Leica Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8 (v1, Fat Elmarit)

The argument people have is always Elmarit versus Tele-Elmarit, the two 90mm f/2.8 paths Leica took. This is the original one, the long chrome Elmarit from 1959, not the compact Tele-Elmarit that arrived later. It is a full chrome and brass barrel that front-loads the M body, around 330g, and it sits proud of the camera in a way the slim thin Tele-Elmarit (closer to 225g) never does. If you want a 90 that vanishes into a coat pocket, this is not it. What you carry it for is the rendering.

Wide open at f/2.8 it is already usefully sharp in the center, with a slightly lower-contrast, rounded look that flatters skin. This is not a clinical lens. Contrast is moderate by modern standards, so it builds tone gradually rather than slamming shadows shut, and on Tri-X or HP5 that reads as portraits with real roundness. Optimum brilliance comes around f/4 to f/5.6, where the center gains a touch of bite and the corners tighten as you stop down. By f/8 the frame is even and clean across most of the field. The out-of-focus area stays smooth, a quiet falloff behind the subject with nothing nervous at the edges.

This is a 1959 design, a slow medium tele meant as a portrait and reportage companion to the 50 Summicron. Coatings are single-layer by today's count, so shoot it into a bright window and you will lift contrast and catch the occasional flare patch. Hood it and the problem mostly vanishes. The 39mm filter thread is the standard Leica E39, which makes a yellow or orange contrast filter for black and white easy to find, and a good screw-in hood does more for this barrel than any modern coating would.

It draws M photographers who want a portrait length without paying APO-Summicron money, and documentary shooters who like 90mm for isolating a person across a room without the heavy compression of a 135. It is manual-focus rangefinder glass, so the shallow depth at f/2.8 demands a calibrated rangefinder. Focus and recompose at full aperture and you will miss eyes. Dim interiors are where it earns its keep. Meter at the working aperture and let Zone Light Meter place a face on Zone VI, because this lens gives you so much usable shadow gradation that exposure placement, not the glass, becomes the variable.

The honest weakness is the bulk and the weight. For a walk-around lens a Tele-Elmarit or a later Elmarit-M is more pleasant to carry, and some shooters just will not live with how this one pulls the camera forward. The optical signature divides people too. If you want surgical sharpness wide open, the current 90 APO is a different lens entirely and far sharper. Today the v1 reads as a low-cost way into Leica portrait tele glass, cross-shopped against its own lighter descendants, kept by people who shoot it for the look and accept the weight that comes with it.