LEICA Fisheye Elmarit R 16mm

Review and photo examples of Fisheye Elmarit 16mm F2.8, a fisheye lens for Leica R

Table of contents

Gallery

LEICA SL Typ601(Mirrorless digital camera)

HASSELBLAD X2D

Review

The Fisheye Elmarit 16mm is a Leica R-mount fisheye lens released in 1974.
Approximately 3,000 pieces were manufactured in the five years until production ended in 1979.
It is manufactured by Minolta in Japan, and the optical system is said to be the same as Minolta’s MC Fisheye Rokkor 16mm f2.8.

This lens has four built-in color filters, just like the SUPER ELMAR 15mm, SUPER ELMART 15mm, and ELMARIT 19mm (type 2). This has become almost useless in the digital age.
The hood is flower-shaped and protrudes slightly in front of the lens barrel, allowing you to cut out excess light when shooting in 35mm format. The shadow of this hood can be seen on the medium format digital sensor, which will be discussed later, so it seems to work on the 35mm format. Even when the sun is backlit, there are no suspicious ghosts, so it has excellent backlight resistance.

The fisheye lens, which deliberately leaves distortion, is not a lens that is used very often, and I think it has a strong element of being used briefly to take a break from shooting, but it is interesting to take advantage of the shortest shooting distance of 0.3m for close-up shooting.
As shown in the gallery, it is used to capture architecture and cherry blossoms in full bloom at the same time in an urban area.

Lens prices start at around 20,000 yen for Russian-made fisheye lenses, so even if you include the Leica brand price, it’s undeniable that it’s expensive.

This individual is a modified lens with a ROM terminal.When the Leica R8/R9 film cameras were released, Leica had modified the conventional cam lens by adding a ROM terminal for a fee.
Fisheye lenses with ROM terminals are quite rare and can’t be found on eBay.
Lenses with a ROM terminal allow the Leica R8/R9 to recognize the current focal length and information about the lens being used from the camera side. The Digital Module R (DMR) for Leica R8/R9 can record shooting information and lens information in EXIF. In addition, Leica SL / SL2 / SL2-S / CL, which has become a mirrorless digital camera, can be used by attaching an R mount lens with a ROM terminal to the camera using the genuine “16076 [R lens adapter for Leica SL]”. The lens name, aperture value, etc. are transmitted to the camera, and that information is recorded in the EXIF of the shooting results, making it easier to save ROM lenses and organize the shooting results compared to when using lenses from before the R cam.
Even if you attach a Leica R ROM lens to the same L-mount LEICA T using the 16076 genuine adapter, you will not be able to access the lens information. TL/TL2 has not been tested so it is unknown.

When attached to a HASSELBLAD X2D 1 with a sensor size of 44mm33mm, it looks like the photo below, which is close to a circumferential fisheye, but unfortunately the shadow of the hood is reflected at the horizontal and vertical edges. Although there are some parts that cannot be used, it can be used more widely than a 35mm full-frame sensor. When cropped into a square, a size of about 32mm x 32mm is practical.
*1: FUJIFILM GFX, X1D, X1D2, 907X have the same sensor size

NOVOFLEX LEICA-R FISHEYE ELMARIT 2.8/16 / HASSELBLAD XCD

The purple areas are completely black and the border is a square cutout line

Specification

Item	Value	note
focal length(mm)	16
Maximum aperture	2.8
Minimum aperture	16
Lens configuration	11elements 8groups
Minimum distance(m)	0.3
Lens length(mm)	60
Lens max diameter(mm)	71
Filter diameter(mm)	–	Filters cannot be attached because the hood is integrated into the front of the lens. Three color filters for film cameras are built in.
Weight(g)	470
Release date	1974 *2
Production Number	2,950 *2