When compiling notes for this review I noticed just how badly Nikon spoiled me with the abundance of vintage lens information available online.

If you are unsure about the idea of mounting third party lenses on a Leica, then have a read of this. I’ve never been averse to desecrating a Leica camera body with third party lenses and besides Nikkors I’ve also owned and used several Voigtlanders and Canons, as well as an occasional Zeiss, Rokkor, or MS Optics. So far in my reviews I’ve been focusing on Nikon lenses for LTM.

3 Dedicated and compatible accessories for the 9cm Elmar.

There’s plenty of vintage lens magic in even their cheapest options. All hype aside, I’d venture a guess that there probably were no bad lenses in the Leica line-up over the decades so the decision whether you should get yourself a Leica lens is more a financial one than a question of quality. Contrary to another popular belief, you don’t need to spend thousands in order to acquire genuine Leica glass. This also means that the Elmars are among some of the most affordable and attainable Leica lenses. Then comes Elmarit (f/2.8), Summarit (f/2.5), Summicron (f/2), Summilux (f/1.4), and finally Noctilux (f/1.2 and faster). See, the Elmar designation is reserved for lenses with the very moderate maximum f-stop of 3.5 and 4 (very occasionally 2.8 as well). Interestingly (or not interestingly at all), the Magic rating seems to correlate with the maximum aperture. Seemingly respectable but also the lowest of the bunch. The Elmars received a modest rating of MMM and a half. Ever the wordsmith and always so measured…Īnother well-known reviewer has come up with a “Magic Scale”, awarding each class of Leica lenses with 1-5 Ms. And then calling Oskar Barnack “The Prophet”, ironically or not I honestly have no idea. At least that’s what Chuck Norris of lens reviews (you know who I’m talking about) says, before immediately contradicting himself saying that actually those names on their own are meaningless, like Kleenex or Tang. So good in fact that the folks at Leica have come up with trademarked names for them (Elmar, Summicron, Summilux, etc) in order to establish them as “the finest in their class”. It’s because they are “the world’s finest”. One of them is if you want to make full use of Leica camera bodies, you absolutely must use Leica lenses.

Leica is a polarising company and there’s a lot of polarising opinions circulating about their products.

This is perhaps the antithesis of that lens. Hamish recently reviewed the huge and very fast TT Artisan 90mm 1.25. This is a review of the Ernst Leitz (Leica) Elmar 9cm f/4 Collapsible lens.