The Leica 24mm f/1.4 Summilux-M Aspherical Lens is a wide angle lens designed for high-speed performance. The wide angle view offered by this lens makes it possible to work efficiently in cramped quarters. It adds a more dynamic feeling to close-up pictures and gives landscape photographs significantly more depth.

The lens is optimized for use with the digital M8 camera, and will hardly show any light falloff when set to its widest open aperture (f/1.4). But even when used with a 35mm system, stopping down to f/2.8 will lead to absolutely outstanding image quality. Its bright f/1.4 aperture allows for an extremely shallow depth of field (DOF), and at a medium f/stop, the focal range is so great that entire scenes can be reproduced sharply. Because of its floating element design, the very high resolution is retained even in the close-up range.

This lens features "6-bit" coding, which allows the digital M camera to read this information optically and to identify which lens is being used. The camera can then (optionally) apply a "final stage" software based vignetting correction (for RAW images the lens used is simply recorded, no change is made).