Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 (I)
Leica · Leica R · 1975
Also known as: Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 I · Elmarit-R 19mm f2.8 I · Elmarit-R 19mm I · Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 first version · Elmarit-R 19mm f2.8 first version · Elmarit-R 19mm first version · Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 V1 · Elmarit-R 19mm f2.8 V1 · Elmarit-R 19mm 1st · Elmarit R 19mm 1st · Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 · Elmarit-R 19mm f2.8 · Elmarit-R 19mm f2,8 · Elmarit-R 19mm · Elmarit-R 19 mm · Elmarit-R 2.8/19 · Elmarit-R 2,8/19 · Elmarit-R 2.8/19mm · Elmarit-R 2,8/19mm · Elmarit-R 2,8/19 mm · Elmarit-R 1:2.8/19 · Elmarit-R 1:2,8/19 · Elmarit R 19mm f2.8 · Elmarit R 19mm f/2.8 · Elmarit R 19mm · Elmarit R 2.8/19 · Elmarit R 2,8/19 · 19mm f2.8 Elmarit-R · 19mm f/2.8 Elmarit-R · 19mm Elmarit-R · Leica R 19mm f2.8 Elmarit · Leica R 19mm Elmarit · Leica 19mm f2.8 Elmarit R · Leitz Elmarit-R 19mm · Leitz Canada Elmarit-R 19mm · Leica 11225 · Elmarit-R 11225 · ライカ エルマリートR 19mm F2.8 前期 · ELMARIT-R 19mm F2.8
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leicaflex cams only, before the R3 (11225) | Leica R, 2-cam (Leicaflex SL and SL2; R bodies only after Leitz fits the R-cam) | 1975–1976 | — | — |
| Leicaflex cams plus R-cam (11225) | Leica R, 3-cam (Leicaflex SL, SL2 and every R body; Leitz does not name the original Leicaflex) | 1976–1990 | — | — |
| Converted to ROM by Leica service | Leica R, ROM (R3 and later; not the Leicaflex bodies) | — | — | — |
- Specification from Leitz: the 1978 General Catalogue and the December 1989 handbook agree on 95.7°, nine elements in seven components, the M 82 × 0.75 internal thread, f/16, 0.3 m, a smallest field of 261 × 392 mm (about 1:10), 60 mm from the flange, 88 mm across and 0.500 kg. The 1989 handbook adds 'We advise against the use of filters', and that on R bodies in shutter priority or program mode the finder symbols may keep flashing at f/16, so it recommends aperture priority or manual.
- Close focus: Leitz's 1975 catalogue, the earliest found, gives 0.5 m and a smallest field of 468 × 702 mm, and English Wikipedia's table follows it with 0.5 m. The 1978 and 1989 catalogues give 0.3 m, as do shige-art and Apotelyt. Leica Store Munich's photographs of no. 2769246, dated 1976, show a distance scale whose last visible marks are 0.5 m and 20 in, more widely spaced than the scale on the 1978 Milan lens, so the early lenses seem to have focused only to 0.5 m; when the change came, and whether early lenses were later modified, is not known.
- Weight: 0.500 kg in all three Leitz catalogues and in English Wikipedia. Apotelyt gives 590 g and shige-art's table 815 g; neither says how the figure was obtained.
- Six diaphragm blades and a 58 mm length are shige-art's figures, not Leitz's; Leitz gives 60 mm from the flange.
- Dates: Erwin Puts writes that Leitz introduced the lens in 1975 and that the 19mm was completely redesigned in 1991. English Wikipedia gives 1975–1990; shige-art's table gives 1975–1987. Leica's December 1989 handbook still catalogues the 11225, so the lens was still on sale after 1987.
- Production: 8,200 lenses, the Leica Wiki's figure as shige-art reports it. No figure split by cam generation has been published.
- Cam generations: shige-art writes that the lens was made in 1-cam, 2-cam and 3-cam versions. A 1-cam version is unlikely for a lens launched in 1975, seven years after the SL brought in the second cam, and no Leitz document or photographed example supports it, so it is not a variant here. Leitz's 1978 catalogue offered to fit the R-cam to existing Leicaflex lenses, so a 3-cam lens with an early serial may be a converted 2-cam one; the two look alike.
- Body fit. Leitz's 1975 catalogue lists the lens for the Leicaflex SL2 and SL without the 'only for the LEICAFLEX SL 2' it puts on the Fisheye 16 and the 24mm; the 1978 catalogue gives that restriction to those two lenses only, and the 1989 handbook heads the 19mm 'LEICAFLEX SL / SL 2'. Doug Herr, quoted by Photoethnography, lists the second version among the lenses that clear the mirror only from the SL2 on, and says the first version is fine. Against this, camera-wiki and English Wikipedia, as quoted on this site's Leicaflex SL2 page, name the 19mm among the lenses the SL2's new mirror was made for; Leitz's own catalogues are followed here. No Leitz document consulted names the original Leicaflex for this lens. A 2-cam or 3-cam lens carries the first cam that body reads, and Herr, who says this first version is fine on the Leicaflex and SL, puts it outside his mirror warning, so it is listed as related, without a Leitz statement that it works.
- Market prices seen in November 2026, dealer asking prices for used lenses, not list prices: Leica Store Milano €1,950 including VAT under the margin scheme for no. 2955468, graded B-, with coating loss on the front element, cap and hood; Leica Store Munich €1,750, on the same terms, for no. 2769246, graded A/B (its description calls it a Fisheye-Elmarit with an integrated hood, which it is not). No period list price in DM or dollars was found; Leitz's 1975, 1978 and 1989 catalogues print none.
How to tell them apart
- Squat black barrel, 60 mm long from the flange and 88 mm across, with a very large, deeply curved front element; the second version (1990/91) is slimmer at 71 mm and has a filter turret
- Internal M 82 × 0.75 thread at the front, and no built-in filters
- Separate round hood 12529, which locks on with a bayonet, and an 88 mm cap 14221
- Aperture ring from f/2.8 to f/16 with half-stop clicks; the second version stops down to f/22
- LEITZ CANADA on the front ring; the second version is engraved LEICA and made in Germany
- The mount generation is read at the back: two sloped cams alone (2-cam), two sloped cams and the stepped R-cam (3-cam), or the R-cam with gold contacts (converted to ROM)
Leicaflex cams only, before the R3 (11225):
- Seen from the back, two sloped cams on the mount ring and no stepped R-cam below them
- LEITZ CANADA and ELMARIT-R 1:2.8/19 on the front ring, as on the later lenses
- A serial from the first year or so of production; the Leica Store Munich example, no. 2769246, is dated 1976, but its photographs do not show the mount; its distance scale ends, as far as they show, at 0.5 m and 20 in
Leicaflex cams plus R-cam (11225):
- Seen from the back, two sloped cams on the mount ring and the stepped R-cam, and no gold contacts
- LEITZ CANADA, the serial, ELMARIT-R and 1:2.8/19 on the front ring; LENS MADE IN CANADA on the barrel
- Examples: no. 2955468 (1978, Leica Store Milano) and a lens in the 3,240,000 range (1982, Flashback Camera, sold as 3-cam)
Converted to ROM by Leica service:
- A row of gold contacts at the back of the mount beside the stepped R-cam, on a lens engraved LEITZ CANADA with the large 88 mm front
- No sloped Leicaflex cams: Leica removed them when it fitted the contacts
- Leicaflex cams only, before the R3 (11225): The lens as launched. Leitz's General Catalogue of 1 January 1975 lists the Elmarit-R f/2.8 19mm, code 11225, among the lenses for the Leicaflex SL2 and SL, and marks the Fisheye 16 and the Elmarit-R 24 "only for the LEICAFLEX SL 2" but not the 19mm. The stepped R-cam arrived with the R3 in 1976, and English Wikipedia, citing Brian Bower, says 2-cam lenses were made until 1976, so the first 19mm lenses had the two Leicaflex cams alone. No example photographed from the back has been found; the variant rests on the catalogue. The same 1975 catalogue gives a closest focus of 0.5 m, where the 1978 and 1989 catalogues give 0.3 m, and the 1976 Munich lens has a distance scale whose last visible marks are 0.5 m and 20 in (see the notes under the table). Leitz's 1978 catalogue offered to fit the extra cam to existing Leicaflex lenses for the R3, so a 2-cam lens may since have become a 3-cam one.
- Leicaflex cams plus R-cam (11225): The lens of Leitz's 1978 and 1989 catalogues, still code 11225, with lens hood, cap and rear cover. The 1978 catalogue gives 95.7°, nine elements in seven components, the M 82 × 0.75 internal thread, f/16, 0.3 m, a smallest field of 261 × 392 mm, a non-rotating focusing mount, black finish, a lockable hood, an 88 mm cap, 60 mm from the flange, 88 mm across and 0.500 kg. Leica Store Milano's photographs of no. 2955468 show the mount with two sloped cams and the stepped R-cam, LEITZ CANADA on the front ring and LENS MADE IN CANADA on the barrel. Flashback Camera describes its 1982 lens as 3-cam and made by Leitz Canada. The December 1989 handbook heads the lens "for LEICA R models (preferably with aperture priority and manual mode), LEICAFLEX SL / SL 2 models". On an R8 or R9 it meters at full aperture but gives the body no focal length.
- Converted to ROM by Leica service: Leica's 2000/2001 handbook lists the 11225 in its ROM modification table as "possible", alongside the second version's 11258. Its conversion page says that any Leicaflex control cams must be removed before the contacts are fitted, and that a lens given Leicaflex cams can no longer use the contacts; its R8 and R6.2 pages say that Leicaflex lenses without the R-cam must not be mounted on those bodies. Shige-art says he has never seen a converted first-version 19mm on the used market, and none was found for this page; the variant rests on Leica's table alone.
Serial-range notes
- the seven-digit number on the front ring
- Leitz numbered all its lenses in one running sequence, allotted in blocks, so a number dates a lens only roughly and only against the blocks for this model. Dealer examples run from no. 2769246, which Leica Store Munich dates to 1976, through no. 2955468 (1978, Leica Store Milano) to the 3,240,000 range (1982, Flashback Camera). No serial block table for this lens is cited here.
Specifications
- Formula
- Retrofocus ultra-wide-angle, nine elements in seven components (Leitz 1978, 1989)
- Construction
- 9 elements / 7 groups
- Aperture range
- f/2.8–f/16
- Diaphragm blades
- 6
- Min. focus
- 0.3 m
- Dimensions
- 88 × 60 mm
- Weight
- 500 g
- Filter
- 82 mm (0.75 mm pitch), Internal thread M 82 × 0.75; Leitz advised against using filters (1989 handbook)
- Years manufactured
- 1975–1990
- Country
- Canada ('LEITZ CANADA' on the front ring and 'LENS MADE IN CANADA' on the barrel of the lenses photographed; a Midland design, Puts)
- Material
- Black finish (Leitz 1975, 1978, 1989)
What reviewers say
- shige-art (Shige's hobby) (blog) — Shooting a sample with some balsam separation on an R8 with the Digital-Modul-R and on the SL (Typ 601), shige-art finds barrel distortion conspicuous on straight lines, smeared edges wide open that improve stopped down, and little vignetting even on full frame; against the light his copy flared and ghosted badly. He calls it a lens for landscapes and for people who enjoy an old design's quirks, not one to match modern ultra-wides, at a price the Leica name keeps high.
- Erwin Puts (blog) — In a chapter mainly about its successor, Puts calls the first 19mm a Midland design with quite good specifications, but with 4% distortion, rather high, and prone to flare from its very large front element; it was a full stop faster than the Super-Angulon-R 21mm f/4. He adds that the old lens at f/5.6 was only as good as the redesigned one wide open.
History
The first Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 came after a decade in which, as Erwin Puts notes, the major Japanese makers had brought out lenses from 17 to 25mm while most German firms offered none. Puts writes that Leitz introduced it in 1975 and that it was a Midland design, and every lens photographed for this page is engraved LEITZ CANADA. At f/2.8 it was, in Puts’s words, an improvement on the Super-Angulon-R 21mm f/4 and a full stop faster. Leitz sold it under one order number, 11225, from the Leicaflex SL2 years until the end of the 1980s, when the redesigned second version, made in Germany, replaced it. Puts dates the redesign to 1991.
It looks nothing like its successor. The barrel is short and wide, 60 mm from the flange and 88 mm across, and the front element is very large and strongly curved. There is no filter turret: Leitz cut an 82 mm thread inside the front and then, in its 1989 handbook, advised against using filters at all. The hood, 12529, is a separate round shade with a locking bayonet, and the aperture stops at f/16. Leitz gives nine elements in seven groups and 500 g. The 1975 catalogue gives a closest focus of 0.5 m, and the 1976 lens at Leica Store Munich has a scale that ends, as far as the photographs show, at 0.5 m; from 1978 Leitz gives 0.3 m. Puts calls the specification quite good but the distortion, at 4%, a bit high, and says the lens was prone to flare. Shige-art, using one on the Digital-Modul-R and on a mirrorless SL, finds barrel distortion visible on straight lines and soft edges wide open, but little vignetting.
The versions differ only at the back of the mount. Lenses sold in 1975 and 1976, before the R3, carried the two sloped Leicaflex cams. Leitz’s 1975 catalogue lists the 19mm for the SL and SL2, and English Wikipedia, after Brian Bower, says 2-cam lenses were made until 1976. From the R3 on, the stepped R-cam was added beneath them: the Milan example, no. 2955468 of 1978, shows all three. Leitz also fitted the R-cam to older lenses, so an early serial with three cams proves nothing either way. Leica’s 2000/2001 handbook lists the 11225 as convertible to ROM, which removes the Leicaflex cams. Shige-art has never seen a converted one, and neither has this page. Shige-art also reports a 1-cam version, but nothing in Leitz’s documents supports one for a lens of 1975.
On bodies, Leitz is clearer than the secondary sources. Its 1975 catalogue marks the Fisheye 16 and the Elmarit-R 24 “only for the LEICAFLEX SL 2” but not the 19mm, and its 1989 handbook heads the 19mm for the R models and the Leicaflex SL and SL2. Doug Herr, quoted by Photoethnography, says this first version is safe on the Leicaflex and SL, unlike the second. Camera-wiki and English Wikipedia, as cited on this site’s SL2 page, say the 19mm needed the SL2’s new mirror. No Leitz document consulted mentions the original Leicaflex for this lens. On an R body in shutter priority or program mode, the 1989 handbook warns that the finder symbols may keep flashing at f/16 and recommends aperture priority or manual. On an R8 or R9 a 3-cam lens meters normally but passes no focal length.
When buying, look first at the front element: it is big, exposed and easily marked, and the Milan lens had lost some of its coating. Shige-art’s copy had balsam separation between cemented elements, which brought on flare and ghosting against the light. Check the back of the mount for the cams your body needs, and get the 12529 hood if you can, since with no filter in front it is the element’s main protection; Leica Store Munich makes the same point. About 8,200 lenses were made, the Leica Wiki’s figure as shige-art reports it, and shige-art finds it relatively uncommon on the used market. In November 2026 Leica’s own used-equipment stores were asking €1,750 and €1,950, VAT included, for two examples. No period list price has been found.
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
More sample photos elsewhere
- Leica Store Milano (Leica Camera Classic): photographs of no. 2955468, including the back of the mount, the LEITZ CANADA front ring and hood
- Leica Store Munich (Leica Camera Classic): photographs of no. 2769246 (1976) with hood 12529
- Flashback Camera: photographs of a 3-cam lens of 1982
- shige-art: sample photographs on the Leica R8 with Digital-Modul-R and the SL (Typ 601)
These photographers keep all rights to their work — enjoy it at the source.
Sample photo wanted — shot with a Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 (I)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).
Live listings
Asking price, USD: a median of $2,200 across 13 fixed-price listings on 2026-11-09 (middle half $1,500–$2,600). First day tracked.
Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.
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- Faulty Leica R 19mm F2.8 Elmarit Lens - 2cam - 11225 - Fungus
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- Leica Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 3-cam Leitz R Mount Lens
- [Exc+5] Leica Leitz Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 3-Cam Canada R Mount Wide Angle Lens JP
- Leica Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 3-Cam Leitz Canada R Mount Wide レンズ
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- Leica Elmarit-R 2.8/19 11225 + Very Good (287734)
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- Leitz ELMARIT-R 1 : 2.8 / 19 mm Leitz Canada
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- LEITZ LEICA ELMARIT-R 19mm 1:2,8 2,8/19 3-cam für SL/SL2 R3-R7(R8/9) + 12529
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- LEITZ CANADA ELMARIT-R 19mm F/2.8 THREE CAM LENS
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Show 19 more listings
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- LEITZ Leica Elmarit-R 19mm/F2.8 Ver.I V1 Lens Yr.1975 Canada #10194
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- Leica Elmarit-R 2.8/19 11225 + Very Good (253698)
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- LEITZ LEICA ELMARIT-R 19mm 1:2,8 2,8/19 3-cam für SL/SL2 R3-R7(R8/9) TOP + 12529
- Leica R 2.8/19mm Elmarit-R near mint condition boxed 11225 3-CAM
- Leica Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 Ver.2 3-CAM
- Leica R 2.8/19mm Elmarit-R near mint condition boxed 11225 3-CAM
- Leica Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 3-Cam Leitz Canada R Mount Wide Angle レンズ
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Listings updated 2026-11-09. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.