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Leica History

Leica M-Mount Film Cameras

In 1954 Leitz replaced the screw mount with a bayonet fitting — the M-mount — that let a lens be attached with a quarter-turn rather than several full rotations. The new mount arrived alongside a completely redesigned viewfinder that combined the rangefinder patch and frame lines into a single bright window, and a body that finally allowed rapid film loading. The "M" stands for Messsucher, German for "rangefinder", and the M-mount remains, in modified form, the lens fitting Leica still uses on its rangefinder cameras today.

The line that followed spent five decades trading off simplicity against added features: metering came and went, bodies got briefly larger before shrinking back down, and later models split between purist mechanical cameras and electronically metered ones. The table below lists the film M cameras in the order they were released.

Leica film M cameras by release year
Model Year Notable feature
Leica M3 rangefinder camera M3 1954 First M-mount camera, accounting for a third of Leica's film-rangefinder sales with almost 700,000 units produced. Combined viewfinder/rangefinder with parallax correction, featuring the largest magnification of any M camera at 0.93x.
Leica M2 rangefinder camera M2 1958 Simplified viewfinder establishing the new standard 0.72x magnification and adding a wider 35mm frame line. Requires a manual reset for the exposure counter.
Leica M1 rangefinder camera M1 1959 A budget model made chiefly for scientific purposes, featuring a viewfinder with 35mm and 50mm frame lines but completely omitting the rangefinder.
Leica M4 rangefinder camera M4 1967 Introduced an articulated film advance lever, an angled rewind crank, and a quick-loading take-up spool that no longer required removal.
Leica M5 rangefinder camera M5 1971 First M camera with built-in TTL match-needle exposure metering, necessitating a significantly larger and heavier body.
Leica CL rangefinder camera CL 1973 A very compact model (two-thirds the size of an M2) designed by Leica but manufactured by Minolta, featuring bright-line frames for 40mm, 50mm, and 90mm.
Leica M4-2 rangefinder camera M4-2 1977 Returned to the classic M4 form factor while reducing manufacturing costs by moving production to Canada, replacing brass components with zinc, and removing the self-timer. Allowed for an attachable motor winder.
Leica M4-P rangefinder camera M4-P 1980 Added frame lines for wider and longer lens options, establishing the 28/90, 35/135, and 50/75mm pairings as the new standard.
Leica M6 rangefinder camera M6 1984 Restored TTL metering with simple LED arrows in the viewfinder, housed back in the classic M body size while retaining a fully mechanical shutter.
Leica M6 TTL rangefinder camera M6 TTL 1998 Improved "Through The Lens" flash metering and featured a larger shutter speed dial that turned in the opposite direction, adding 2mm to the top plate's height.
Leica M7 rangefinder camera M7 2002 First M film camera with aperture-priority auto exposure, utilizing an electronically controlled shutter (only 1/60s and 1/125s function mechanically without power).
Leica MP rangefinder camera MP 2003 Fully mechanical shutter with an integrated LED meter, designed with an improved flare-free finder and aimed at purist users (omitting the red Leica logo for a stealthy look).
Leica M-A rangefinder camera M-A 2014 No meter and no self-timer at all — a deliberately stripped-back, fully mechanical body representing the purest form of the M system.