As I’ve discussed before, one of the main ideas behind the 35mm rangefinder camera was its small size and subsequent portability. Since their beginning 80 years ago, Leica cameras have often been coupled to collapsible lenses. The early production Leicas in the 20s and 30s were all designed for a lens that collapsed into the body of the device, making it a true pocket camera.

This design continued throughout the 20th century, most notably in the classic 50mm Elmar design. By the 1950s, photographers could choose the convenience of a small package at a medium speed of f/2.8, or opt for a faster lens with a larger footprint. In any event, the option of a collapsible lens has always been a part of the Leica experience, and of rangefinder photography in general.

With the introduction of the digital Leica M8, something strange happened. One of the main design challenges in a digital M body has to do with the short back-focus of the M lenses; they sit very very close to the shutter and film plane. Leica was apparently nervous about the resulting design, because the M8 manual warns against using collapsible lenses (or rather, it warns against collapsing the lenses, which is sort of the point of owning one).

What makes this policy even more controversial is the fact that Leica sells a version of the 1995-make Elmar 50 with the 6-bit coding used exclusively by the M8. Sure, someone could use the lens in its extended position only, but again, the small size would be lost. That’s assuming one could even avoid collapsing the lens accidentally.

I knew that a number of photographers on the Leica Camera Users Forum had been using the current generation Elmar on their M8s with no trouble, but given the warnings I still felt the need to confirm the safety of using one with one of the forum members who I know had a lot of experience with the lens. But, the 1995-era Elmar is completely safe to use on the M8. As you can see below, it makes for a very compact kit (shown here is the Elmar’s lens cap on the lens, with 39mm UV/IR filter attached but optional lens shade unattached).

So that there might be more persuasive documentation of this fact, I decided to demonstrate the amount of clearance that actually exists between the collapsed lens flange and the M8 shutter.

First, I took a small piece of quad-rule paper and folded it so it could fit in the M8 body. The edge is just touching the shutter, and I’ve marked the paper at the top where it meets the lens mount. The squares on the paper measure 5mm.

Next, I collapsed the lens and focused it to infinity so the maximum portion of the collapsible tubing extended away from the mount. I marked this measurement on the quad-rule paper as well.

Finally, I compared the two marks, which are labeled on the quad-rule paper below.

As you can see, the distance between the shutter and the collapsed lens tube is a full quad-rule square, or 5mm in size. This is enough room that the lens tube is never at risk of touching anything inside the camera body. Just to drive the point home, here’s a close up of my M8’s shutter after a solid week of shooting with the Elmar.

It’s strange that Leica issues the warning it does in the manual, especially since other sections of the very same page discuss specific lenses that simply cannot be used because they would strike the shutter or internal casing. Unfortunately, the point might be moot, as the current generation Elmar-M 50mm has been discontinued, in favor of the new Summarit 50mm, which is about one centimeter longer than the collapsed Elmar. It’s shame too because the Elmar sports a classic design with a soft, lower contrast rendering. It’s quickly become a favorite lens on my M8.

published May 19, 2008

Comments

  1. jaapv

    Hi!

    Well done. That defitely disproves the manual. I feel that it is yet another example of the bad communications that existed between the design department and the amrketing department at Leica back in 2006.

    Jaap