leica Elmarit M 21mm

Gallery

Sample photos taken with the LEICA M9

Review

レビュー

Lens overview
Usage
Comparison with competitors

1．Lens overview

The Elmarit 21mm F2.81 is a Leica-designed wide-angle prime M-mount lens.

Leica’s M-mount 21mm lenses started with the Schneider Super-Angulon, and were manufactured and sold in-house from 1979 to around 1997.

Its successor, the Elmarit 21mm ASPH., which used an aspherical lens, expanded the 21mm lineup to include the Super-Elmar 21mm and Summilux 21mm.

As an aside, in contrast to the M-mount, Leica sold Schneider’s Super-Angulon for the 21mm focal length of the R-mount, except for zoom lenses, until the end of the R-mount. As an R-mount fanatic, it’s a shame that the original 21mm R-mount was never released.

There are three variations of this lens: the earliest lens with a minimum focusing distance of 0.4 m2, an earlier lens which is almost identical in appearance but has a pinned hood, and a later lens3 with a hook-attached hood.

All of the lens construction is the same, but the earliest lens with a shorter minimum focusing distance sells at a premium price.

Because the built-in viewfinder of M-type Leica cameras does not have a 21mm viewfinder frame, it is necessary to use an external viewfinder to determine the shooting range to some extent.

2．Usage

This lens does not use aspherical lenses, so it has the appearance of an old wide-angle lens with a bulged tip, in contrast to the straight lens barrel of the successor 21mm lens. Personally, I like this lens barrel that looks like a wide-angle lens, so I used the spherical early model and got rid of it, and then got the later model and used it again.

This lens is not perfect, with a slight blur around the edges at full aperture and a soft depiction. Of course, since it is an old lens from over 30 years ago, there may be some influence from the aging of the lens that I owned, but you can feel the flavor of a good old wide-angle lens. This lens was also sold as a source of nourishment for other lenses.

The viewfinder used to check the shooting range was an old steel viewfinder made by Leica. This viewfinder was not very good, with the edge of the front glass chipped, but I still use it because it looks good when attached to the camera.

At the time, I also had a Cosina Zeiss 21mm viewfinder, but this one was by far the better viewfinder. I also had a Contax Biogon 21mm and an Avenon 21mm finder, but the visibility with those wasn’t quite as good.

In terms of visibility, it was Cosina Zeiss > Leica > Contax.

3．Comparison with competitors

With the Super-Angulon, the rear lens element is close to the film and sensor, so in the case of digital cameras, color casts can occur around the edges of the image. With the Elmarit 21mm, the rear lens element is closer to the mount surface and away from the film and sensor surface, which is called retrofocus, so there is no need to worry about color casts.

Also, the successor Elmarit M 21mm ASPH. gave much better results, and when I used it for the first time, I was impressed by the depiction of the modern aspherical lens, which captures images sharply all the way to the edges.

As other M-mount 21mm lenses, I have used the Contax G Biogon 21mm and the Avenon 21mm, but the Contax G Biogon 21mm has a lens structure similar to the Super-Angulon, so color casts occur. The Avenon 21mm is a retrofocus type, so there is no need to worry about color casts, but the design is old and the depiction has the same tendency as the original Elmarit 21mm, and the depiction seems to be one step lower.

I have never used the Super-Elmar or Summilux.

Specification

Items	ELMARIT	ELMARIT ASPH.	SUPER ELMAR
Focal length(mm)	21	21	21
Max aperture	2.8	2.8	3.4
Min aperture	22	16	16
Lens Construction	8elements in 6groups	9elements in 7groups	8elements in 7groups
Leaf blade	8枚	←	←
Min distance(m)	0.7	←	←
Lens length(mm)	46.5	46	43
Max diameter(mm)	62	58	53
Filter Size(mm)	E60	E55	E46
Lens hood	12543(Old-pin) 12537(New-hook)	12592 14041	12465
Release date	1979	1997	2011
Production number	13,930	7,250	–
Weight(g)	290	415(Silver) 300(Black)	279