Leica MD

Ernst Leitz · Leica M mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, loaded through the base · 1964

single source, unconfirmed our own finding

Also known as: Leica MD · Leitz MD · ライカMD

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Leica MD	Leica M	1964–1966	—	3,316 serial numbers assigned across six blocks (Leica Wiki)

Sasha Tsyrlin, who has shot all three finderless bodies, gives the chassis lineage as MD on the M2, MDa on the M4 and MD-2 on the M4-2, and notes the MD-2 was the only one of the three offered in black and the only one with a hot shoe.

How to tell them apart (expand)

No finder of any kind — the top plate carries the accessory shoe and nothing else
An M body with the whole optical top removed: used on Visoflex housings, microscopes and copy stands

Leica MD:

A blank top plate: no finder windows at all
A slot on the back for the film-type reminder card

Serial-range notes

1102501–1102800: The first block, 300 cameras in 1964.
1141001–1141896: 896 cameras in 1966 — the largest single block, and one computed from two lists rather than quoted.
Postkameras: Cameras formerly attributed to the MD have been reassigned to the M3 following research by Pierre Jeandrain, on the Leica Wiki's own note. Older sources counting MD production therefore count some M3s.

Specifications

Format: 24×36mm on 35mm film, loaded through the base
Finder: None · no rangefinder image
Shutter: focal plane, rubberised cloth · 1s – 1/1000 and B
Weight: 595 g
Dimensions: 138 × 77 × 36 mm
Country: Germany

Figures we worked out rather than found: The six blocks sum to 3,316, matching the printed total exactly · 3,316 MDs against 9,650 M1s: each generation of finderless M is scarcer than the last

Where sources disagree

How many were built

3,316 serial numbers assigned, 1963–1966 (Leica Wiki serial list)
No production figure is printed on the page at all

Better supported: 3,316 numbers, which is not the same as 3,316 cameras

The page gives no production era and no total; the serial list is the only quantity on it, and its own footnotes say some batch totals were computed from two lists rather than taken from one.

First year

1964, the date of the first serial block
1963, the start year printed in the serial list's own total line

The total line spans 1963–1966 while no block is dated earlier than 1964.

What reviewers say

Sasha Tsyrlin (blog) — Zone-focusing a finderless Leica he found liberating rather than limiting, though of the three it was the later MD-2, not the scarcer MD, that he kept. single source, unconfirmed

History

The MD goes one step past the M1: not just no rangefinder, but no finder at all. The top plate is blank apart from the accessory shoe. It was made for the same customers as the Ic, If, Ig and M1 before it — laboratories, copy departments, the Visoflex mirror housing, anything where the camera is a film holder attached to an optical system that does its own looking — and it added one small convenience, a slot on the back for the card from the film carton, so an operator could tell what was loaded without opening anything.

Just over three thousand numbers were assigned across six blocks between 1964 and 1966. The Leica Wiki gives no production era line and no total for this model; the serial list is the only quantity on the page, and its footnotes admit that some of its batch figures were computed by comparing two lists rather than read from one. So 3,316 is a count of numbers, not a count of cameras, and the difference has mattered on every model in this catalog.

The page also carries a warning that reaches backwards through the literature. Cameras once counted as MDs — the Postkameras, built for a postal service — have been reassigned to the M3 following research by Pierre Jeandrain. Any MD production figure published before that reassignment is inflated by an unknown number of M3s, which is worth knowing before trusting an older reference on this camera.

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 MD — no finder, no rangefinder — Hannes Grobe, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,100 across 5 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $1,100–$2,000). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $1,100.

By day

Date	Median	Middle half	Listings
2026-09-11	$1,100	$1,100–$2,000	5
2026-09-06	$1,100	$1,100–$2,000	5

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Leica MD-a Box - Guter Zustand — €99.90 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD Bottomplate Chrome - zeer goed — €129.00 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD | Ernst Leitz GmbH | Analoge Kamera 60er — €550.00 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD camera body Hammertone painted — €899.00 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD camera body Hammertone painted — €899.00 · Arsenal Photo · likely MD
Leica MD Post 24x36mm w. 2.8/35 Summaron — €1,599.00 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD Post 24x36mm w. 2.8/35 Summaron — €1,599.00 · Arsenal Photo · likely MD
Leica MD Post camera 24x36 with Rare Post Version 3.5cm Summaron lens — €1,750.00 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD Post camera 24x36 with Rare Post Version 3.5cm Summaron lens — €1,750.00 · Arsenal Photo · likely MD
Leica MD chrome M camera with original base plate (NO RF) Mint/- — $969.00 · Classic Connection · likely MD
Leica MD camera body Hammertone painted — $1,146.04 · eBay · likely MD
LEICA MD SILVER CHROME LEICA FILM CAMERA WETZLAR — $1,148.68 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD Post 24x36mm w. 2.8/35 Summaron — $2,038.39 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD Post camera 24x36 with Rare Post Version 3.5cm Summaron lens — $2,230.89 · eBay · likely MD
Vintage Leica MD Slot base plate — A$299.00 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD — A$1,130.00 · The Camera Exchange · likely MD
Vintage RARE 1960s Leica MD 24x36mm Post Film Camera — CA$2,999.99 · eBay · likely MD
Leica MD camera body Hammertone painted — £846.20 · eBay · likely MD

eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.

Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.