By Ked · May 2026

The Leica M5: First TTL Meter, Bigger Body, and the Cult Following

May 2026

Of all the M-mount Leicas, the M5 is the one that buyers love or hate. There is no middle ground. Introduced in 1971 as Leica's first M-body with built-in TTL metering, the M5 abandoned the classic dimensions of the M2, M3, and M4. The body grew taller, heavier, and physically larger than any M before it. The shooter community in 1971 was unforgiving about that change. The camera sold below Leica's expectations and was discontinued after only four years and roughly 33,900 units. The financial damage from the M5's commercial failure was a real contributor to the crisis that pushed Leica into the partnership with Minolta that produced the Leica CL.

And yet, fifty-some years later, the M5 has a devoted following of shooters who consider it the most underrated M-body Leica has ever made. The metering is excellent. The shutter speed dial is brilliantly engineered. The viewfinder is bright and easy to focus. Once you accept the size, the camera is in many ways more usable than the bodies that came after it. This post walks through what makes the M5 unique, why it failed commercially, and why a small but loyal segment of the used market still pays a premium for clean examples.

The Innovation: First TTL Meter in an M

Before the M5, no M had a built-in light meter. M2, M3, M4 shooters carried a separate handheld meter or clipped a Leica MR meter to the accessory shoe. The M5 changed that, and in doing so it changed the trajectory of every M Leica that followed. The M6 (1984), MP (2003), and M7 (2002) all build on the basic idea the M5 introduced: a meter that reads light coming through the taking lens.

The M5's metering display is a match-needle system in the viewfinder. Two needles sit at the bottom of the finder: one driven by the meter, one driven by the shutter speed setting. Match the two needles and the exposure is correct. It's a very direct, very visual way of seeing the exposure relationship, and once you've used it, the M6's two-arrow display feels primitive by comparison.

Then What Is the "M6 TTL"?

This is the question every M5 owner eventually fields: if the M5 was the first M with through-the-lens metering in 1971, why does Leica sell a camera called the "M6 TTL"? The two names use "TTL" to mean different things. The M5's meter, and the meter in every M since, reads ambient light through the taking lens. The M6 "classic" of 1984 has exactly that: a through-the-lens exposure meter. The "TTL" in the M6 TTL (1998 to 2002) refers to through-the-lens flash metering, which the classic M6 does not have. The ambient exposure meter is the same on both M6 versions.

With an M6 TTL and a dedicated flash (Leica's SF 20, or an SCA-3000 system flash on the SCA-3501 adapter), a sensor facing the film measures the flash light bouncing off the film during the exposure and shuts the flash off the instant the exposure is correct. This off-the-film method is what "TTL flash" means, and neither the M5 nor the classic M6 can do it. The M5's meter in particular swings its CdS cell completely out of the light path before the shutter even opens, so it has no way to read anything during the exposure.

So the metering lineage runs in three steps: the M5 (1971) introduced TTL ambient metering; the classic M6 (1984) carried that meter into a compact body; and the M6 TTL (1998) added TTL flash on top of it. The M6 TTL also nudged the controls back toward usability in ways an M5 shooter will recognize: a larger shutter speed dial that turns in the same direction as the viewfinder's metering arrows, an "off" position on that dial to switch the meter off when the camera is stowed, a top plate about 2mm taller to house the flash electronics, and a center dot added between the two LED arrows, so correct exposure shows as a single lit dot rather than a balance of two.

The Swing-Arm CdS Cell

The physical metering mechanism is what makes the M5 mechanically distinctive, and it is also what limits some lens choices. The meter uses a CdS (cadmium sulfide) cell mounted on a swing arm. Before exposure, the arm holds the CdS cell down in front of the film plane, reading light coming through the lens directly. When you press the shutter button, the arm swings the cell up and out of the light path a fraction of a second before the shutter curtain begins to move, so the cell is out of the way during the actual exposure.

This was clever engineering for 1971, since TTL metering at all was a real achievement, but it had two consequences:

• The swing arm and CdS cell take up physical space inside the camera. That's why the M5 body had to grow. The classic M2/M3/M4 body didn't have room for the swing-arm assembly, so Leica designed a larger shell to accommodate it.
• Some collapsible lenses can hit the cell or the arm. A collapsible Elmar 50mm or Summicron 50mm, when collapsed and mounted on an M5, can physically contact the CdS cell. This can damage the cell, the arm, or the lens. If you intend to shoot collapsible lenses on an M5, you must keep them extended at all times. They cannot be collapsed for transport with the lens still mounted. This is the single most important practical fact about M5 ownership.

For the M6 and M7, Leica solved this elegantly by replacing the swing-arm CdS with a fixed silicon photodiode reading reflected light off a white patch on the shutter curtain. See our post on the M7 for how that system works. The M5's swing-arm approach was a one-generation solution within the M line; nothing in the M series uses it now.

The M5 was not the only Leica to use this swing-arm trick, though. The Leica CL of 1973, developed with Minolta and sold during the same stretch, uses the same idea in a far smaller body: a CdS cell on a pivoting arm, which owners nickname the "lollipop," sits between the rear of the lens and the shutter to take the reading, then retracts out of the way when you fire. It is a separately engineered, miniaturized version rather than the literal M5 mechanism, but the principle is identical, and so is the catch. The CL carries the same lens caution: collapsible lenses must not be fully collapsed, to the point that Leitz advised taping the barrel to limit the travel, and a few deep-protruding wides such as the 15mm Hologon, the 21mm Super-Angulon, and early 28mm Elmarits can foul the meter arm and should be kept off the body. There is a quiet irony in it, since the CL shared the M5's metering even as its smaller, cheaper body drew buyers away from the M5 it was partly meant to rescue. The swing arm went no further than those two cameras: when Minolta carried the concept forward as the Minolta CLE in 1980, it dropped the moving arm for a fixed silicon cell reading light reflected off the shutter, the same direction Leica took with the M6's white-patch meter, and no camera since has put the meter back on a moving arm.

The Shutter Speed Dial

Here is where the M5 quietly innovated in a way nobody talks about enough. The shutter speed dial on the M5 is oversized and extends past the front edge of the top plate, so the photographer can rotate it with the index finger while looking through the viewfinder. The setting is also visible inside the viewfinder via a small indicator window.

That sounds minor. In practice, it's transformative. On every other M (before or since), changing the shutter speed means moving your eye off the viewfinder, finding the dial, turning it, and putting your eye back. On the M5, you can adjust shutter speed and meter from the same posture without ever lifting your head. For active shooting in variable light, exactly the situation a TTL meter is meant to help with, this is a substantial productivity benefit. The M6 and M7 reverted to the classic top-plate-only dial position; only the M5 has this extended forward dial.

The Bigger Body

The M5 is meaningfully larger than every other M:

• About 17mm wider and 7mm taller than an M4
• Around 50g heavier than other M bodies, noticeable but less dramatic than its reputation suggests

In hand, the M5 feels obviously larger than an M3 or M6, but it doesn't feel bad. Leica still made the body well-balanced, the controls are excellent, and the grip area is actually more comfortable for many shooters with larger hands. The size objection in 1971 was largely emotional: the M had been compact for seventeen years, and the M5 broke that. Today, in a world of mirrorless cameras that are smaller and lighter than even an M3, the M5's "big" body is more like "moderate" by modern standards.

Two-Lug vs Three-Lug Variants

One small but practical M5 detail: the camera was made in two physical configurations:

• Two-lug (early production, 1971–1973): strap lugs on the left side of the body, designed to be carried vertically.
• Three-lug (later production, 1973–1975): an additional strap lug on the right side, allowing the camera to be carried horizontally like every other M, or vertically. Most M5 buyers prefer the three-lug because it's more flexible.

Both configurations are mechanically identical otherwise: same shutter, same meter, same lens mount. Pricing on the used market is roughly equal between the two; the three-lug is slightly more common because it was produced longer.

Why It Failed Commercially

The 1971 buyer of a Leica M was conservative. They had bought their M2 or M3 because it was small, beautifully made, and timeless. When the M5 arrived bigger, heavier, and visually different, large segments of the existing M customer base simply didn't want it. Sales were weak from the start. Around the same time, the SLR was eating the rangefinder market. The Canon F-1, the Nikon F2, and the Olympus OM-1 all offered TTL metering and faster operation than any rangefinder for less money. The M5's TTL metering was no longer a unique selling point even before its first year was out.

Leica's financial situation deteriorated. The partnership with Minolta that produced the smaller, less expensive Leica CL (1973–1976) was partly a response to the M5's commercial troubles. The M5 was discontinued in 1975. Leica returned to the classic compact body with the M4-2 (1977) and never offered the bigger body again.

Why It Has a Cult Following Today

Shooters who have spent real time with an M5 often become evangelists for it. The reasons:

• The TTL meter is genuinely excellent. Match-needle is more informative than the M6's two-arrow display, the metering response is quick, and the linearity of the reading is reliable.
• The extended shutter speed dial is the best implementation Leica ever made of an M-body shutter dial.
• The viewfinder is bright, clear, and easy to focus at 0.72x magnification, with a similar feel to an M2 or M4.
• The body, while bigger, is well-balanced. Many shooters with larger hands actually prefer it.
• The build quality is the same Wetzlar-era brass-and-precision construction as the M4. These cameras feel like they'll outlast every other camera in your bag.
• Prices are low relative to comparable-era M4s, M4-2s, or M6s. A clean M5 typically costs noticeably less than a clean M4 of the same vintage and condition, despite having more capability.

The catch is the lens compatibility issue. If you shoot rigid lenses (Summicron 35mm, modern Summicron 50mm, any Summilux, anything Voigtländer or Zeiss), there's no problem. If you specifically want to shoot collapsible vintage Elmars or collapsible Summicrons on the M5, you have to commit to keeping them extended, and that's a workflow constraint many shooters don't want.

Prices Today

As of May 2026 we track 80 active M5 listings with a median ask of $1,795. For comparison, our M4 inventory shows a median around $5,000 (skewed high by collector pieces, but even normalizing for that the M4 runs $1,400–$2,000 higher than the M5 for similar-condition bodies). That price gap is exactly the underrating we describe above. Browsing current UsedCameraTracker M5 listings in detail:

• User-grade M5 (chrome or black) with normal wear, working meter: $1,200–$2,000.
• Clean M5 with recent CLA and verified meter calibration: $1,800–$2,800.
• Mint M5 with box and papers: $2,800–$4,000.
• Black-chrome M5 (less common than chrome): roughly 20% premium over a comparable chrome example.
• Three-lug variants trade roughly equal to two-lug; condition matters far more than lug count.

The M5 is consistently one of the best price-to-capability buys in the M-mount used market. A clean M5 with a working meter at $2,000 is more camera than a non-metered M4 at the same price.

Who Should Buy an M5

An M5 is the right buy if any of the following describes you:

• You want a film M with TTL metering but the M6 is out of your budget, and you don't mind the larger body.
• You shoot rigid M-mount lenses (any modern Summicron, Summilux, Voigtländer, Zeiss) and the collapsible-lens issue doesn't apply to you.
• You like the look and feel of the match-needle viewfinder display. Many shooters who use both M5 and M6 prefer the M5's display.
• You want the extended-forward shutter speed dial. Once you've used it, the M6's top-plate-only dial feels limited.
• You appreciate the cult-favorite status and want a body that hasn't been priced up by the broader Leica market yet.

The M5 is not the right buy if you specifically want a compact M for travel or street, if you primarily shoot collapsible vintage lenses, or if you value resale-stability above shooting capability. The M5 has appreciated less than the M2/M3/M4 over the last twenty years, and that pattern is likely to continue.

For shooters willing to look past the size, the M5 is one of the most rewarding M-bodies to actually use. It's the camera Leica almost destroyed itself making, and the camera Leica never quite returned to. Browse current M5 listings on UsedCameraTracker to see what's on the market and at what prices.