LEICA SUPER VARIO ELMAR-SL 16-35

L-mount ultra-wide-angle zoom lens

A review and Photo example of the Leica Super Vario Elmar 16-35.

Gallery

Sample photos taken with the LEICA SL typ601.

Review

Usage
Lens overview
Comparison with competitors

1．Usage

The Super Vario-Elmar 16-35mm is a wide-angle zoom lens for the Leica L mount. As a wide-angle lens lover, I couldn’t pass it up when I bought the Leica SL, so I went out of my way to buy a new lens. I was a little happy that the last two digits of the lens serial number were 00, which was a round number.

The image quality was impeccable, and even in Raw images there was no distortion at the wide-angle side, and the abundant light generated by the generous lens diameter meant that vignetting was hardly noticeable. The telephoto end of 35mm is a little dark at F4.5, but it provides stable depiction.

At the same time, I also owned a 28-90, so I rarely used it on the telephoto side of 28mm, and often started at 16mm and zoomed in a little to adjust it in a cropping manner. It was a convenient wide-angle zoom lens to take with me to various places when traveling.

Because it was a heavy wide-angle lens, there was almost no camera shake if I handled it normally, even without image stabilization.

The AF focusing speed is quite fast, and when I shot with the LEICA SL typ601 (hereinafter referred to as SL), there were no scenes where the autofocus (hereinafter referred to as AF) focusing speed was slow and caused problems. The AF focusing accuracy is difficult to evaluate due to the problem of the camera’s sensor, but it does not get lost or miss when shooting general landscapes or people. When shooting difficult subjects such as cats or birds in the depths of a bush, the photographer may not be able to focus as intended, but this can be dealt with by interrupting the manual focus (hereinafter referred to as MF).

The lens focus ring has no indication at all, which is inconvenient when setting the focus at a specified distance, but such use is probably not recommended for digital cameras, which require strict focus accuracy.

As is the fate of high-performance zoom lenses, it is very large, and it takes a lot of courage to carry it around. I mainly took it out when traveling by car.

When attached to the Leica T typ701 or Leica CL typ7323, the lens was too large and the balance during shooting was very poor. As expected, this lens is suited to larger cameras such as the SL, and looks good when attached to a large camera, but it requires a fairly large camera bag to store it in, and it felt very heavy when I was walking around the shooting location by hand. Unfortunately, when I let go of the SL, the frequency of use of the lens decreased dramatically, so I let it go.

2．Lens overview

The Super Vario-Elmar 16-35mm is an imposing, gigantic lens with a total length of 123mm, a maximum barrel diameter of 88mm, and a weight of 1g.

The lens barrel only has a zoom ring and focus ring, and the aperture is controlled on the camera side.
The zoom ring is on the camera side of the lens, and turning it to the right changes it to the telephoto direction. The lens uses an internal zoom, so the total length of the lens does not change.
The focus ring is located on the tip of the lens, and this is also internal focus, so the total length of the lens does not change. Perhaps because it is an electronic mount, there are no distance scale marks on the focus ring.

The minimum shooting distance is 0.25m across the entire zoom range.

3．Comparison with competitors

The direct competitor of the Super Vario-Elmar 16-35mm is the Panasonic wide-angle zoom lens “LUMIX S PRO 16-35mm F4 S-R1635” (lens length 100, lens diameter 85, filter size 77, weight 500g). This lens has a constant F3.5 aperture, but is slightly smaller than the Super Vario-Elmar, and is half the weight, so this lens is better suited for street snapshots.

Sigma’s wide-angle zoom lens has a constant F2.8 aperture and a wide-angle end starting from 14mm, so a difference of 2mm on the wide-angle side makes a noticeable difference in the range that fits in the frame. The telephoto end is 24mm, and the zoom ratio is kept to 2x, which gives the impression of a design philosophy that prioritizes image quality. This lens appears to have been provided to Leica on an OEM basis, and was released in November 2023 as the “Super Vario-Elmarit-SL f2.8/14-24mm ASPH.” with the same specifications.

The competing lenses are also distinctive, and the Super Vario-Elmar 16-35mm has a high price and an old design, but if you like wide-angle lenses, it’s a lens worth trying regardless of cost performance.

Specification and Competitor

Items	SUPER VARI ELMAR	SIGMA 14-24mm F2.8 DG DN	Panasonic S-R1635
Focal length(mm)	16-35	14-24	16-35
Max aperture	3.5-4.5	2.8	4
Min aperture	22	22	22
Leaf blade	?	11	9
Lens Construction	18elements in 12groups	18elements in 13groups	12elements in 9groups
Min distance(m)	0.25	0.28	0.25
Lens length(mm)	123	131	99.6
Lens diameter(mm)	88	85	85
Filter Size(mm)	82	–	77
Image stabilizer	No	No	No
Weight(g)	990	798	500
Release date	2018.05.10	2019.8.23	2019.12.25
Price(Yen/No-tax)	¥760,000-	Open(¥148,000-)	¥156,000-

Lens name	SUPER VARIO ELMAR	VARIO ELMARIT	APO VARIO ELMARIT	SUMMILUX
Focal length(mm)	16-35	24-90	90-280	50
Max aperture	3.5-4.5	2.8-4.0	2.8-4.0	1.4
Min aperture	22	22	22	22
Lens Construction	18elements in 12groups	18elements in 15groups	23elements in 17groups	11elements in 9groups
Min distance(m)	0.25-	0.3-0.45	0.6-1.4	0.6-
Lens length(mm)	123	138	238	124
Lens diameter(mm)	88	88	88	88
Filter Size(mm)	82	82	82	82
Weight(g)	990	1,140	1,710	1,065
Image stabilizer	No	Yes	Yes	No
Release date	2018.05.10	2015.11.28	2016.04.29	2016.12.28
Price(Yen/No-tax)	¥760,000-	¥650,000-	¥820,000-	¥770,000-