LEICA ELMARIT R 35-I (1st)

Review and photo examples of the Leica R-mount wide-angle lens, the first Elmarit R 35mm

Gallery

Gallery / SONY A7S-II

Review

The first Elmarit R 35mm is a wide-angle lens with an R mount and a focal length of 35mm.

The Elmarit R 35mm is popular among some enthusiasts among the R mount 35mm series, but is generally overshadowed by the Summicron 35mm and Summilux 35mm.

Three versions were released over the 29 years from 1963 to 1992 (and maybe a few more after that), with changes in lens configuration and lens barrel.

The lens specifications of a focal length of 35mm and maximum aperture of F2.8 are large for a zoom lens, but not very bright for a prime lens, and it was considered a cheap and mediocre lens, so it was not very popular on the market and the used price is also low.

The first Elmarit R 35mm is particularly cheap, and I think the fact that it is the oldest of the three 35mm Elmarits and was produced in large numbers also affects the price.

As long as it was used with Sony’s full-frame sensor camera, the α7SII, there was no major breakdown in image quality, and it was well made for a lens from half a century ago. This may be due to the fact that the α7SII’s sensor has 12 million pixels, and roughness may be visible with cameras with higher pixel counts.

I knew that the filter used was a Series 6 that fits into the hood, but I didn’t have a Series 6 in my filter collection, so I looked at the thread on the front of the lens to see if there was a screw-in filter that would fit a few millimeters, and tried the 43mm, 46mm, and 48mm filters I had on hand, but none of them fit. I looked up the thread diameter in millimeters and found that a 43.5mm filter could be screwed in.

MARUMI and KENKO have released 43.5mm filters, which can still be purchased at camera stores as of 2023. The original Summicron-R 50mm, which uses the same hood and Series 6 filter, also has the same specifications as this lens.

This first Elmarit 35mm is very similar to the Summicron 50mm, but the width of the focus ring and other parts are different, so the lens barrel is not completely shared, but it seems that various parts including the hood are shared. Leica sometimes shares parts with several lenses produced at the same time to reduce costs, and this lens can be said to be one of the first.

The Leica SL lenses of the 2020s released six lenses from 21mm to 90mm using aspherical lenses with the same size lens barrel, so the 35mm and 50mm became obviously excessively large.

Perhaps as a reflection on this, the 35mm and 50mm released compact lenses that did not use aspherical lenses, but they were not designed specifically for them and the lens barrel was shared between the 35mm and 50mm. The more robust the awareness of cost reduction, the more thorough it seems.

Specification

Lens name	ELMARIT-R 35-I	ELMARIT-R 35-II	ELMARIT-R 35-III
Focal length(mm)	35	←	←
Max aperture	2.8	←	←
Min aperture	22	←	←
Leaf blade	6	←	←
Lens Construction	6群7枚	5群7枚	6群7枚
Min distance(m)	0.3	←	←
Lens length(mm)	40	40	41.6
Max diameter(mm)	63	63	66
Filter Size(mm)	43.5 Series 6	48 Series 7	55
Weight(g)	310	410	305
Lens hood	12564 Cylindrical shape, iron hook, reversible Shared with SUMMICRON-R 50mm Lens cap is 14163	12509 Rectangular shape, screw and pin-fixed Shared with ELMARIT-R 28mm	Build in
Production number*1	31,950(end of 1971)	8,250(end of 1977)	15,000(end of 1992)
Release date	1963-	1972-	1978-