By José Manuel Serrano Esparza
The introduction of the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH lens by Leica in 1998 was a remarkable surprise with which the German photographic firm proved its second to none opto-mechanical prowess in the designing of top-notch objectives for 24 x 36 mm format.
It was a significant technological tour de force accomplished, because for the first time Leica was able to combine its three most used focal lengths (28 mm, 35 mm and 50 mm) with its rangefinder cameras into a single lens,
in a compact design (dimensions of 55 x 68 mm, with a weight of 340 g) and keeping great image quality, something exceedingly difficult to achieve,
so they had to take to the limit all of their knowledge and expertise available at the time.
IMPRESSIVE OPTICAL SCHEME WITH INTERNAL FOCUSING
The Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH features an exotic optical formula with 8 elements (two of them aspherical, the second and fourth) in 6 groups and an eight blade diaphragm.
In addition, 5 of the elements are made of first-class highly refractive index optical glasses, including the first one (boasting a pronounced curvature), by far the biggest and most expensive, and made by Hoya.
Leica managed to create in this lens an amazing mechanism focusing by means of the three front lens elements and making that when the focal length is changed, there´s a simultaneous shift in both the three rear lens elements and the iris diaphragm, while the corresponding bright-line frame for 28, 35 or 50 mm is turned on in the viewfinder of the Leica M camera :
Configuration of the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH in 28 mm focal length position, the one in which there is more distance between the third and fourth elements of its optical scheme.
It is also visible the optical layout of this extraordinary lens, made up by two vario groups, the first one with three elements and the second one with five.
This is a good example of Leica tremendous expertise in this domain, because however powerful and advanced computers and optical design programs may be, when it comes to creating a lens like this, yielding excellent image quality, size and weight skyrocket from scratch.
Therefore, the touches of their own and instructions given to those softwares by the most knowledgeable and experienced Leica top class optical designers become the key factor.
That´s why to attain a lens like this, doing it the Leica way, with very little dimensions, fairly low weight and stunningly short diameter of front lens, preserving a very high performance with a praiseworthy uniformity of excellent image quality in center, corners and borders, from widest aperture to f/8, is the greatest challenge for any optical designer and truly a feat, to such an extent that on stopping down the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH, photographers will only gain depth of field.
That´s to say, this unique jewel of engineering at its highest level delivers the same extraordinary image quality both at its widest f/4 aperture and f/5.6 (with a very slight drop, almost imperceptible at f/8, because of diffraction) when using 28 mm and 35 mm focal lengths, and at f/4, f/5.6 and f/8 on using the 50 mm focal length (until reaching f/11, when diffraction drops a bit resolving power and contrast).
Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH in 35 mm focal length position. It can be seen that the distance between the Vario Group 1 and the Vario Group 2 is almost half in comparison with the optical configuration of the lens when used in 28 mm focal length position.
Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH in 50 mm focal length position. You can see that now the distance between the Vario Group 1 and the Vario Group 2 has hugely reduced, to such an extent that the two first elements of the Vario Group 2 are very near the third element of the Vario Group 1.
Light rays traced through the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH in each one of its focal lengths.
The corresponding alternative design without the two aspherical surfaces would have led to a greater physical length of the lens and a higher weight, so both aspherical elements (the second one and the fourth one in its optical formula) achieve more compact dimensions and a far superior image quality, though the production cost is inevitably very steep, because an aspherical surface curvature deviates from the conventional ball-shaped surface, making necessary an extremely precise fabrication.
REFERENCE-CLASS AND HIGHLY COMPLEX MECHANICAL CONSTRUCTION
The Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH lens features a very robust and state-of-the-art mechanical build, made in aluminium and brass, which is to all intents and purposes an engineering milestone in the history of photographic lenses for 24 x 36 mm format.
The design and production of this lens required to tackle a myriad of technical problems.
First of all, Leica had to manage to make that the change of focal lengths automatically introduced the adjustment of the bright-line frames to each corresponding 28 mm, 35 mm or 50 mm focal length in the viewfinder.
Many years of thorough study were necessary to solve this conundrum, until Leica could attain it by means of a very smart and enormously complex inner spring loaded device, in such a way that on shifting to each one of the three different focal lengths, the relative position of the lug handling the bright-line frames is changed.
Needless to say that the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH frameline for each focal length accurately clicking into place on turning the zoom ring, is a relish to experience.
And if we speak about the focusing helicoid (made of brass and aluminum alloy) movement remaining utterly smooth and accurate for many decades of intensive use, photographing with this lens becomes an indulgence.
Moreover, the lens sports some decisive mechanical components, as the brass milled cams and the guiding rolls with teflon or kevlar bushes, while the engineering drawing of the guidance
ways for focal length changes stays true to its great mechanical intricacy.
On the other hand, the internal focusing system leveraging the three front lens elements of the Vario Group 1, means that when using this lens, there isn´t any extension of the barrel or turn of the front ring.
The Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH isn´t a zoom in its literal sense, but a parfocal lens working flawlessly,
Another view of the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH, showing its first-rate mechanical construction with aluminium and brass, screws and many other metallic parts, together with the stunning assembling accuracy inherent to Leica and a benchmark machining precision having been its hallmark for more than a century.so when focusing the subject with it, you can change the focal length without being bound to focus again or making exposure adjustmens because of a value change of the diaphragm aperture, which doesn´t happen.
Needless to say that this one of a kind lens meaningfully epitomizes the second half of nineties of XX Century, when Leica became the world benchmark in manufacture of objectives boasting aspherical surfaces, with revolutionary methods of blank pressed optical glasses up to a diameter of 20 mm and CNC grinded ones for larger diameters, creating other extraordinary lenses like the Summilux-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH (1994), the Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH (1996), the Apo-Summicron-M 90 mmm f/2 ASPH (also introduced in 1998) and so forth.
Another significant aspect of the fabulous mechanical construction of this lens is that according to the Leica traditional lens designing keynote, it was made with the minimum feasible quantity of optical elements and groups, to assure the maximum possible transmission of light and the minimum size and weight.
And because of optical and mechanical reasons, the markings on the lens barrel are 35-50-28, with the 50 mm focal length in central position, since only that way was possible the interaction of the lens with the contrivance in the camera body that must introduce the bright-line frames corresponding to each focal length in the viewfinder.
Suffice it to say that the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH from 1998 is mechanically much more complex and sophisticated than the also extraordinary Tri-Elmar 16-18-21 f/4 ASPH, introduced in 2006, which is essentially a continuous zoom design.
A GREAT LENS FOR TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY, STREET PHOTOGRAPHY AND LANDSCAPES BOTH WITH ANALOG AND DIGITAL LEICA M RANGEFINDER CAMERAS
The Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH was designed for use with colour and black and white emulsions, with which it delivers superb image quality using the three focal lengths it offers, between widest f/4 aperture and f/8.
And it yields excellent image quality coupled to 24 x 36 mm format digital rangefinder cameras like the Leica M10, Leica M10-R, Leica M11, Leica M11-P, Leica M11-D, Leica M11 Monochrom and others.
It´s true that its moderate f/4 maximum aperture significantly reduces its operativeness on getting pictures indoor or in dim light contexts, but the major improvements made by Leica regarding high iso performance with its Leica M10 and the different models of Leica M11 have turned the 55 x 68 mm and 340 g Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH ( 55 x 68 mm, 340 g and minimum focusing distance of 1 meter) into a more than acceptable lens in this kind of photographic environtments.
Anyway, it is obviously a far cry from the capabilities of such stellar performing Leica M lenses shooting in low light levels like the
- Summicron-M 28 mm f/2 ASPH version 1 from 2000 ( 40.8 x 53 mm, 270 g, minimum focusing distance of 70 cm and two stops faster).
- Summicron-M 28 mm f/2 ASPH version 2 from 2016 ( 40.8 x 53 mm, 289 g, minimum focusing distance of 70 cm and two stops faster).
- Summicron-M 28 mm f/2 ASPH Version 3 from 2023 ( 55 x 58 mm, 275 g, minimum focusing distance of 40 cm and two stops faster).
- Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH from 1996 ( 35.7 x 53 mm, 252 g, minimum focusing disstance of 70 cm and two stops faster).
- Summilux-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH Pre FLE from 1994 (46 x 56 mm, 320 g, minimum focusing distance of 70 cm and three stops faster).
-Summilux-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH FLE from 2010 ( 56 x 58 mm, 320 g, minimum focusing distance of 70 cm and three stops faster).
- Summilux-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH FLE II from 2022 (46 x 58 mm, 337 g, minimum focusing distance of 40 cm and three stops faster).
- Apo-Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH (40.9 x 53 mm, 320 g, minimum focusing distance of 70 cm and two stops faster).
- Apo-Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 ASPH from 2012 (47 x 53 mm, 300 g, minimum focusing distance of 70 cm and two stops faster).
- Summilux-M 50 mm f/1.4 ASPH from 2004 ( 59.3 x 58.6 mm, 377 g, minimum focusing distance of 70 cm and three stops faster).
Vast majority of those class-leading fixed focal lenses are smaller, lighter and outperform the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH, particularly indoor and under low available light, in addition to likewise delivering better image quality outdoor with good light (though differences reduce very much between f/4 and f/8), specially in the outer zones and extreme corners, also being far superior to get selective focus.
But it is not a fair comparison, because the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH is a 27 years old design, and the aforementioned Leica M primes are currently the cream of the crop in the scope of highly luminous 28 mm, 35 mm and 50 mm primes of the German photographic firm, with stellar performance in terms of resolving power and contrast and featuring a much favourable minimum focusing distance.
However, it isn´t less true that amazingly, the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH is still nowadays a superb lens, substantially approaching that selected wideangle-standard domain lineup of aspherical Leica M fixed focal lenses as to image quality between f/4 and f/8 in each of its focal lengths.
On the other hand, this step zoom keeps on being unsurpassed in convenience for travel photography, street photography and landscape, likewise being a fantastic story-telling lens and taking advantage of its three-in-one focal lenghts without having to change lenses, so it is certainly lighter than carrying three separate prime lenses, and you can get away without a camera bag.
Moreover, it is also a bless to use in hot and dusty areas, where you can swap 28, 35 and 50 mm focal lengths keeping the digital sensor free of dust.
And regarding image quality and overall performance, although the best highly luminous modern aspherical 28 mm, 35 mm and 50 mm Leica M primes will always have the upper hand, in outdoor photographic conditions with good light (whenever you don´t need to use large f/1.4, f/2 or f/2.8 to obtain selective focus and highlight the photographed person or thing with a lot of bokeh in the out of focus areas), the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH continues to be a contender raising to the challenge, giving more image quality than every Leica M pre aspherical 28 mm, 35 mm and 50 mm lens, with the exception of the 6 elements in 4 groups Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Versions 4 and 5, though it approaches very much to its optical performance between f/4 and f/8.
All of it with the added bonus of its very small size and weight ( 55 x 68 mm and 340 g) for what it offers, as well as being built like a tank, exuding the typical Leica M quality, having exceptionally smooth control rings and becoming an ergonomic delight.
If we compare it with the 40.8 x 53 mm and 270 g of the Summicron-M 28 mm f/2 ASPH Version 1, the 46 x 58 mm and 337 g of the Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH FLE II or the 47 x 53 mm and 300 g of the Apo-Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 ASPH, we see that though being a bit larger and heavier, the dimensions and weight of the Tri-Elmar 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH are undoubtedly very compact, specially if we bear in mind that it offers three different focal lengths and was one of the most commendable optical and mechanical tour de forces ever made,
with only 8 elements in 6 groups and a visionary mechanics with incredibly tight tolerances, pioneering a host of concepts which would subsequently be applied in other top-tier Leica M lenses from the first decade of XXI Century onwards.
The image quality delivered by the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/2 ASPH is superb (with a very interesting and nice aesthetics combining classic and modern look) and will be much more than adequate for most professional Leica photographers, except those ones needing outstanding performance at apertures wider than f/4 or very big enlargements on photographic paper showing tons of detail with remarkable sharpness and contrast, a field in which the best highly luminous primes are the yardstick hands down.
And its distortion correction is laudable, with very slight levels of barrel distortion at 28 mm and virtually non existent for 35 mm and 50 mm, the same happening with curvature of field and vignetting, which have been reduced to negligible levels, together with an outstanding correction of aberrations resulting in great image quality in terms of resolving power, contrast and textural details, preserving those values even at the nearest focusing distances, over the whole image field.
In addition, the centering of the optical elements of the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH is of exceptional accuracy and meant a turning point in this technological sphere since its very appearance in the photographic market in 1998, in the same way as the reference-class efficiency of the material used, thickness and number of coatings (usually six) for each individual lens surface, which were very precisely calculated and applied on the untreated glass elements in a vacuum kiln in which the adequate metal oxides and fluorides were vaporized, getting an average thickness of coating of 1/10,000 millimeter to achieve a broadband resistance to reflections.
Needless to say that this is a very pure optical design, whose superb image quality, achieved in a number of different important parameters, doesn´t stem from any firmware inside digital bodies.
AN INCREASINGLY BETTER PERFORMANCE WITH 24 X 36 MM FORMAT LEICA M DIGITAL CAMERAS
September 23, 2010. First day of the 42th Leica Historical Society of America Annual Meeting in Wetzlar (Germany).
The Wetzlarer Hof Hotel has turned into a hive of Leica enthusiasts and professional photographers belonging to the LHSA.
Only one year has elapsed since the introduction of the gorgeous 24 x 36 mm format Leica M9 digital rangefinder camera
with which the legendary German photographic firm has accomplished a seamless analog / digital transition.
Many of the LHSA attendees coming from all over the world have already acquired this new photographic tool,
Leica M9 Silver Chrome with 8 elements in 6 groups Elmarit-M 28 mm f/2.8 ASPH. Beside the camera is an original metallic pin from the Photokina 1956, courtesy of Dr. Mervin Stewart, from Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), a veteran member of the LHSA, who visited it sixty-nine years ago. Wetzlarer Hof Hotel. September 23, 2010.whose raison d´etre and fundamental philosophy hark back to the analog Leica M3 from 1954 and the keynotes established by Willi Stein (Chief Designer and Head of the Ernst Leitz Wetzlar Photographic Product Development and Design Department at the time), Hugo Wehrenfenning (inventor of the Leica M bayonet in 1950 and designer of the first Leica M lenses) and Oskar Barnack (a genius of miniaturized mechanics at Ernst Leitz Wetzlar and inventor of the Ur-Leica prototype in 1914, which set the foundations for the spreading of 24 x 36 mm format as photographic standard, subsequently creating the Leica 1 Model A, first 35 mm camera produced in series, in 1925, and other revolutionary for its time screwmount cameras like the Leica II Model D from 1932, first one boasting a built-in rangefinder and able to couple interchangeable lenses).
The launching into market of the 24 x 36 mm format digital Leica M9 has been the fruit of six years of strenuous effort by Leica Camera AG since it created the digital 1,33 x crop Leica M8, featuring a 18 x 27 mm 10 megapixel Kodak KAF-10500 CCD sensor,
which delivered great image quality with rich tonal response in the shadows and highlights that is very difficult to achieve with a CMOS, though the tradeoff is sometimes noise and color accuracy.
Something that had also been confirmed by Dr Edward Schwartzreich (one of the most knowledgeable members of the LHSA and a world-class pundit on Leica M and Nikkor lenses) in mid 2006, when he tested a pre production Leica M8 shooting at ISO 160, with which he made very good pictures in Vermont, showing a creamy smoothness of rendering and lavish detail reminding him of medium format.
Among the extensive assortment of Leica M lenses used worldwide by Brian Bower between 2006 and 2008 to check the image quality obtained by the Leica M8 and M8.2 in a number of different photographic contexts
was the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH, which he put through its paces in Sunrise Monument Valley ( Utah, United States), Red Canyon ( Utah, United States), Pioneer Historic Park (Phoenix, United States), Rotterdam (Holland), Route 66 (Arizona, United States), the Grand Canyon (Arizona, United States) and the Bryce Canyon (Utah, United States), making great pictures with crisp rendering of details and making a point of its versatility.
An instrumental factor in attaining this superb image quality was the then unique sensor of the Leica M8, incorporating a specially designed micro-lens structure with the micro lenses at the edge of the sensor shifted laterally to achieve maximum performance from the Leica M lenses, a scope in which Leica Camera AG had made a pivotal advance in 2009 with the introduction of the 24 x 36 mm digital sensor of the Leica M9, a masterpiece of electronic technology, implemented by the genius Jesko von Oeynhausen (then Senior Project Manager of the German photographic firm), who mannaged to figure out how to handle the angle of incidence of the light rays from the tiny rangefinder lenses on a full frame digital sensor, in which the position and shape of the individual microlenses was very important, to such an extent that the M9 Leica used microlens shifting to accommodate large incident angles towards the corners (near the center of the sensor the microlenses are centered on the photosites beneath whereas microlenses further out are shifted towards the center).
But high emotions regarding the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH haven´t finished at all in Wetzlar (Germany) this last week of September 2010, because two of the present photographers have come with a sample of this lens :
a) Ralph Childs, a veteran Leica M photographer from Chicago, Illinois, who is taking pictures with a Leica M8 connected to a silver chrome Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH Version 1 with 49 mm filter (equivalent to a 36-45-65 mm coupled to this camera).
He has known the superb image quality produced by this lens for twelve years with analog Leica M cameras,
having likewise verified its remarkable performance coupled to his Leica M8 since early 2007. He feels that the Leica analog / digital transformation is in the pipeline.
He elaborated on the fact that during the previous four years he had been able to bear out the excellent resolving power and contrast yielded by this lens in symbiosis with the 18 x 27 mm and 10 megapixel Kodak KAF-10500 CCD digital sensor of the Leica M8, so he had foretold since september 2009 that both the 18,5 megapixel Leica M9 and other 24 x 36 mm format models of Leica rangefinder cameras to come, featuring many more megapixels, would deliver better and better image quality with the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH and would conspicuously improve their performance at high isos with the arrival of breakthrough new digital full frame CMOS sensors.
has come to Wetzlar with a Leica M9 and Tri-Elmar 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH Version 2 E49 (which regained its native focal lengths with the first 24 x 36 mm format digital camera made by the German photographic firm) with Leica 12450 vented lens hood and a Metz 32CT3 System SCA-300 flash (featuring a swivelling head with three automatisms, manual position and TTL, boasting the great quality of light inherent to the Metz flashes) attached to a Lumiquest Pro Max 80-20 accessory and is now within a hotel of Wetzlar two days later, on September 25, 2010.
He was able to get excellent results with flash by dint of his extensive know-how of decades handling different light contexts and enabling him to hold sway over indoor light, masterfully controlling it depending on the available luminic contexts, sometimes to increase light levels in very dim conditions and other times to attain an accurate fill-in flash, also managing often to use his Lumiquest Pro Max 80-20 device, illuminating the scene with light bouncing off neutral coloured ceilings and simultaneously providing fill-in light off the bounce device itself, making the most of the remarkable versatility of the three focal lengths provided by this unique lens.
And the steady technological advances during the last fifteen years, between 2020 and 2025, in 24 x 36 mm CMOS digital sensors with more and more megapixels and much better
performance at high ISOS in cameras like the Leica M Typ 240 (2012), Leica M Monochrom Typ 246 (2015), Leica M10 (2017), Leica M10-P (2018), Leica M10-R (2020), Leica M11 (2022), Leica M11 Monochrom (2023) and others, have greatly fostered the photographic capabilities of the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH, even in contexts of low light, where it currently fares well in comparison to the times when it was connected to the first M8, M8.2 and M9 of the first decade of XXI Century, whose image quality dropped apparently from ISO 1250 onwards, though f/1.2 and f/2 aspherical Leica M primes keep on being the best choice to shoot in low light with low and medium ISOS, in addition to sporting a better handling balance.
The upshot of it all is that however incredible it may seem, twenty-seven years after being created, the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm f/4 ASPH goes on being an extraordinary lens, even to present standards, not reaching the stellar performance of the current best highly luminous 28 mm, 35 mm and 50 mm f/1.4 and f/2 more modern Leica M aspherical primes, but delivering much more than enough image quality for most professional photographers between f/4 and f/8, a scope in which the optical performance of this lens significantly approaches to them, in addition to excelling in travel photography, reportage, street photography and landscape, though users of this step zoom will have to bear in mind its four main downsides : its slow maximum luminosity of f/4, its lack of adequacy to get selective focus, a minimum focusing distance of 1 meter, and that it is a bit proned to flare in the first version at 50 mm position (which was fixed in the version 2 using flare reducing paints within the lens internal barrel).
Anyway, flare is very well controlled in the 28, 35 and 50 mm available focal lengths, thanks to the contained number of surfaces and the many layers of coating in its optical elements.
And though this very special lens was discontinued in 2007, after a production life of only nine years, because of its very high cost of manufacturing, it keeps on standing out as a homage to second to none Leica ingenuity, innovative drive and mastery when designing top-notch lenses, producing praiseworthy image quality in the digital era, almost three decades after it came on stream.
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