LEICA ELMARIT M 21mm (Early)

Review and photo examples of the Leica Elmarit M 21mm

Gallery

Sample photos taken with the LEICA M9

Review

Elmarit 21mm F2.8 is a genuine Leica M mount single focus wide-angle lens.
It was sold from 1979 to around 1997. It replaced the Elmarit 21mm ASPH., which used an aspherical lens, and its successors include the Super Elmar 21mm and Summilux 21mm.

There are two variations of this lens: the earliest version had a minimum focusing distance of 0.4m, and the exterior was almost the same, with an earlier model (lens in the photo) with a pin-mounted hood, and a later model with a hook-mounted hood. The lens configurations are all the same.

Since this lens does not use an aspherical lens, it has the appearance of an old wide-angle lens with a bulge at the 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 earlier model, gave it up, and bought the later model again.

I used the old steel finder made by LEICA as shown in the photo. The end of the viewfinder is missing, and I also have a Zeiss 21mm viewfinder, and the Zeiss field viewfinder is definitely better in terms of visibility, but since I was taking pictures with pan focus at 85% of the field of view, I focused on the appearance rather than the visibility, so I used this one. was.
I think it is important for tools to make you feel good.

Also, the shooting results of the successor Elmarito M 21mm ASPH. were by far the best, and when I first used it, I was impressed by the sharpness of the modern aspherical lens, which captures sharp images all the way to the periphery. This lens is not perfect, with a bit of blur around the periphery and a sluggish depiction when the aperture is wide open (this lens is over 30 years old, so this may be due to deterioration over time of the lens I owned), but it is a good old fashioned. You can feel the taste of a wide-angle lens. Kono lenses were also sold as supplies for other lenses.

Specification

項目	値	備考
焦点距離(mm)	21
最大絞り	2.8
最小絞り	22
レンズ構成	6群8枚
絞り羽根	8枚
最短撮影距離(m)	0.7	全域カメラ距離計連動
レンズ長(mm)	46.5	マウント面からの距離
レンズ最大径(mm)	62	フォーカスレバーは除く
フィルター径(mm)	E60
リリース年	1979
重量(g)	290