The Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8 is a compact and handy small telephoto lens. It has universal uses for portrait and landscape, for snapshots and press work.

The lens has four elements in four groups. Even at full aperture the Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8 has a very good contrast performance and its detail rendering is excellent. The image plane is very flat, i.e. definition is very good from corner to corner even at full aperture, and practically free from coma. Stopping the lens down to f/4.0 improves the optical quality only marginally.

Even at short focusing distances the lens has a high contrast performance and produces a very flat picture area.

Vignetting, inherent in all optical systems, is so slight in this lens that it can be practically ignored.

The French photo magazine Chasseur d'Images awarded this lens the maximum 5 stars for optical quality.

The German photo magazine ColorFoto gave this lens a 90.4 score (5 stars plus).

The American photo magazine Popular Photography awarded this lens the maximum score of 5 stars (8.3).

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Weight: 380 gr (black anodized) or 560 gr (silver chrome or titanium), length from bayonet flange: 76 mm, built-in telescopic lenshood. E46 filter size.

Its Leica catalog number is 11807 (black anodized), 11808 (silver chrome), 11889 (titanium).

Current version introduced in 1989. The titanium version has only been manufactured for about one year (1999), only about 500 pieces were made before production was halted. A collectible.