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

Leicaflex SL

Leica · Leica R mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 1968

our own finding

Also known as: Leicaflex SL · Leica Leicaflex SL · Leitz Leicaflex SL · Leica Flex SL · Leicaflex SL MOT · Leicaflex SL-MOT · Leicaflex SLMOT · Leicaflex SL Olympia · Leicaflex SL Olympic · ライカフレックスSL

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Chrome Leica R 1968–1974 — Not split from the black bodies in the factory list. The Leica Wiki labels the first block, 1173001–1173250, "chrom"; most later blocks carry no finish.
Black paint Leica R 1968 — No count published. The Leica Wiki labels whole blocks "black", among them 1195001–1205000 (assigned 30 July 1968) and 1235001–1245000 (29 May 1969), but those labels cannot mean every camera in a 10,000-number block was black.
Black chrome Leica R — — No count published
Olympia 1972 Leica R 1972–1972 — 1,000 numbered cameras, 001 to 1000 (Rolf Fricke for Leica Society International; camera-wiki); 1,200 in English Wikipedia. Fricke says 200 of them were reserved for the United States.
US Navy Leica R 1970 — No figure published; Leitz Auction calls it 'a small, official batch'
SL MOT Leica R 1969–1974 1336991–1337110; 1338221–1338300; 1339871–1339900; 1341451–1341470 (1972)
1342021–1342050; 1342901–1343000; 1344401–1344500; 1365381–1365470; 1366991–1367090; 1367951–1368020; 1368851–1368900; 1372441–1372630 (1973) 		980 numbers in the twelve dedicated blocks of Leica's list (Gandy; camera-wiki). 1,080 made in 1972–74 according to the Leica Wiki and Leitz Auction, about 1,000 according to Apotelyt. Earlier MOT bodies sit inside ordinary SL blocks, so the dedicated blocks are a floor, not a total.
  1. Price comparisons, none from a period price list. Rolf Fricke, then at Kodak, recalls the SL's US list price as $645.00 against $38.00 for the Kodak Instamatic X30 when the Olympic cameras were impounded in 1972; whether the figure includes a lens he does not say. Leicaphilia puts the SL at "over $600", sold at a loss, against $400 for a Nikon F with metered prism. No launch list in DM or US dollars has been found.
  2. A black paint SL, 1275849 of 1971, in an original Leitz dealer presentation outfit with red-scale Elmarit-R 35mm, Summicron-R 50mm, Elmarit-R 90mm and Elmarit-R 135mm lenses in a leather case, made €24,000 including buyer's premium as lot 225 of Leitz Auction 46, against a €6,000–7,000 estimate. Ordinary bodies sell for a small fraction of that: a chrome SL with a 2-cam Summicron-R, boxed, made €420 and a black paint body €384, both including premium.
  3. Leitz Auction 46, lot 221, sold a black chrome SL with no serial number, the Dutch crown and a C engraved on the top plate for Prince Claus of the Netherlands, for €4,560 including buyer's premium. The catalogue cites a similar camera in Lager's Leica Illustrated Guide, vol. I, p. 273.
  4. Camera-wiki notes a display dummy (Attrappe) with a dummy 50mm Summicron and no serial number, made for dealers. It is not a working camera.
  5. The Leica Wiki lists the market value as about €330 in 2015; Casual Photophile's reviewer paid a dealer C$1,000 for a body, with a worn Summicron thrown in, in about 2001 (he is not certain of the date), and saw SLs at about $150 on eBay fewer than ten years later.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • SL on a plate on the front of the prism housing; the Leicaflex Standard has a meter window there instead
  • Depth-of-field preview lever on the front, where the Standard has mirror lock-up
  • Black shutter-speed dial; battery cover in the base plate
  • No hot shoe, no aperture readout in the finder and no second battery compartment on the front: camera-wiki lists all three among the SL2's changes
  • Leitz Wetzlar script on the front of the top plate

Chrome:

  • SL engraved on a plate on the front of the prism housing, where the Leicaflex Standard has its meter window and battery cover
  • Black shutter-speed dial (the Standard's is chrome) and a depth-of-field preview lever on the front
  • LEICAFLEX on the front of the top plate and the Leitz Wetzlar script beside the rewind
  • Order no. 10001 on the Leica Wiki and Apotelyt; Kamerastore lists the silver SL as 10011

Black paint:

  • Black enamel; Leitz Auction and most dealers describe these bodies as black paint
  • Order no. 10012 for a black SL (Leica Wiki; Apotelyt), not separated by finish

Black chrome:

  • Black chrome plating rather than enamel; no published serial range separates it, so the finish has to be named by the seller or seen on the body

Olympia 1972:

  • The five Olympic rings, '72' and a three-digit edition number engraved on the prism housing, above the SL plate
  • The edition number is separate from the body serial: no. 615 is body 1335986
  • Chrome; a few black bodies exist (no. 461, body 1365559)

US Navy:

  • NAVY engraved beside the serial number on the base plate
  • Black enamel or black chrome (camera-wiki)

SL MOT:

  • SL MOT on the prism-housing plate, as on the black body in the 1968 booklet; Apotelyt and the Leica Wiki put the MOT engraving on the pentaprism housing, English Wikipedia on the top plate
  • Drive coupling, contacts and controls on the outside of the base plate, so the motor goes on without removing it
  • No self-timer lever, and no meter switch in the advance lever
  • Mostly black (enamel, later black chrome); a few chrome

Serial-range notes

1173001–1173250; 1174701–1175000; 1195001–1205000; 1215001–1225000
1968: 20,550 numbers, the first two blocks assigned 21 May 1968 and the two large ones 30 July 1968 (Gandy).
1235001–1245000
1969: 10,000 numbers, assigned 29 May 1969. The pre-series MOT 1235668 and the Navy camera 1244503 both fall inside it.
1255001–1265000; 1275001–1285000
1970: 20,000 numbers, assigned 14 January and 12 October 1970. MOT 1263885 and the black dealer outfit's 1275849 fall inside them.
1295001–1296500; 1335001–1336990
1971: 3,490 numbers, assigned 2 April and 16 November 1971. The Leica Wiki labels the second block "olympia+mot-black"; the chrome Olympic no. 615 is body 1335986.
1337111–1338220; 1338301–1339870; 1339901–1341450
1972: 4,230 numbers, assigned 18 April, 21 July and 19 October 1972, interleaved with the first MOT blocks.
1341471–1342020; 1342051–1342900; 1343001–1344400; 1344501–1345000; 1365001–1365380; 1365471–1366990; 1367091–1367950; 1368021–1368850; 1368901–1369800; 1369876–1372440
1973: 10,355 numbers, assigned 15 January to 23 October 1973. Gandy prints the first block as "1342020–1342020, 550"; the Leica Wiki gives it as 1341471–1342020, which is 550 numbers and fills the gap between two MOT blocks. The black Olympic no. 461, body 1365559, sits in a block assigned on 6 April 1973, though Leitz Auction gives it a 1972 manufacture year. The last block, 1369876–1372440, was assigned on 23 October 1973, the same day as the 75-number "SL2 0 Series", 1369801–1369875, which sits between it and the SL block 1368901–1369800.
1372631–1374000
1974: the last SL block, assigned 16 January 1974. Gandy prints its size as 2,370, but the range as printed holds 1,370 numbers. 2,370 is the size of 1372631–1375000, and the Leica Wiki carries 1374001–1375000 as a further SL block from a second serial list, which is where the "about 1375000" end figure comes from.
1386001–1386100; 1393465–1393469; 418700
Entries the Leica Wiki adds to the SL table that are probably not SLs. 1386001–1386100 (from Puts) sits inside 1385001–1386100, the first SL2 production block; Leitz Auction catalogues 1393465 as an SL2 MOT '50 Jahre' of 1975, one of two known with 1393469; 418700, which the Leica Wiki labels a chrome '50 yr' camera of 1975, is a lone number far outside every SL block.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film
Finder
Fixed pentaprism; full-focusing screen with a central microprism spot and a fine-ground field, shutter-speed scale and meter needle in the finder
Shutter
horizontal-travel rubberised cloth focal plane, mechanically timed · 1 s – 1/2000 and B; intermediate settings usable except between 1/4 and 1/8 and between 1/30 and 1/60 · flash sync 1/100 (electronic flash), cable contact only · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever, which also switches the meter on and off (except on the MOT)
Back
hinged
Meter
CdS, through the lens at full aperture, reading only the central microprism spot: "approximately 1/6 of their angle of view" with every lens (the SL booklet), a 5% area of the field (English Wikipedia). Light passes a semi-silvered patch in the main mirror to a secondary mirror and a cell in the floor of the mirror box (Apotelyt). Match-needle; ASA 8–6400; one PX625 mercury cell in the base plate.
Motor drive
Leicaflex Motor (14077) — SL MOT bodies only; the ordinary SL has no drive coupling.
Designed by
Heinrich Broschke — credited by the Leica Wiki, with the date 5 October 1966 · Werner Holle — credited by the Leica Wiki, with the date 5 October 1966 · Werner Wiessner — credited by the Leica Wiki, with the date 5 October 1966
Weight
770 g
Dimensions
148 × 97 × 57 mm
Country
Germany (Wetzlar)
Accessories
Leicaflex Motor, order no. 14077, for the SL MOT and SL2 MOT · Adapter 14127 for Visoflex-mount Leica lenses, metering at working aperture · Televit-R rapid-focusing mount for the 400mm and 560mm Telyt · Focusing bellows with the 100mm Macro-Elmar f/4 · Locking cable release 14067; slip-on eyepiece correction lenses

Apotelyt describes the outer field as fine microprisms and says the screen can be exchanged for a plain matte one; the SL booklet calls it "finely ground". No diopter adjustment: Leitz offered slip-on correction lenses.

Figures we worked out rather than found: The year totals in the serial notes are sums of Gandy's batch column; they add to his 70,995 exactly. · The 980 SL MOT figure is the sum of the twelve dedicated blocks, which this page recomputed from Gandy's list.

Where sources disagree

Production
  • 70,995 SL numbers plus 980 SL MOT (Gandy's batch column; camera-wiki)
  • 69,995 SL numbers if the 1974 block is read as printed, 1372631–1374000
  • 74,818 for 1968–1975, SL and MOT together (Leica Wiki)
  • about 75,000 (Apotelyt); over 70,000 including the MOT (English Wikipedia)

Better supported: 70,995 SL and 980 SL MOT numbers allotted

The Leica Wiki's 74,818 is Gandy's 71,975 SL and MOT numbers, plus 1,740 of the 1369876–1372440 block counted a second time, plus 1,103 numbers from other lists (see the serial notes), several of them SL2s. Every figure is numbers allotted, not cameras finished.

Production
  • 980 (the dedicated blocks in Gandy's list; camera-wiki)
  • 1,080 made in 1972–74 (Leica Wiki; Leitz Auction)
  • about 1,000 (Apotelyt)

Better supported: 980 in dedicated blocks, with more inside SL blocks

Production
  • 1,000, numbered 001–1000 (Fricke; camera-wiki)
  • 1,200 (English Wikipedia)

Better supported: 1,000

Fricke, who helped get the impounded US batch released, gives 1,000 and numbers running 001 to 1000; camera-wiki follows him.

Meter
  • about 1/6 of the angle of view (SL instruction booklet)
  • a 5% area of the subject field (English Wikipedia)

Possibly the same spot measured across and by area; neither source says which it means.

Dimensions (mm)
  • 148 × 97 × 57 (Apotelyt)
  • 148 × 97 × 50 (English Wikipedia)
Order number
  • 10001 chrome, 10012 black (Leica Wiki; Apotelyt citing it)
  • 10011 silver (Kamerastore)

What reviewers say

History

The Leicaflex SL is the second Leitz reflex and the one that fixed the first. The original Leicaflex of 1964 read the light through a window in the front of the prism, not through the lens, and its screen focused only in the centre. The SL, whose first serial block Stephen Gandy’s list of Leica’s factory serial data, published on CameraQuest, dates to 21 May 1968, put a CdS cell behind a semi-silvered patch in the mirror and gave it a full-focusing screen. The meter reads only the central microprism spot, about a sixth of the angle of view according to the instruction booklet, and Leitz called this “selective light”. It works at full aperture, as Nikon’s did and Pentax’s at the time did not. The SL was made in Wetzlar by Ernst Leitz, and it owes nothing to Minolta: Leitz’s co-operation with Minolta, which English Wikipedia dates to 1971 and camera-wiki to an agreement of 1972, began while the SL was in production, but its first reflex was the R3 of 1976, and camera-wiki calls the SL2 that followed the SL the last Leica SLR without Minolta influence until the R8.

Full-aperture metering is why the R lens has more than one cam. An SL needs a lens with the second cam, added to the range in 1968, to meter wide open. A 1-cam lens made for the original Leicaflex mounts and meters only stopped down, with the depth-of-field preview held in; the booklet recommends having Leitz fit the second cam instead. On the SL the first cam does nothing; it drives the SL2’s aperture readout. A 3-cam lens keeps both earlier cams and meters at full aperture on the SL. R-only lenses, which have only the stepped R cam, have a deliberately altered mount and will not go on an SL at all. Nor can ROM lenses, which carry the R cam and contacts, be used on any Leicaflex, Apotelyt says, unless the contacts are taken out and Leicaflex cams refitted. English Wikipedia adds that converting a lens to ROM removes its sloped cams, and Leica’s R9 instructions say a lens so converted can then be used only on R bodies from the R3. A Leitz adapter, 14127, takes the Visoflex lenses of the M system with metering at working aperture. The SL also lost the Standard’s mirror lock-up in exchange for a depth-of-field preview. That made the old 21mm f/3.4 Super-Angulon unusable, and Apotelyt lists several later lenses that should not be mounted because their rear elements reach the mirror: the 16mm Fisheye, the 24mm Elmarit-R, the 35mm and 50mm Summilux-R and the 80–200mm f/4.5 Vario-Elmar.

The shutter is the Standard’s: horizontal rubberised cloth, 1 s to 1/2000 and B, flash at 1/100, settable between the marked speeds except in two gaps. The camera is big and heavy, about 770 g for the body. Fricke remembered its US list price as $645 in 1972, and Leicaphilia sets its “over $600” against $400 for a Nikon F with a metering prism. Gandy’s list allots 70,995 numbers to the SL between 1968 and January 1974, about twice the original Leicaflex’s and nearly three times the SL2’s, which replaced it in 1974. It is still the commonest Leicaflex.

The finishes are chrome, black enamel and, later, black chrome. The special versions are the Olympia of 1972, the US Navy cameras and the SL MOT. The Olympia was made for the Munich Games: 1,000 cameras on Fricke’s and camera-wiki’s count, with the rings, 72 and an edition number on the prism housing. Nearly all are chrome, and Leitz Auction has sold a black one made to special order. The Navy cameras have NAVY beside the serial on the base. The SL MOT has a drive coupling in the base for the Leicaflex Motor, and no self-timer or meter switch in the lever. It was in the 1968 booklet, and Leitz Auction has sold black pre-1972 MOT bodies, but its dedicated serial blocks, 980 numbers, run only from April 1972 to October 1973. Those earlier MOT bodies carry numbers from ordinary SL blocks, and the 1,080 that the Leica Wiki and Leitz Auction quote is not reconciled with the factory list.

Buying one, check the meter first. It was designed for the PX625 mercury cell and its constant 1.34 V, and Apotelyt points out that mercury cells are no longer made, so a body needs an adapter, a recalibration or an allowance for a modern cell. Apotelyt warns that screens yellow and prisms lose their silvering, and that Leica no longer services R bodies. The early red plastic lens-release button breaks easily, and Casual Photophile’s reviewer lost several rolls to a leader that slipped off the take-up spool. Check which cams a lens has before counting on the meter: a seller’s “Leica R” Summicron may be R-only and will not mount. Read the prism plate, too. SL2 is a different camera, and SL MOT is this one built for the motor, without a self-timer.

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

Leicaflex SL
Leicaflex SL, chrome, with a Summicron-R 50mm — Elmo Alves, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Leicaflex SL
Leicaflex SL Olympia 1972, no. 301, with the rings and number on the prism housing — Morio, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

More sample photos elsewhere

These photographers keep all rights to their work — enjoy it at the source.

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $150 across 5 fixed-price listings on 2026-11-10 (middle half $120–$500). Tracked since 2026-11-09, 2 days: unchanged from $150.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-11-10$150$120–$5005
2026-11-09$150$120–$5005

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

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

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

Related: Leicaflex · Leicaflex SL2

Lenses for this body: Angénieux Zoom 45-90mm f/2.8 · APO-Macro-Elmarit-R 100mm f/2.8 · APO-Telyt-R 180mm f/3.4 · APO-Telyt-R 280mm f/2.8 · Elcan-R 75mm f/2 (C-341) · Elmar-R 180mm f/4 · Elmarit-R 135mm f/2.8 (I) · Elmarit-R 135mm f/2.8 (II) · Elmarit-R 180mm f/2.8 (I) · Elmarit-R 180mm f/2.8 (II) · Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 (I) · Elmarit-R 28mm f/2.8 (I) · Elmarit-R 28mm f/2.8 (II) · Elmarit-R 35mm f/2.8 (I) · Elmarit-R 35mm f/2.8 (II) · Elmarit-R 35mm f/2.8 (III) · Elmarit-R 90mm f/2.8 (I) · Elmarit-R 90mm f/2.8 (II) · Macro-Elmar-R 100mm f/4 · Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm f/2.8 · MR-Telyt-R 500mm f/8 · PA-Curtagon-R 35mm f/4 · PC-Super-Angulon-R 28mm f/2.8 · Summicron-R 35mm f/2 (I) · Summicron-R 35mm f/2 (II) · Summicron-R 50mm f/2 (I) · Summicron-R 50mm f/2 (II) · Summicron-R 90mm f/2 · Summilux-R 50mm f/1.4 (I) · Summilux-R 80mm f/1.4 · Super-Angulon-R 21mm f/4 · Telyt-R 250mm f/4 (I) · Telyt-R 250mm f/4 (II) · Telyt-R 350mm f/4.8 · Telyt-R 400mm f/6.8 · Telyt-R 560mm f/6.8 · Telyt-S 800mm f/6.3 · Vario-Elmar-R 35-70mm f/3.5 · Vario-Elmar-R 70-210mm f/4 · Vario-Elmar-R 75-200mm f/4.5

Sources (16)

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.