15mm Lenses
12 lenses in the catalogue, 1970 to 2024
15mm is about as wide as the M system goes. The angle of view is roughly 110 degrees, straight lines stretch towards the edges, and anything close to the front element looms. That last part is the whole reason to own one: put something in the foreground and the picture gains depth a longer lens cannot give it.
On an M body there are no 15mm frame lines, so you either fit an external finder or use Live View on a digital body. Plenty of people skip both. Depth of field at this width is so deep that zone focusing covers almost everything, and you can shoot without looking through anything.
What to expect
- Around 110 degrees of coverage, wider than any frame line in the viewfinder.
- Depth of field deep enough that precise focus rarely decides the shot.
- Foreground objects render much larger than background ones.
What is on this list
Every 15mm M and LTM lens I have records for, including the compact Voigtländer Super Wide-Heliar and the Zeiss Distagon. Filter by aperture, weight or make, or sort by price to see what each one costs today.
Not sure which 15mm fits you? It depends on how you shoot. Answer a few questions in the lens finder or compare any two lenses side by side.
The cheapest 15mm M / LTM-mount lens right now is Voigtländer Super Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5 at €301. Across 6 tracked 15mm lenses, prices run from €301 to €4,398 (median €604). See the live price index →
The Laowa 15mm f/5 Cookie FF is an ultra-compact manual-focus 15mm f/5 ultra-wide, sold in a Leica M-mount version that draws rangefinder collector interest.
The Laowa 15mm f/2 Zero-D is a rangefinder-coupled ultra-wide manual lens for Leica M mount, notable as the fastest 15mm available for the system.
The Laowa 14mm f/4 FF RL Zero-D is a compact rangefinder-coupled ultra-wide prime for Leica M, notable as a rare modern native 14mm M-mount lens.
The MS Optics 17mm f/4.5 Perar is an ultra-wide angle pancake lens designed and hand-assembled by Sadayasu Miyazaki in Japan. Weighing only 47 grams and measuring just 10.2mm in length, it is one of the smallest wide-angle lenses ever produced for the Leica M mount. While its retrofocus design manages to keep the center sharp, the lens is defined by its significant optical compromises, including heavy vignetting, wavy distortion, and corner color shifts on digital sensors, making it a specialized tool for enthusiasts rather than a general-purpose architectural lens.
Voigtländer's Super Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5 III is a rangefinder-coupled M-mount ultra-wide whose redesigned optics tamed earlier digital corner problems.
The Voigtländer Super Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5 II is a compact ultra-wide M-mount lens, the rangefinder-coupled successor to the original screw-mount 15mm.
The Leica Tri-Elmar-M 16-18-21mm f/4 ASPH., the M-mount "WATE," packs three super-wide focal lengths into one rangefinder-coupled lens collectors prize.
The Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 15mm f/2.8 ZM is an ultra-wide rectilinear Leica M-mount lens prized for distortion control and exotic-glass optical design.
The Voigtländer Super Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5 is an LTM screw-mount ultra-wide that revived the Voigtländer name and remains a collector favorite.
The Carl Zeiss Hologon T* 16mm f/8 is a fixed-aperture Contax G ultra-wide lens, catalogued here only in third-party Leica M-converted form.
The Carl Zeiss Hologon 15mm f/8 11003 is a rare fixed-aperture Leica M ultra-wide lens supplied with a dedicated finder and center filter.
