Jamie Roberts

@Smogg I would say this is not a good deal; you're paying a lot of money for more storage. I honestly think that for that $$ you should work directly with Leica on the issues if you can (through your dealer, etc). They should be able to perform deep diagnostics on your defective cameras and see what, exactly, is wrong with them and why they cause you so much trouble. Having said that, I don't have a spare M11 to compare with my (so far) trouble-free M11P (5K shots now and no problems). But Leica should be able to tell you if there's a significant difference in electronics or something that might make a big difference between the models. Is there a reason you can't get official help? (FWIW, as discussed elsewhere, I also think you need a different field back-up regimen than you've said you use (swapping around formatted, used and re-used cards, IMO, is never, and has never been, a good idea), regardless of what camera you use )

FWIW, and as a different data point, I guess, I took my M11P out today in the 2c weather (windy, too) and shot a couple of hundred shots outdoors in the afternoon, with WB fixed at 5600K, and included a couple of color checker shots. When I set the WB in C1, the neutrals in all the files *are* neutral (as in actually measuring across RGB channels within a digit or two--which is as good as any camera I've ever used).

Can I please ask you to say how you "know" there's a magenta cast with the M11? Have you been shooting grey cards at fixed (and known) broad--spectrum white balances, and then measuring outputs from different RAW converters? I"ve seen a few images here (with all the caveats that browsers etc... impose on colors) that seem to tilt towards magenta. I've seen a few arguments about it here, but nothing demonstrable or repeatable so far. For me, so far (5k shots in), I haven't seen any of mine with a magenta cast except in the case of very poor illumination and mixed light when I measure neutrals at various stages of illumination. Of course, this is raw-processor dependent... Now, an unfiltered M8: *that* had demonstrable magenta issues As for color noise in high ISO out-of-cam JPEGs; yeah, it's there. They should fix that if possible (it's certainly fixable in post, but the whole point, I guess, of SOOC JPEGs is not have to do much post-processing :))

Fabulous photos, Stuart! Congratulations on the post count!

Thanks for clarifying--that all makes sense! As for workflow, I understand wanting to back up in the field. But why ingest the card twice (it's slow, too)? Why not, say, copy files to your Mac in the field, then copy them again to a fast external SSD? That way you could format the card in-camera, have a backup, and still ingest raws (from the SSD) when you're home. I understand it seems to be an unnecessary step, but when I was shooting a lot of weddings (mainly with an M9!), that's basically how I'd do it (no SSDs back then, but external hard drives). The "always format in-camera before use" mantra came from issues from many manufacturers 15 years ago--not just Leica--where the camera would get confused re-reading re-used, previously formatted cards (and heaven help you if you put a card from one camera into a different brand without re-formatting!). PS--love your photography (from Instagram)--it's too bad you're having such trouble with the M11.

Even though I'm just returning to the M system, I have to agree with you. The joy I get from shooting the M11P is unmatched by any other camera I've had so far (and my second favorite, these days, after years of shooting Canon, is the little Panasonic S5(x)ii--which also does a creditable job with Leica lenses!).

One more abstract... Summicron 35 ASPH (uncoded). ISO 800 - 1/4000s - F4. At the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, On.

I have some logical questions... 1) Why would anyone format a card in an M10 then put it in an M11 (even without a trip through MacOS)? Are you saying the formatting in the M10 is somehow protective for the M11 against bad writes? 2) I understand folks think that MacOS is "littering" SD cards with hidden files. So that means you always need to re-format the card. But how on earth could the Mac writing files "damage the SD card structure?" And If I format my cards every time they go into the M11 (which I always do), the M11 has erased the "littering" put there by a Mac, no? (FWIW I use both Mac and Windows). 3) If I format my card every time it goes into an M11, then get an error, then the M11 in-camera formatting (or a card incompatibility--which seems to be a Leica thing) is at the root of the issue. 4) Doing a full reset seems wise to me, though how that would affect camera writes is a little hard to tell... the only "new" thing that would affect the write, you would think, would be the security / originality confirmation signature (which I have turned off, right now :)) For me: 3K photos so far on latest firmware: no bad DNGs or lockups yet (except when I forgot to remove the cap and had to wait for noise reduction. But that's on me :))

Yes, I think so... I set DXO to output to the original folder (but in a \DXO sub-folder). But I'll take another look. Right now, when in C1, and I right-click on a thumbnail and "Open with... DXO" nothing happens.

Thanks so much Stuart! It's nice to be back with a Leica again

Contemplating (even) more screens. At the Aga Khan museum, Toronto ON, multi-media exhibit. Existing light; M11 P, (uncoded) Summicron 35 @ f2 @ 1/500s. ISO 6400.

At the Aga Khan Museum, in Toronto, ON. M11P, (uncoded) Summicron 35mm ASPH: f5.6-1/360s - ISO 800

I do notice a great deal of difference in color noise reduction on M11 files at ISO 6400+ using DxO, so I just pre-processed a batch for import into C1 and further processing (there's no lens corrections I could see for a Leica 35 Summicron ASPH in DxO, so there wasn't any correction there :)) Also, FWIW, the "Open with..." trick doesn't seem to work with DxO Pure Raw 4 from within Capture One (using a session).

Interesting. I see no magenta cast on M11 files processed in C1, though I admit I shoot a K value and don't use the camera's AWB or anything like that (to be fair, I don't shoot my Panasonics or Canons with AWB either). I've seen some people complain about a magenta cast when processing through LR, which leads me to suspect the raw processing (and maybe the camera's AWB sensor, which, as I said, I never use). With the right white balance, M11 skin tones, neutrals, and saturated colours, even under poor artificial light, are pretty much "just right" out of the box. I also don't do a lot of color manipulation, in terms of current trends and filters or film profiles (though color profiles are something different). And I pushed the M9 a lot with colour. But I'll take your word for the M10 in LR As for the other great things about the M11--I agree--and I haven't had any file glitches yet (fingers crossed).

Are you shooting extended color checkers or something and measuring results, or is the Adobe color evaluation your subjective sense? As for Lightroom, even though it's the recommended RAW converter, I've personally never liked its underlying color or processing model--especially with CCD cameras like the M8 (horrid!) and the M9 (only very slightly less horrid!)--and *especially* with skin tones aimed for print. I hear Lightroom is much improved these days, and someday I'll try it again, but it's low on my list. I still use Capture One, and it's hard to teach an old dog like me new tricks But the M11--in C1--so far pretty much bests anything I've seen yet from an M digital camera on *all* counts, including color and ease of processing, though I really don't know the M10R except through test DNGs. It's interesting you think the M10R has better highlight recovery and noise patterns--did you compare at similar image sizes and ISOs or only at 100%?