Picture quality, speed, and particularly important for professional use a robust construction are the main advantages of all APO-Summicron-SL-Lenses. The APO-Summicron-SL-Lenses were designed from scratch for the mirrorless SL-System. That means that the optical and sensor design, as well as the imaging process match perfectly to achieve the highest quality. They offer maximum detail transfer and pure colour reproduction from the center to the edges, over all distances and all F-stop settings. Leica APO-Summicron-SL-Lenses already achieve extremely high detail contrast close to diffraction limit, which makes them particularly suitable for the creative use of planes of sharpness and unsharpness and the distinct isolation of subject details. Thanks to their shallow depth of field and exceptional imaging performance, every single lens guarantees the special look for which Leica photography is renowned.

The zoom range of the fast Leica APO-Vario-Elmarit-SL 90-280 mm f/2.8-4 follows on directly from that of the Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90 mm f/2.8-4 ASPH. Together, these two lenses cover a full range of focal lengths extending from 24 to 280 mm.

The newly developed dual internal focusing concept enables the fastest autofocus found in any professional camera system. Its optical image stabilisation (OIS) compensates for up to 3.5 stops of camera shake.

Of the 23 elements in seven moving groups, seven are made from glasses with anomalous partial dispersion for the minimisation of chromatic aberrations. The movement of the two focusing elements is provided by a newly developed drive concept with linear positioning of the lenses by stepping motors. The lens hood supplied with the lens. The lens also has a rotating, removable tripod plate built in.