Leitz Elmar 5cm f3.5. A legendary vintage lens reviewed on digital cameras.

The Leitz Elmar 5cm f3.5 is one of the most iconic lenses in the history of photography. It was designed for Leica’s new compact 35mm cameras over 100 years ago. It needed to perform well – to provide sufficient resolution for photographers to make large prints from the relatively small 35mm film size.

This video briefly looks at the history of Leica’s early cameras, and then reviews what it's like to use the lens on today’s digital cameras and how it performs.

Here are links to the different sections:

00:00 Introduction
00:35 A brief history of early Leica cameras
01:50 A look at the lens and what it’s like to use
04:28 How the lens performs, stopped down, longer distance
06:20 How the lens performs close up, wide open
08:40 My conclusions

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