Leica 35 APO-Summicron-M: When M lenses learned to focus close

Newcomers to rangefinder photography are always surprised that M-mount lenses have a very long minimum focus distance, usually 70cm and sometimes 100cm. Most modern AF lenses will happily focus down to 30cm or less, yet with an M-mount lens, ancient or modern, you run out of road much earlier, viewing a subject you can’t bring any closer without abandoning the rangefinder entirely. Now, however, there is a solution: Leica’s close-focusing M lenses, but only in combination with an electronic viewfinder. After trying one you may wonder how you ever managed with that 70cm restriction — or even 100cm on older lenses and, even, the modern f/0.95 Noctilux.

It’s not oversight, it’s design. It’s a fact intrinsic to the M system since 1954, but it is something that Leica has spent the last few years quietly changing. The resulting close-focus lenses are outstanding, but they have attracted some mild controversy. Fortunately, for the doubters, there is now a camera built specifically for them: the M EV1.

In a way, Leica has been doing the unthinkable in producing lenses that focus down to as little as 30cm. The question is why, and why build in that capability if its full potential can’t be used on the very cameras M lenses were designed for, the rangefinder.

The 70cm barrier

The M rangefinder works by mechanical coupling. A cam on the back of the lens pushes against a roller inside the body as the focus ring turns, shifting the second image in the viewfinder until it aligns with the first. That mechanism, and the geometry of the rangefinder base length, becomes unmanageable at close distances, hence the restrictions on almost all M lenses. It isn’t limited by optics, rather a rangefinder imposition. Generations of photographers have learned to live with that restriction, and many actually prefer it.

One notable modern Leica lens goes the other way, however. The Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH, Leica’s fastest standard lens, sticks to a one-meter minimum focus distance, the old vintage-era norm rather than the more common 70cm. At f/0.95, depth of field is already wafer-thin even at a meter, so Leica evidently judged that pushing closer would strain both the optics and the rangefinder’s already delicate accuracy at wide apertures.

It’s a reminder that “close focus” and “wide aperture” don’t automatically go together on an M. Leica’s newer fast lenses, however, look at things differently.

Breaking the barrier

The turning point came with the APO-Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH, announced in 2022. For the first time in a current-production M lens, Leica built in a minimum focus distance of just 30cm, less than half the traditional limit. There might have been one exception: In a Macfilos article in early 2025, Jörg-Peter Rau mentioned that the Leica Tri-Elmar WATE from 2006 could focus down to 35cm.

Leica Rumors reported at the time of the 35 APO launch that Peter Karbe, Leica’s head of optics development, confirmed more such lenses were on the way. He added only that he had “already told you more than I should have said.”

Since then, Leica has quietly introduced four more close-focus optics, five in total. Close-focus looks like the M-thing of the future.

The close-focus lenses

Here’s how the new close-focus lenses stack up:

Lens	Year	RF limit	EV limit	Max magnification
APO-Summicron-M 35mm f/2 ASPH	2022	70cm	30cm	1:5.6 (0.18x)
Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH (close-focus)	2022	70cm	40cm	1:8.9 (0.11x)
Summicron-M 28mm f/2 ASPH III	2023	70cm	40cm	1:11.3 (0.09x)
Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 ASPH (close-focus)	2023	70cm	45cm	1:6.4 (0.16x)
Noctilux-M 35mm f/1.2 ASPH	2025	70cm	50cm	1:11.1 (0.09x)

Every one of these lenses still couples to the rangefinder to a limit of 70cm, as shown above. What changes is how much further the focus ring will turn beyond that point, and the fact that this extra travel can’t be used with a rangefinder.

Feeling the limit

Leica solved the interface problem neatly. On the APO-Summicron-M 35, the focus ring rotates about 90 degrees from infinity down to 70cm, exactly matching normal M lenses. At that point, you feel a slight, deliberate resistance, a detent, before a further (enormous) 200 degrees of travel takes you down to 30cm.

The same trick appears across the other close-focus lenses, each with its detent at the 70cm mark. It’s a small piece of mechanical design, but an important one. It tells your fingers, without you needing to look, exactly where the rangefinder limit starts and finishes. For dedicated M rangefinder enthusiasts, that extra 200mm beyond the detent is closed territory, something they will never use.

As you override that detent, the rangefinder patch simply stops moving. It will show whatever it showed at 70cm, regardless of where the lens is actually focused beyond that point.

Users have to abandon rangefinder focusing entirely for that last stretch and switch to Live View, with focus peaking or magnification, instead. That’s a massive change of technique for photographers whose whole method is built around the rangefinder patch.

Grab those goggles

At this point, it’s worth mentioning that these new close-focus lenses are not Leica’s only attempt at solving this problem. Early M-mount rangefinders could not focus closer than 100cm, since parallax correction broke down at short range. Leica’s answer, in 1956, was the Summicron 50mm f/2 Dual Range: a lens fitted with detachable close-focus “goggles” that clip over the rangefinder window.

With the goggles attached, focus drops to 48cm, full parallax correction and rangefinder coupling intact; remove them and the lens reverts to the standard 100cm minimum. It’s a clever, if fiddly, solution: swapping goggles mid-session is no quick job. Leica retired the DR Summicron in 1968, and no true successor followed in the M-mount line until the APO-Summicron-M 35 in 2022.

A deeper history

Close focus is far from a new idea at Leitz. Leica historian and our colleague (and LSI president) William Fagan has drawn on his collection to point out several lenses and accessories that pushed past the standard minimum long before the DR Summicron.

• The 1920s Close Focus Leica, a feet-scale 50mm f/3.5 Elmar reaching 18 inches instead of the usual 1m
• The ELPRO, ELPIK and ELPET close-up attachments for the Elmar, the ELPET reaching 10.5 inches
• The NOOKY close-focus device for the 50mm Elmar, reaching around 18in, with M-mount descendants such as the SOOKY-M and SOMKY-M
• The Macro-Elmar 90mm f/4, reaching 0.42m with its dedicated adapter
• The Visoflex-mount Elmar 65mm f/3.5, reaching 0.33m
• The Visoflex-mount Hektor 125mm f/2.5, reaching 1.2m

William’s own collection includes several of these lenses, among them a Dual-Range Summicron he rates as comparable to anything Leica makes today.

The Tri-Elmars

This section was added after publication. Two readers pointed out that the Tri-Elmars have some close-focus capability, so here is a rundown on this:

The trifocal Tri-Elmars hinted at this territory long before Leica’s recent close-focus redesigns. The 16-18-21mm WATE, dating back to 2006, has always carried scale markings down to 50cm and even 30cm for estimated focus beyond the rangefinder’s normal 70cm coupling limit. The 28-35-50mm MATE goes further, if unofficially: set its zoom ring to the undocumented midpoint between the 28mm and 50mm stops and, using Live View, it will focus down to around 40cm at an effective ~40mm — a quirk Leica never specified, discovered by users rather than designed at the factory.

Enter the Visoflex

For M bodies still built around an optical rangefinder, the practical answer to close focusing is an accessory electronic viewfinder. The original EVF-2, launched for the M (Typ 240) in 2013, offered a modest display; its successor, the Visoflex (Typ 020) introduced for the M10, stepped up to 2.4 megapixels. The current Visoflex 2, launched for the M11 family, further increased this to a 3.7-megapixel OLED panel and added a tilting function.

Add either to the accessory shoe and the camera switches to full live-view focusing, complete with peaking and magnification. It’s the only way to use the last centimeters of travel on any of these close-focus lenses with any confidence.

Enter the EV1

Leica’s answer to an obvious question, why keep bolting on an accessory finder, arrived in October 2025 as the M EV1. It’s the first M camera built without a mechanical rangefinder at all: no coupled cam, no roller, no rangefinder patch to fall out of step past 70cm.

The new EV1, which arrived in October 2025, is partly Leica’s response to the rangefinder limitations and the inconvenience of having to use external viewfinders. In a way, it’s the obvious answer, and I suspect many buyers will have chosen it for that reason. It’s a subject that interests me, and I have recently been doing some back-to-back testing of the EV1 against an adapter-equipped SL3-P. I won’t give the game away here; you’ll have to wait until I’ve marshalled my thoughts, reached a conclusion and built up sufficient comparison shots for publication.

The EV1’s built-in electronic viewfinder is a biggie. It has 5.76 million dots, 0.76x magnification, with adjustable diopter correction from -4 to +2. In this, it matches the superb view through the finder of an SL3 and Q3. The camera uses the familiar 60-megapixel BSI-CMOS sensor from the M11 generation, complete with Triple Resolution Technology for 60, 36 or 18-megapixel files. Based on the M11-P, the M EV1 loses the -P’s 256GB of internal storage in favour of a rather miserable (but still better than most) 64GB; I assume this was done to keep the price down.

The EV1 grew directly out of customer demand voiced at the Leica Society International Dublin conference in 2022. I reported on that event for Macfilos, when Stefan Daniel told attendees, “If customers want it, we will build such a camera.” He even went so far as to stipulate “a couple of thousand” as the baseline for a decision. And, since last year, enthusiasts have had the opportunity to put their money where their mouth was. I wonder how many have quietly skedaddled. At least I stumped up.

Removing the workaround

When the M EV1 arrived last year, it removed the need for a workaround for close-focus lenses entirely. Every centimetre of that 30 to 50cm travel is now native, viewfinder-confirmed territory, not an accessory-dependent afterthought. Many enthusiasts were initially disappointed, since they had hoped for a hybrid viewfinder giving the best of both worlds — rangefinder and EVF. That wasn’t possible, apparently, and the EV1 is what we have; we have to make the best of it, despite it lacking some of the focus aids that other manufacturers, such have Nikon, have adopted.

It also solves a problem that predates close focus altogether. At f/0.95 or f/1.2, wide open, the rangefinder patch was already marginal for critical accuracy. Our own hands-on testing of the EV1 noted that with the Noctilux at full aperture, “the focus range shrinks to millimeters.”

This is precisely the area where an EVF with peaking handles far better than a coincidence patch. One caution, though. No M camera has built-in stabilisation, and close-focus at 30cm is challenging without a bit of help in that direction.

However, for close focus under 70cm it’s currently no contest. The M EV1, or a Leica SL3 with adapter, win hands down. The Visoflex on a standard M11 is an outside contender: its viewfinder resolution, at 3.7 megapixels, can’t match the M EV1’s built-in 5.76-megapixel EVF, even though the M11’s sensor itself is identical to the EV1’s. And, of course, having to mount the viewfinder is a hassle, especially if you are a thumb-grip fan, as I am.

Rangefinder accuracy

A rangefinder appears to be more accurate in general use, simply because of the precision of aligning two planes. It’s satisfying. When they align perfectly, you get a warm feeling that the subject is in perfect focus. It may be — it most likely is — but that convergence can sometimes be a mechanical illusion.

Remember that you are looking at a mechanical representation, not direct feedback from the lens itself. All it tells you is that the two images have converged geometrically. That’s not the same as confirming the subject is in perfect focus.

In theory, the rangefinder is indeed more accurate than focus peaking or good magnified eyesight because it is an absolute, there is no margin for error as there is when viewing a magnified image or focus peaking. It’s about as close to an absolute as focusing gets, subject to the above proviso. But it’s vital to bear in mind that this holds good only if the rangefinder is adjusted correctly.

If the rangefinder mechanism is even a fraction out, the converging planes in the rangefinder provide false information. So, if you suspect your rangefinder is a bit out of kilter, it’s worth taking expert advice from a knowledgeable dealer or an experienced enthusiast. Adjusting the rangefinder usually means costly, especially if out of warranty, repatriation to Wetzlar.

Why now?

Leica hasn’t published a detailed explanation for the shift to close-focus optics, and we can only infer motivation from published articles and threads. At least it’s a starting point.

Competition has moved on: mirrorless systems from other makers have offered sub-30cm focusing as standard for years, and Leica’s own SL and Q ranges already do. An M line stuck at 70cm risked looking dated by comparison, particularly to buyers using M lenses on SL bodies via adapter, where the rangefinder limit is irrelevant anyway. And this was even before the M EV1 came along.

This is just conjecture on my part, but it probably isn’t far from the truth.

Verdict

Leica’s close-focus M lenses, and the M EV1 built to complement them, mark a significant shift in what an M-mount optic can do without leaving the system. Whether that’s an unambiguous improvement depends on how you shoot. For photographers who treat the rangefinder patch as sacred, the extra travel past 70cm is territory they may never use — and, furthermore, may not want to use.

For my part, I welcome the option, even if I don’t derive quite the same pleasure from EVF manual focusing as from a rangefinder. There’s still a great deal to be said for the skill of manual rangefinder focus, even when it stops short of true close-up work. And, believe me, it does require some skill and a very steady hand, not to mention a steady body. In a forthcoming article, I will be exploring the benefits and pitfalls of using close-focus on the M EV1 and the SL series cameras.

For most people shooting M lenses on an SL-series camera, or now the EV1, a close-focus M lens confers a great bonus, unlocking close-up work that was previously off-limits without reaching for an entirely different system. That, in the end, looks like the real point.

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Further reading

Macfilos Articles	Other Links
First impressions: The tiny but astonishing Leica APO-Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH – Claus Sassenberg’s first look at the lens that started the close-focus trend	APO-Summicron-M 35 f/2 ASPH product page – Leica’s official spec sheet, confirming the 30cm close-up limit
Leica M EV1 hands-on: where the M without M makes sense – Jörg-Peter Rau’s real-world impressions of the EV1	Leica will launch more new M lenses with 30cm minimum focus – The 2021 Peter Karbe teaser that started the speculation
Come back Visoflex 2, (almost) all is forgiven… – Macfilos’s own verdict on the accessory EVF that unlocked close focus on rangefinder M bodies	Leica announces the M EV1 – Launch specs and US pricing
Peter Karbe: Leica’s legendary lens designer takes a potter around London’s Mayfair – Profile of the man behind the close-focus optics	The annoyance of close-focusing lenses on Leica rangefinder cameras – The dissenting view referenced above, in full
Leica’s new M EV1 and in-house competition from the M11 and SL3 – How the EV1 stacks up against Leica’s own M11 and SL3 as an EVF option	Noctilux-M 35mm f/1.2 ASPH product page – Leica’s official spec sheet for the newest close-focus lens
Leica Electronic Viewfinders: Alternatives to the M EV1 – A survey of the other EVF routes open to M shooters	Leica M EV1 press release – Leica’s official launch announcement, October 2025

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