LEICA SUPER ELMAR M 18mm

Review and Photo example of the Super Elmar M 18mm F3.8.

Gallery

Photo example are taken with a LEICA M9 and LEICA M6TTL +Velvia100

Review

Usage
Overview
Differences

1．Usage

The Super-Elmar-M 18mm is the lens with the widest focal length of the original Leica M-mount prime lenses.

Because it is a lens for rangefinder cameras, it is small enough to be a retrofocus lens.

It is a lens that allows you to experience the fun and difficulty of wide-angle lenses with rangefinders.

Because the minimum shooting distance of the Super-Elmar 18mm is 0.7m, even when shooting, the landscape tends to be similar, and I was unable to find a way to express variation between infinity and 0.7m with a lens that captures too much of the surroundings. I felt that it was easy to use up to 21mm darker.

I think it is necessary to find a way to use it while accepting the above restrictions, but I sold it before I could use it that much.

Since I started collecting R-mount lenses, I sometimes use super wide-angle lenses for SLR cameras, but I rely on the fact that I can get as close as 0.3m, which tends to result in monotonous expressions, and although the range from infinity to 0.3m has increased, the variety of shooting results has not increased that much, which shows that it is a problem with the photographer’s imagination.

2．Overview

With a total length of 58 mm and a weight of 310 g, it is compact and lightweight for a wide-angle lens, especially when compared to wide-angle lenses for SLR cameras.

The hood is screw-in, following the recent Leica design, but there is a notch at the end of the screw, which acts as a stopper to fix it in the correct position, but the screw on the lens I had was loose, so the hood sometimes turned in my camera bag.

Also, since it is not possible to attach a lens protection filter when the hood is attached, I removed the hood and purchased a third-party screw-in UV filter to use.

There is also a genuine filter holder (code number: 14484 filter adapter), but since the filter diameter is E77 (77 mm), which is quite large, I have never used it because it spoils the compactness of a rangefinder camera. I guess LEICA does not recommend attaching filters due to concerns about kicking in the corners of the screen, but since it is an expensive lens, I want to protect the front.

For the LEICA M8/M8.2, a dedicated UV/IR filter (code number: 13422) is provided, and the hood can be screwed onto the tip of the lens and attached without interfering with the filter because the hood is externally threaded. This filter is provided to cut IR on the LEICA M8/M8.2 rather than to protect the lens. Also, since the sensor size of the M8/M8.2 is APS-H size and smaller than a 35mm full-frame sensor, peripheral vignetting can be ignored, so it is released in this form.

3．競合

A while ago, the 18mm focal length was considered an ultra-wide-angle lens, but Cosina Voigtlander has released 10mm, 12mm, and 15mm lenses, which are slightly wider than wide-angle lenses.

Unlike recent digital processing lenses, the Super Elmar feels like a lens designed to optically correct aberrations. Compared to the Cosina Zeiss Distagon 18mm, which was released at the same time, the aberration correction is good. I felt that it was worth the price. However, when I looked back at the results in 2024, there were some shots where the distortion correction was insufficient and the peripheral light was insufficient depending on the shooting distance.

With these results, photographers who do not use wide-angle lenses often will be satisfied with the quality of the cheap Chinese-made Lomography ATOLL 17mm. The cheap 17mm lens also produced reasonable results in terms of backlight resistance and various corrections.

With rangefinder cameras, an external viewfinder is required for a focal length of 18mm. I used the original Leica A and the Cosina Zeiss external viewfinder, and found that the Cosina Zeiss viewfinder had a higher magnification and was easier to see.

I used a third-party screw-in filter when taking the photos, so I never used the square hood in the photo, but I don’t remember having any trouble with backlighting.

For ultra-wide-angle lenses, I prefer the R mount, and although the size of the lens is a concern, it is easy to use due to its short minimum shooting distance, so I sold this lens as it was no longer used.

Specification and Competitor

Maker	LEICA	Carl Zeiss	LOMO	Ms-optics
Lens name	SUPER ELMAR 18mm	Distagon 18mm	ATOLL 17mm	PERAR 17mm
Max aperture	3.4	4	2.8	4.5
Min aperture	16	22
Leaf blade	9	10	8	10
Lens Construction	8elements in 7groups	10elements in 8groups	13elements in 10groups	4elements in 4groups
Min distance(m)	0.7	0.7	0.25	0.3
Lens length(mm)	58	47	79	10.2
Max diameter	61	63	73	50
Filter Size(mm)	77mm (with filter holder) IR/UV filter for M8 available	58	–	–
Weight(g)	310	350	400	60
Release date	2009.03	2007.08	2021.03	–
Price(Yen/No-tax)	315,000 yen (when first released) The price has since gone up.	¥145,950	¥44,800-¥59,800	–