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

Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 (v4, 1993)

Leica · Leica M · 1992 · Eight elements in seven groups

Also known as: Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 v4 · Elmarit 28 fourth version · Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 (fourth version) · Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 (fourth version) · Elmarit 28 v4 · Elmarit 28mm v4

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Without 6-bit coding Leica M 1992–2006 3585865–3586379 and 3608370–3608929 (1992) — 515 and 560 numbers
3617890–3617894 (1993) — five numbers
3633901–3634900 (1993)
3662831–3663830 and 3671031–3672030 (1994)
3708803–3709802 (1995)
3743089–3744088 and 3768220–3769219 (1996)
3793010–3794009 (1997)
3847500–3848499 (1998)
3895051–3896050 (2000)
3979539–3979588 (2004) — 50 numbers, the last block published 		The earlier part of 10,130 lenses
With 6-bit coding Leica M 2006–2006 No serial block has been published for the coded lenses. Every block on the Leica Wiki page is dated 2004 or earlier, and 6-bit coding did not exist until 2006. No separate figure published
  1. The lens carries Leica order number 11809, and the 6-bit pattern machined into late examples is 011011 — the code a digital M reads to apply this lens's correction profile (Leica Lens List).
  2. The thirteen serial blocks total exactly 10,130, matching the figure at the head of the Leica Wiki page, but their dates run only 1992 to 2004 against a production era of 1992–2006. The count is closed and the chronology is not: two of the fourteen years, and the whole of the coded period, have no assigned numbers published.
  3. Buyers number the 28mm f/2.8 Elmarits v1 to v6: v1 of 1965 (nine elements, the Wetzlar and Canada lens), v2 of 1972, v3 of 1979, v4 of 1993, v5 the ASPH of 2006, and v6 the ASPH II of 2016, a new optical design not yet on these pages. This entry uses that numbering; the other pages carry the rest.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • E46 filter thread — different again from the E39 of the third version
  • A clip-on, lockable hood rather than a screw-in one
  • True focal length 28.2mm, and an entrance pupil 15.2mm behind the front surface

Without 6-bit coding:

  • A plain bayonet flange

With 6-bit coding:

  • Six black and white marks machined into the bayonet flange

Serial-range notes

3585865–3979588
THE RULE. Leica never numbered a model from one, and never put a date inside the number. Serials were assigned in blocks drawn from a single running sequence shared by every lens the company made, so a number dates a copy only against the block list for its own model. Thirteen blocks cover this lens between 3585865 and 3979588, and they add up to exactly the 10,130 printed at the head of the page. Find the number in the SN Start / SN End table on the Leica Wiki page for the fourth version and read the year off its row; a number between the blocks belongs to some other Leica lens.
3585865–3586379, 3608370–3608929
1992, the first year: 515 and 560 numbers, neither of them a round figure. The fourth version begins where the third leaves off — the third version's last block ends at 3576533, nine thousand numbers earlier.
3617890–3617894
Five numbers, dated 1993. It is the smallest block in this entry's family and one of the smallest anywhere in the Leitz lens tables; the wiki offers no explanation for it.
3895051–3896050, 3979539–3979588
2000 and 2004 — the last two blocks, 1,000 numbers and then 50. Nothing is listed for 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005 or 2006, so the final six years of a fourteen-year production era are covered by one block of fifty numbers.
above 3979588
THE LIMIT OF THE SCHEME, and it lands exactly where this lens gets interesting. The coded variant dates from 2006; the last block the wiki publishes is dated 2004. No serial boundary for 6-bit coding has been published, so a coded example cannot be dated from its number, and the flange has to be read instead — which is the same six marks that make the variant. On this lens the bayonet is better evidence than the serial.
3847500–3848499
The 1998 block, and worth knowing about because of what abuts it. The next number, 3848500, opens the block that the Leica Wiki's 21mm and 24mm ASPH pages both claim and footnote incompatibly, one of them identifying lens no. 3848529 as a 28mm f/2.8 ASPH Elmarit-M — a model the same wiki dates from 2006 and which therefore cannot hold a 1998 number. What can be said without guessing is that a 28mm Elmarit-M block does end thirty numbers below 3848529, and that it is the fourth version, not the aspherical one.

Specifications

Formula
Eight elements in seven groups
Construction
8 elements / 7 groups
Aperture range
f/2.8–f/22
Diaphragm blades
8
Min. focus
0.7 m
Dimensions
53 × 41.4 mm
Filter
46 mm
Years manufactured
1992–2006
Country
Germany
Material
Black anodised aluminium

What reviewers say

History

The fourth Elmarit 28 ran for fourteen years and finished in a different era from the one it started in. Eight elements in seven groups, an E46 filter thread, a clip-on lockable hood in place of the screw-in type, and a specification sheet that has stopped talking about which cameras it fouls — by 1992 that was a solved problem.

What makes it interesting now is that it exists in two forms separated only by six marks on the bayonet flange. Late examples carry 6-bit coding, a pattern of black and white notches that a digital M reads to identify the lens and correct for vignetting and colour shift at the sensor edges. Earlier examples do not. On a film M the coding does nothing whatever — the camera cannot read it and would not use it — so the same lens is either a plain manual optic or a lens that talks to a computer, depending only on which side of 2006 it was made.

10,130 were built, the smallest run of the four spherical versions, because the aspherical Elmarit-M was already on sale alongside it from 1993 and took the volume.

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.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 (v4, 1993)
Konzerthaus Freiburg — shot on a 28mm f/2.8 Elmarit, version not stated (Mondo79) — Mondo79, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 (v4, 1993)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,200 across 26 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $980–$1,400). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $1,200.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$1,200$980–$1,40026
2026-09-06$1,200$980–$1,40021

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: Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 ASPH (v5, 2006) · Elmarit 28mm f/2.8 (v1, 1965) · Elmarit 28mm f/2.8 (v2, 1972) · Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 (v3, 1979)

Sources (6)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, 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.