LEICA SUPER ELMARIT R 15mm
Schneider’s ultra-wide-angle lens
A review and photo example of the Super Elmarit 15mm.
Table of contents
Gallery
- LEICA R8 +PORTRA 160 +DiMAGE Scan Multi PRO
- Sony A7Sii
Review
1．Usage
The Super-Elmarit R 15mm is a Leica R mount lens with a focal length of 15mm.
This lens is smaller and lighter than the Super-Elmar R 15mm, so it fits comfortably on a small mirrorless camera.
If my DMR (LEICA DIGITAL MODULE R) was still working, I could have used it as a wide-angle lens with a focal length of 21mm, but my DMR is already broken and has become a paperweight, so I thought it would be nice to put 35mm film1 into my Leica R8 and try shooting with it as a 15mm lens, so I loaded it with some negative film PORTA 1602 that had been lying around in the refrigerator and shot with it.
I removed the DMR from the R8 and replaced the back of the camera with one for regular film, and changed the focusing screen from the DMR to the Microprism Screen 14343 for film, but it was not suitable for composing a 15mm wide-angle lens, so I purchased and am using the Grid Screen 14346. The R8 and R9 focusing screens were quite common in the 2010s, but have disappeared from the market since the 2020s. I found 14346 on Google, so I bought it without hesitation, even though it was quite expensive.
According to “Leica R-Lenses by Erwin Puts November 2003 Chapter 6: 15 mm lens __ LEICA ELMARIT-R 15 mm f/2.8” distributed by Leica in 2003, the microprism screen 14343 is recommended to get the focus peak with the Super-Elmarit 15mm. It is true that the grid screen is useful for composing, but when you turn the focus ring, the focus peak is almost impossible to distinguish, so you have to shoot by eye. With a film camera, it is almost not an obstacle except for close-up shooting.
The serial number of the lens I have on hand tells me that it is one of 100 manufactured in 2002.
This lens was released in the 2000s, when the Japanese currency, the yen, was relatively strong, so one would think that there would be a fair number of these in Japan, but it is not known how many there actually are in Japan.
2．Lens overview
420 Super-Elmarit 15mm were manufactured between 2001 and 2009.
Like the Super-Elmar, it is equipped with a built-in filter, but a filter cannot be attached to the front lens. It has the same structure as Leica R-mount fixed-focal manual focus lenses, with a focus ring near the front center of the lens barrel and an aperture ring at the base of the lens barrel. The aperture ring has click stops for each judgment.
This lens was designed by Schneider, not Leica, while the Super-Elmar 15mm, which has the same focal length, was designed by Carl Zeiss. There is no documentation available on which company manufactured it.
Carl Zeiss’s Distagon 15mm3, a representative old 15mm lens, has sister lenses sold by several manufacturers, including the Super-Elmar 15mm, as OEMs and blueprint sales. However, Schneider’s 15mm lenses do not seem to be provided to anyone other than Leica.
In this way, Leica utilizes other companies when it does not have the resources for in-house development, and this attitude has not changed, including the L39 screw, Leica M, Leica R mount in the past, and the L-mount alliance in the 2020s. I don’t think it’s necessary to do everything in-house.
3．Comparison with competitors
If we were to compare it directly, it would be most appropriate to compare it with the Zeiss Super-Elmar R 15mm. This comparison is given in the Leica R-Lenses by Erwin Puts November 2003 Chapter 6: 15 mm lens __ LEICA ELMARIT-R 15 mm f/2.8, which was distributed by Leica in 2003. The following is a partial excerpt from the book. This document contains detailed discussion of ultra-wide-angle lenses over 17mm, and is very helpful.
- Difference in focal length: Super-Elmarit is 15.6mm, Super-Elmar is 15.4mm
- Distortion: Super-Elmarit is up to 2%, Super-Elmar is up to 4%
- The distributed book points out that the distortion curve is more important than the maximum value of distortion.
- Improvement of peripheral shading due to vignetting: Super-Elmarit is 1 stop, Super-Elmar is 2.5 stops
- There are no other direct comparisons between the two, but the book does dedicate a lot of text to explaining the improvement in image quality.
It is up to the photographer to decide whether this represents 20 years’ worth of evolution, or whether the Super-Elmar is enough.
Apart from the Super-Elmar, there are very few prime lenses with a focal length of 15mm that cover the 35mm format, such as the Zeiss Distagon 15mm ZM, Voigtlander Super Wide Heliar 15mm (1999), and Carl Zeiss Hologon 15mm (1972) for rangefinder cameras, and, excluding the Zeiss Distagon 15mm F3.5 series for SLR cameras, the new Zeiss Distagon 15mm F2.8 and the LAOWA 15mm F4 WIDE ANGLE MACRO (2016).
As for the wider 14mm range, Sigma has released several 14mm prime lenses for SLR cameras in the past, with the 14mm F1.4 DG DN | Art | being the pinnacle. For mirrorless cameras, several manufacturers offer lenses such as the Sony FE 14mm F1.8 GM G Master (2021), Samyang 14mm F2.8, and Pergear 14mm F2.8 II.
With the advent of the mirrorless era, advances in design software and manufacturing technology have made it possible to produce such wide-angle lenses relatively inexpensively. Nevertheless, the Super-Elmarit R 15mm will not fade away as the latest ultra-wide-angle lens for the Leica R mount.
4．Digression
I used it with a Hasselblad X2D, and confirmed that the usable area was 76% of the medium format digital sensor (44 x 33mm), and did not cover the range beyond 35mm film and 35mm full-frame sensors. This is also due to the fixed hood, so if I cut the fixed hood, the shooting range would expand, but it is definitely not a lens that you should waste, so I would like to pass it on to future generations in this state.
As a Leica R lens freak, I have been looking for this lens for a long time. I sometimes see it on eBay, but when I was thinking of buying it, the yen was depreciating, so the option of purchasing it from overseas had almost disappeared. At that time, a camera shop I am familiar with had acquired it from a collector, and I was asked to purchase it, and I was able to obtain a beautiful item complete with lens box and other accessories.
Basically, lenses are owned by collectors, and they appear on the market as collectors get rid of unused ones as they get older. I think it’s interesting that when they appear, several lenses appear at the same time. As mentioned above, my own lens will eventually flow into the market.
The R8 is an electronic camera, so it needs batteries. I inserted two expired CR2 batteries from 2013 that I had in my room, and the camera started up without any problems. I had bought these CR2 batteries for my GR1 film camera, but after I sold the GR1, they had been sitting idle with no use.
When loading film into a film camera, if the film is not hooked onto the sprocket, the film will not be wound up even if you take a picture, and you will end up feeling sad when you realize that it is spinning around. However, the R8 has a small window to check if the film is winding, which I thought was a nice touch. You can also tell if the film is not loaded by the fact that the shot counter does not increase.
Among the R-mount lenses I would like to try is the APO-SUMMICRON-R 180mm, but although I have seen it quite often second-hand, it is expensive and I cannot afford it.
Specification
| Lens name | SUPER ELMARIT | SUPER ELMAR |
| Focal length(mm) | 15 | ← |
| Max aperture | 2.8 | 3.5 |
| Min aperture | 22 | ← |
| Leaf blade | 6 | 5 |
| Lens Construction | 13 elements in 10groups | 13 elements in 12groups |
| Min distance(m) | 0.18 | 0.16 |
| Lens length(mm) | 85.3 | 92.5 |
| Max diameter(mm) | 83.5 | 83.5 |
| Filter Size(mm) | – | – |
| Front Cap | Special metal hood | 14294 |
| Weight(g) | 710 | 815 |
| Release date | 2001 | 1979 |
| Production number | 420 | 2980 |
Reference links
Update history
- 2024.10.5
- 2024.02.17
- 2023.11.17
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