Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Leica MDa

Ernst Leitz · Leica M mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film. The Postkamera versions shoot 24×36 or 24×27, the smaller frame fitting more exposures onto a roll for meter reading. · 1966

single source, unconfirmed our own finding

Also known as: Leica MDa · Leitz MDa · Leica Postkamera · ライカMDa

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Leica MDa Leica M 1966–1976 — The bulk of 14,892 assigned numbers
MDa mot (New York motor drive) Leica M 1966–1976 — No separate figure published
Panda Leica M 1966–1976 — No figure published
Blitzsperre (flash lock) Leica M 1972–1972 — 200 cameras, in two 1972 blocks of 98 and 102
Postkamera, 24×36 Leica M 1969–1975 — 125 cameras across two blocks (50 in 1969, 75 in 1971)
Postkamera, 24×27 Leica M 1968–1975 — About 217 cameras across five blocks, one of which the table prints twice
  1. 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 traces the line to Leitz's scientific and medical side, where a body was made to sit on a microscope.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • No finder of any kind, on an M4 body
  • The M4's rapid-loading spool, which the MD lacked

Leica MDa:

  • Blank top plate; accessory shoe only
  • M4 body, so the rapid-loading spool and angled rewind crank

MDa mot (New York motor drive):

  • Motor coupling for the New York-supplied drive

Panda:

  • Chrome top with black knobs

Blitzsperre (flash lock):

  • A flash lock preventing the shutter firing before the flash is ready

Postkamera, 24×36:

  • Fixed-focus Summaron 3.5cm f/2.8 permanently fitted

Postkamera, 24×27:

  • 24×27mm frame — narrower than full frame, so more exposures per roll

Serial-range notes

1185291–1185300
Ten Postkamera 24×27 cameras in 1968 — a row the Leica Wiki's table prints twice, identically, so any straight sum of the list counts these ten cameras as twenty.
1286761–1286822
61 Postkameras dated 3 December 1975, seven years after the first of them.
1286823–1287000
178 cameras whose year the table records only as a question mark.
1267101–1267500
A 400-camera block of Leica M4 mot (panda) printed inside the MDa's list, with camera 1267405 separately identified as an MDa mot panda.
1159001–1412550
27 rows, 1966–1976, totalling 14,892 assigned numbers — of which the Postkamera rows account for about 413 cameras in two frame sizes.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film. The Postkamera versions shoot 24×36 or 24×27, the smaller frame fitting more exposures onto a roll for meter reading.
Finder
None · no rangefinder image
Shutter
focal plane, rubberised cloth · 1s – 1/1000 and B
Country
Germany

Figures we worked out rather than found: The Postkamera rows total roughly 342 cameras in two frame sizes · 14,892 MDa numbers against 3,316 MD and 1,800 MD-2: the middle generation is larger than the other two combined by four times · The duplicated Postkamera row inflates any straight sum of the list by ten cameras

Where sources disagree

Total production
  • 14,892 assigned numbers, 1966–1976 (Leica Wiki serial list)
  • 14,882, once the duplicated ten-camera Postkamera row is counted once

Better supported: About 14,880 numbers, which is still not a count of cameras

The list also contains a 400-camera M4 block that is not MDa production, and one row of 178 cameras with no year at all.

What reviewers say

History

The MDa is the finderless Leica at its most successful: 14,892 numbers across a decade, against 3,316 for the MD before it and 1,800 for the MD-2 after. It sits on the M4 body, so it has the rapid-loading spool and the angled rewind crank the MD did without, and like every camera in this line it has nothing at all on top but an accessory shoe.

What it was actually used for is recorded in the serial list, and it is more interesting than the camera. Several hundred MDa bodies were built as Postkameras with a fixed-focus 35mm Summaron permanently attached, in two frame sizes — the ordinary 24×36 and a narrower 24×27 — and supplied to a postal service to photograph telephone meters. The smaller frame exists because it fits more exposures on a roll, and a meter reader working a route wants as many as possible before reloading. This is automated meter reading, in the 1970s, done with Leicas on brackets.

Other variants tell you about the work too. The Blitzsperre cameras, 200 of them in 1972, have a flash lock that prevents the shutter firing before the flash has recycled — a nuisance feature for a photographer, an essential one for an operator making hundreds of identical exposures who cannot check each frame.

Its serial list needs one correction. The block from 1185291 to 1185300 — ten Postkamera 24×27 cameras in 1968 — is printed twice, identically, so the stated total of 14,892 counts those ten cameras as twenty. Deduplicated, the list gives 14,882. It also contains a 400-camera block of M4 mot cameras that are not MDas at all, and one row of 178 cameras whose year the compilers marked with a question mark and left honest.

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 MDa
Leica MDa — Rama., via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0 fr)
Leica MDa
Leica MDa with the body cap — Rama, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0 fr)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,600 across 17 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $1,200–$1,700). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 3 days: unchanged from $1,600.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$1,600$1,200–$1,70017
2026-09-08$1,600$1,200–$1,70017
2026-09-06$1,600$1,200–$1,70017

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

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

Related: Leica MD · Leica MD-2 · Leica M4

Lenses for this body: Summaron 3.5cm f/2.8

Sources (3)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.