The extremely high performance offered by the APO Elmar-S 180 mm f/3.5 makes it an exceptional lens, even when compared to other Leica S-System lenses. With its distinctive telephoto character and very fast initial aperture, it is an invaluable asset for portrait photography, and is also an ideal lens for close-up work, thanks to its close focusing limit of just 1.5 meters (~5 ft)