Leica M infrared lenses.
3 lensesGood 3Maybe 0Bad 0
Use an adapter to mount these lenses to many mirrorless cameras.
Data credit: these ratings come from the remarkable research at irlensdb.com, a community-built resource that has tested and documented more infrared lenses than any other reference online. I have stripped the retailer links and reformatted the data, but the hard work of collecting it belongs to them.
Ratings describe how a lens behaves on an infrared-converted camera. A maybe lens is usually fine wide open and shows a hot spot as you stop down, so check the notes before you write one off.
Lenses (3)
Voigtländer 35 mm / 1:2.0 APO-Lanthar aspherical Z
Good- Focal
- 35mm
- Aperture
- ƒ/2
- Filter
- ⌀49mm
- Weight
- 352 g
A truly impressive performer. No meaningful hotspots at any aperture and the visible red / IR color phasing is tighter than my other lenses, making 550nm/590nm-filtered false color much more usable when there are high contrast elements at the frame edges. -Michael Piantedosi
Leica Elmarit-M 135mm ƒ/2.8
Good- Focal
- 135mm
- Aperture
- ƒ/2.8
- Filter
- ⌀55mm
- Weight
- 780 g
No hotspot. Specs are for the later (III) version with the standard E55 filter thread; earlier versions used a Series VII filter adapter instead.
Leica 135mm ƒ/4 (Leitz Wetzlar Elmar 1960-1965)
Good- Focal
- 135mm
- Aperture
- ƒ/4
- Filter
- ⌀39mm
Reported by Michael Piantedosi
Next step
Ready to shoot infrared on Leica M?
Links to Kolari Vision are affiliate links: if you buy through them the site earns a commission at no extra cost to you. They are the shop my own conversions and filters came from, and the recommendation would be the same without the program — full disclosure.
Links to Kolari Vision are affiliate links: if you buy through them the site earns a commission at no extra cost to you. They are the shop my own conversions and filters came from, and the recommendation would be the same without the program — full disclosure.
Other full frame mounts
All mounts in the database →Related guides
Where this data comes from
These ratings are compiled from the community-maintained Infrared Lens Database, with contributor credits kept in the notes. Ratings are submitted by photographers using different conversions, so results vary by wavelength, aperture and individual lens copy — treat them as a strong starting point, not a guarantee. Retailer links from the source have been removed. If you have tested a lens, contribute your result back to the original database so everyone benefits.