Leica M6

Leica · Leica M mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, loaded through the base · 1984

Also known as: Leica M6 · Leica M6 classic · Leica M6J · ライカM6

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Black Leica M 1984–1998 82,831 cameras in black anodised aluminium (Leica Wiki)
Silver chrome Leica M 1984–1998 50,876 cameras (Leica Wiki)
Titanium Leica M 1992–1998 About 6,000 cameras (Leica Wiki)
Black lacquer Leica M 1984–1998 2,000 cameras (Leica Wiki)
Gold Leica M 1984–1998 1,300 cameras (Leica Wiki)
Platinum Leica M 1984–1998 1,051 cameras (Leica Wiki)
M6J (40 years of the M) Leica M 1994–1994 1,640 cameras (Leica Wiki)
Panda Leica M 1984–1998 No figure published
  1. The return to Wetzlar that the ELW serial block records lasted four years. Thorsten Overgaard splits the model by factory: cameras built in Wetzlar from 1984 carry the Leitz logo, and after production moved to Solms in 1988 the top plate reads Leica.
  2. The metering patch on the first shutter curtain is 12 mm across, and the meter switches itself off after nine seconds — eleven on the later M6 TTL (Thorsten Overgaard).
  3. Leica reintroduced the non-TTL M6 as model 10557 in October 2022, built in Wetzlar and back to the Leitz logo, with the original small shutter dial and the 0.72× finder only. Ken Rockwell gives the US price as $5,295 in December 2022, against about $3,000 for a 1984–1998 camera.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A meter with no moving parts: light is read off a white patch on the shutter curtain
  • Two LED arrows in the finder, no needle
  • Zinc top and bottom plates, painted, with no engraving on the top except on special editions
  • The M4-P's six frame lines, unchanged

Black:

  • Black anodised finish over the zinc top plate

Silver chrome:

  • Chrome finish

Titanium:

  • Titanium-coloured finish

Black lacquer:

  • Lacquer over brass rather than anodising over zinc — it brasses with use

Platinum:

  • Includes the 150 Jahre platinum edition

M6J (40 years of the M):

  • 0.85× viewfinder — the first M6 to have one

Panda:

  • Chrome body with black knobs

Serial-range notes

1649649
A black M6 prototype, sitting inside numbering the tables otherwise assign to the M4-P.
1657251–1659250
2,000 black cameras marked ELW — Ernst Leitz Wetzlar — in 1984–85: the M returning to Germany after seven years of Canadian production.
1961028 and 1966003
Two M6J cameras in chrome, called out individually.
1649251–2502000
158,309 numbers assigned across 95 rows, 1984–1999 — 13,251 more than the six finish counts on the same page sum to, and that is before the M6 TTL's own 51,173 are considered.
the black-paint blocks
Rows marked Schwz Lackiert total 65,703, which is far more than the 2,000 black lacquer the model page lists — the table uses the term for black anodised cameras too, so the two figures are counting different things under one name.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, loaded through the base
Finder
Combined viewfinder and coupled rangefinder with LED metering display · 0.72× magnification · 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 90mm, 135mm framelines · automatic, in pairs — 35/135, 50/75, 28/90 · automatic parallax correction
Shutter
focal plane, rubberised cloth, mechanical · 1s – 1/1000 and B; the shutter runs without a battery
Meter
Centre-weighted TTL metering from a cell reading light reflected off a white patch on the first shutter curtain; two-arrow LED display in the finder; CR 1/3N lithium cell, which powers only the meter — the shutter is mechanical.
Designed by
Heinrich Janke — camera
Country
Germany
Original price
$1,695 in the United States on introduction in 1984, when the camera was sold in black only — about $4,000 in 2022 money (Thorsten Overgaard).

Figures we worked out rather than found: 82,831 + 50,876 + 6,000 + 2,000 + 1,300 + 1,051 = 145,058 cameras · Black outsells silver by 1.6 to 1 — the reverse of every M before the M5 · Precious-metal cameras (gold and platinum) are 1.6% of the model

Where sources disagree

Total production
  • 145,058 cameras — the sum of the six finishes the Leica Wiki lists
  • No total is printed on the page

Better supported: About 145,000, excluding the M6 TTL

The finish counts are given individually and never added. The figure also depends on whether the M6 TTL of 1998–2002 is counted as the same model; this catalog treats it separately, as Leica sold it.

What reviewers say

History

The M6 is the M4-P with a light meter, and the restraint in that sentence is the reason it worked. Leitz had already tried metering a rangefinder properly, in the M5, with a cell on a swinging arm and a body built around it; photographers rejected the camera. The M6 puts a cell in the body looking forward at a white patch painted on the first shutter curtain, reads the light bouncing off it, and displays the result as two LED arrows in the finder. Nothing moves. The camera is the same size as an M4-P, the shutter is entirely mechanical, and a dead battery costs you the meter and nothing else.

That combination — a meter you can ignore and a camera that does not stop without it — is why the M6 is the M most photographers have actually worked with. About 145,000 were built across fourteen years, adding up the six finishes the Leica Wiki lists individually and never totals: 82,831 black, 50,876 silver, roughly 6,000 titanium, 2,000 black lacquer, 1,300 gold and 1,051 platinum. Black outsells chrome by more than three to two, which reverses every M before the M5.

It is also the M with the most special editions — thirty-eight by the Leica Wiki’s count, from the Leica Historical Society of America’s cameras to a Royal Wedding, a Jaguar and an Anton Bruckner. The one that matters technically is the M6J of 1994, 1,640 cameras for the M system’s fortieth anniversary, which introduced the 0.85× finder that the M6 TTL later offered as standard.

Two details separate it from what came before and after. Its top and bottom plates are zinc with a painted finish and no engraving on the top plate, which is the detail collectors argue about against the brass-plated M4 and the later MP. And its serial numbers record the M coming home: a block of 2,000 black cameras in 1984–85 is marked ELW, Ernst Leitz Wetzlar, ending seven years in which every M had been Canadian.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Leica M6
Leica M6 'Classic', black — Drican26, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Leica M6
Leica M6 Titanium with the 50mm Summilux — Zebrio from Tokyo, Japan, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Leica M6
Zug, on Ilford XP2 — shot on a Leica M6 (Ric Capucho) — Ric Capucho, via Flickr (Openverse) (CC BY 2.0)

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