The Leica M mount is a

camera A camera is an Optics, optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), ...

lens mount A lens mount is an interface – mechanical and often also electrical – between a photographic camera body and a lens. It is a feature of camera systems where the body allows interchangeable lenses, most usually the rangefinder camera, singl ...

introduced in 1954 with the

Leica M3 The Leica M3 is a 35 mm rangefinder camera by Ernst Leitz GmbH (now Leica Camera AG), introduced in 1954. It was a new starting point for Leitz, which until then had only produced screw-mount Leica cameras that were incremental improvements to i ...

, and a range of

lenses A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...

. It has been used on all the Leica M-series cameras and certain accessories (e.g. Visoflex reflex viewing attachment) up to the current film Leica M-A and digital

Leica M11 The Leica M11 is a full-frame digital rangefinder camera from Leica Camera AG. It was introduced on 13 January 2022. It uses a 60.3-megapixel image sensor, and is compatible with almost all Leica M mount lenses. Features The M11 uses a 60-meg ...

cameras. This lens mount has also been used by

Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, or simply known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano, ...

Ricoh is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company (law), company. It was founded by the now-defunct commercial division of the Riken, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) known as the ''Riken concern (business), Concer ...

Minolta was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It made the first integrated autofocu ...

Konica was a Japanese manufacturer of, among other products, film, film cameras, camera accessories, photographic and photo-processing equipment, photocopiers, fax machines and laser printers, founded in 1873. The company merged with Japanese peer Mino ...

Cosina Voigtländer Cosina Voigtländer refers to photographic products manufactured by Cosina under the Voigtländer name since 1999. Cosina leases rights to the Voigtländer name from RINGFOTO GmbH & Co. ALFO Marketing KG in Germany. Cosina Voigtländer products have ...

Rollei Rollei () was a German manufacturer of optical instruments founded in 1920 by and in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, and maker of the Rolleiflex and Rolleicord series of cameras. Later products included specialty and nostalgic type films for the ...

Carl Zeiss AG Carl Zeiss AG (), branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) he laid the f ...

and

Rollei Fototechnic Rollei () was a German manufacturer of optical instruments founded in 1920 by and in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, and maker of the Rolleiflex and Rolleicord series of cameras. Later products included specialty and nostalgic type films for the ...

on some of their cameras.

Overview

The Leica M mount was introduced in 1954 at that year's

Photokina Photokina (rendered in the promoters' branding as "photokina") is a trade fair held in Europe for the photographic and imaging industries. It is the world's largest such trade fair. The first Photokina was held in Cologne, Germany, in 1950, an ...

show, with the

as its first camera. The 'M' stands for ''Messsucher'' or

rangefinder A rangefinder (also rangefinding telemeter, depending on the context) is a device used to measure distances to remote objects. Originally optical devices used in surveying, they soon found applications in other fields, such as photography an ...

in German. This new camera abandoned the

M39 lens mount The M39 lens mount is a screw thread mounting system for attaching lenses to 35 mm cameras, primarily rangefinder (RF) Leicas. It is also the most common mount for Photographic enlarger lenses. True Leica Thread-Mount (LTM) is 39 mm in d ...

in favour of a new bayonet mount. The bayonet mount allowed lenses to be changed more quickly and made the fitting more secure. Other innovations introduced by the M3 included a single window for the

viewfinder In photography, a viewfinder is what the photographer looks through to compose, and, in many cases, to focus the picture. Most viewfinders are separate, and suffer parallax, while the single-lens reflex camera lets the viewfinder use the main ...

(for

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

) and the rangefinder (for

focussing Focusing may refer to: * Adjusting an optical system to minimize defocus aberration * Focusing (psychotherapy) Focusing is an internally oriented psychotherapeutic process developed by psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin. It can be used in any kind of t ...

). With a double-stroke

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

advance lever (later models have a single-stroke lever). The M3 was a success and over 220,000 units were sold, by the time production ended in 1966. It remains the best-selling M mount camera ever made. The M3 uses

135 film 135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film used for still photography. It is a film with a film gauge of loaded into a standardized type of magazine – also referred to as a casse ...

(or 35 mm film), with the canister being loaded behind a detachable bottom plate. The M3 was followed by many other M mount cameras, released over 40 years, with many of the basic concepts remaining in these designs. With the introduction of the

Through-the-lens metering In photography, through-the-lens metering (TTL metering) refers to a feature of cameras whereby the intensity of light reflected from the scene is measured through the lens; as opposed to using a separate metering window or external hand-held light ...

(TTL) in the

Leica M5 The Leica M5 is a 35 mm camera by Leica Camera AG, introduced in 1971. It was the first Leica rangefinder camera to feature through-the-lens (TTL) metering and the last to be made entirely in Wetzlar by hand using the traditional "adjust and fit" ...

and the

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...

Leica M8 The Leica M8 is the first digital camera in the rangefinder M series introduced by Leica Camera AG on 14 September 2006. It uses an APS-H 10.3-megapixel Kodak KAF-10500 CCD image sensor. As of 15 November 2014, the most recent firmware version is ...

being the most notable innovations since then. The lenses for the M mount were also introduced in 1954 and were based on the earlier M39 thread mount. Almost all M mount lenses are

Prime lens In film and photography, a prime lens is a fixed focal length photographic lens (as opposed to a zoom lens), typically with a maximum aperture from f2.8 to f1.2. The term can also mean the primary lens in a combination lens system. Confusion be ...

es. These lenses are divided by Leica based on their maximum

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opt ...

number (also known as

f-number In optics, the f-number of an optical system such as a camera lens is the ratio of the system's focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil ("clear aperture").Smith, Warren ''Modern Optical Engineering'', 4th Ed., 2007 McGraw-Hill ...

). They are distinguished by their names: File:Leica M3 mg 3673.jpg, M mount female part of the bayonet on a Leica M3 body. The mechanical sensor seen inside the top of the mount is the rangefinder coupling arm File:Leica M3 mg 3671.jpg, M mount male part of the bayonet on the Leica Elmar 90mm . File:Leica M3 mg 3685.jpg, The Leica M3

shutter speed In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light (that is, when the camera's shutter (photography), shutter is open) when taking a photograph. The am ...

dial, film advance lever,

shutter button In photography, the shutter-release button (sometimes just shutter release or shutter button) is a push-button found on many cameras, used to record photographs. When pressed, the shutter of the camera is "released", so that it opens to capture a ...

and the frame counter. File:Leica M3 mg 3628.jpg, The Leica M3 ASA dial, purely decorative reminder of the

Film speed Film speed is the measure of a photographic film's sensitivity to light, determined by sensitometry and measured on various numerical scales, the most recent being the ISO system. A closely related ISO system is used to describe the relations ...

showing DIN and ASA comparison dial. File:Leica Camera.svg, Leica "red dot" logo.

M Mount camera bodies

Film cameras

Digital cameras

Professional

Entry

Monochrom

No display

Increased resolution

Other manufacturers

Epson R-D1 The original R-D1, announced by Epson in March 2004 and discontinued in 2007, was the first digital rangefinder camera. Subsequently, three modifications of the original ''R-D1'' were produced - ''R-D1s'', ''R-D1x'', and ''R-D1xG''. R-D1 ''R-D1 ...

Minolta CLE The Minolta CLE is a TTL-metering automatic exposure aperture-priority 35 mm rangefinder camera using Leica M lenses, introduced by Minolta in 1980. Leica and Minolta signed a technical cooperation agreement in June 1972. One of its results ...

Hexar RF The Konica Hexar RF is a 35 mm rangefinder camera which was sold by Konica. It was introduced to the market on 13 October 1999. and subsequently discontinued (apparently without official notice) some time before the end of 2003. The camera used t ...

*Bessa R2A, R3A, R2M, R3M, R4M and R4A by

Rollei 35 RF The Rollei 35 RF is a version of the Cosina Voigtländer Bessa R2 marketed by Rollei Fototechnic, but manufactured by Cosina, and released in 2002. Like the Bessa R2, the Rollei 35 RF has a Leica M-mount and a metal focal-plane shutter. Its TTL ...

*Recent Zeiss Ikon rangefinder camera by

Ricoh GXR The Ricoh GXR is a compact digital camera first announced by Ricoh Company, Ltd, Tokyo on November 10, 2009. Unlike conventional cameras which either have a fixed lens and sensor or interchangeable lens and a fixed sensor, the GXR takes interchan ...

M mount lenses

Other manufacturers

Carl Zeiss Carl Zeiss (; 11 September 1816 – 3 December 1888) was a German scientific instrument maker, optician and businessman. In 1846 he founded his workshop, which is still in business as Carl Zeiss AG. Zeiss gathered a group of gifted practica ...

* Zenit M

References

External links

About the M System

Leica M Lenses

{{Leica M digital cameras Lens mounts

Overview

M Mount camera bodies

Film cameras

Digital cameras

Professional

Entry

Monochrom

No display

Increased resolution

Other manufacturers

M mount lenses

Other manufacturers

See also

References

External links