The M11 makes practical the Leica 50 mm 2.8 MACRO ELMAR-M! (An M11Q?)

[onasj]

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The Leica 50/2.8 Elmar-M is one of the very smallest Leica lenses ever made, and is optically excellent.

It's a collapsible lens, so pulling the front of the lens extends the distance to the sensor by up to ~12 mm.  The lens is designed to be used fully extended, and has a focusing distance of ~0.68 m to infinity.

If you leave the lens almost fully collapsed (pulling out the front only 2 mm— to the point where you can barely see the full aperture numbers on the rim when the lens is focused to infinity), then you can add a Leitz OUFRO macro adapter, which is a 10 mm (optical) extension tube, also known as a nicely machined piece of metal with a big hole in the middle and male and female M mounts on either end.  Street price is ~$100-200.

With the lens extended only 2 mm and the OUFRO installed, you can use the lens exact as before, focusing to infinity.  

But if you extend the lens fully (12 mm) and have the OUFRO installed, now you have a powerful macro lens that can focus down to ~0.2 m, with a reproduction ratio of ~1:3.  This is pretty cool—almost as high a reproduction ratio as the 90/4 Macro-Elmar with the macro adapter (1:2)—except the 50 mm focal length is far more broadly useful than 90 mm.

So thanks to the M11 live view and Visoflex 2, this combination provides a very sharp, high-contrast single-lens outfit that *fits in your pocket* and can focus from 0.2 m to infinity (and beyond, actually!) and achieve a reproduction ratio ranging from 1:3 to 1:infinity.  Not unlike a M11Q, except with a better reproduction ratio than the Q2, and you can swap lenses if you really want to

Photos attached of 100% crops at regular minimum focusing distance (0.68 m) and a fully extended minimum focusing distance (0.2 m ).

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Edited January 28, 2022 by onasj

[Photo.JLG]

On 1/28/2022 at 2:54 PM, onasj said:

With the lens extended only 2 mm and the OUFRO installed, you can use the lens exact as before, focusing to infinity.  

But if you extend the lens fully (12 mm) and have the OUFRO installed, now you have a powerful macro lens that can focus down to ~0.2 m, with a reproduction ratio of ~1:3.

Hi:

Do you think this lens will work the same way with the NEW Leica-Macro-Adapter-M? Or is this a phenomenon that is limited to using the lens together with the OUFRO only?

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[UliWer]

It won't be the same with the Macro-Adapter-M, but it will be more flexible. You could even combine a Macro-Adapter-M and an OUFRO, and/or other devices to extend the distance between the lens and the sensor. It works since the M got Liveview. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by UliWer

[Photo.JLG]

Thank you for that. However, what I am curious about is whether the Leica 50/2.8 Elmar-M can focus to infinity on the Macro-Adapter M, in the same way that the post from @onasjdescribes that it can with the OUFRO?

[onasj]

No, the OUFRO is quite a bit shorter than the Macro-adapter M.  The 12 mm shorter collapsed lens cannot focus to infinity when mounted on the macro-adapter M, unfortunately.

[Photo.JLG]

Thank you, that makes sense. Ill try and get an OUFRO and test this out. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun to shoot like that with my Elmar-M.