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I just got the LLL Elcan 50mm f2 and went out with it today, so thought of sharing my thoughts here given there isn’t a lot of info about this lens online. This is the second remake done by Light Lens Lab, after the 35mm 8 elements and it is slowly rolling out to more people outside of China / Hong Kong. Here are my quick thoughts, not technical at all; this review is simply a summary of my thoughts (a Leica user who has used pretty much all 35mm and 50mm available for the L-mount and M-mount). Build Quality: Simply amazing. On par with any Leica lens I’ve tried. I also own the LLL 8-elements and both lenses are amazingly well built. The lens is pretty much the same size as the 8 elements, so it’s very small for a 50mm lens, around half the size of a regular 50mm summicron. That being said, the lens is all brass so it weights around 230g (similar to the 50 cron weight wise). I got the chrome version, but it’s also available in black paint and other finishes such as titanium, olive, etc. Ease of use: The lens design remains true to the original Elcan, which means that the focus knob is the largest on any Leica lens I’ve tried (so that it can be easily focused when wearing gloves), and there is a small knob to move the aperture, like the summicron 35mm 6 elements. The only downside with the Elcan (original and remake) is that for some unknown reason the aperture turns in the opposite way as all other Leica lens, so it does take some time to get used to it. Focus throw is very similar to any old Leica lens, which is a bit longer than modern Leica lens (I actually prefer a longer focus throw). Optics: I never used the original Elcan so it’s hard to compare, but the shop I got it from had the original and told me that after testing them side by side they were 98% identical. That being said, I’ve shot the lens wide open & at around f4~f5.6 today, so I will share some shots with you today so that you can make your own conclusions. My initial impression is that it has a very nice, old style bokeh, and it is very sharp in the center even wide open (similar to the rigid Summicron 50mm, Summicron 50mm v3 or similar lens from that period). To my surprise, the Elcan also has a nice 3D pop, which I feel it is more pronounced than the Rigid / V3. I did not notice any chromatic aberration in all of my shots (about 100 shots) but I also did not pixel peep. Flare resistance is much higher than the 8 elements; I stress tested it and tried hard to make it flare, but was not able to get any washed out shots even when shooting directly against the sun, I’d rank it similar to the V4/V5 Summicron 50mm in terms of flare resistance. Overall, this is yet another amazing remake from Light Lens Lab. I wish Leica will continue to make more remakes, including the 8 elements or the Elcan, but for now the LLL is the next best thing and on par with anything coming out from Leica. I highly recommend LLL to anyone who doesn’t want to pay collector prices for the original lens. This is pretty much it, here are some photos of the lens mounted on the Leica M9-P so that you can see how it looks, and I’ll post a few pictures shot with the lens below. Hope you find it useful. If anyone owns this lens I’d love to hear your thoughts as well. Thank you!

In a recent post, I shared my experience of going on a Leica Journey, starting with the Leica Q and then moving to the Leica M10. On January 14th, the next step in my journey came to fruition with the delivery of an M11. Actually, I ordered three M11s for delivery on launch day! One for myself, one for my partner and one for a colleague. In this post, I’ll share my thoughts after using the camera for over a month. The full review with images and more content can be found here. It's a long post, so I'll do my best to summarize the key points below. Introduction It must be a huge challenge for the designers at Leica to come up with a new M model. There’s always the tussle between the purists that want to keep to a film-like experience, while the modernists are looking for Leica to move to a hybrid rangefinder/EVF solution, with more exposure aids and conveniences to be relevant in a modern world dominated by mobile phones and social media. I can imagine the conversations at Leica HQ where every small change is debated to ensure that the M stays true to its roots, while still changing enough to attract a new generation of customers. After using the M11 for a few weeks, I strongly believe that the M11 will go down in history as a bridge to the future of the M system, similar to how the M8 was a bridge into the digital world. Why Upgrade? No camera (or electronic device for that matter) is perfect. When using the M10 over the past 4.5 years, there were a few areas that I wished could be improved: Highlight recovery Battery life and charging Weight Resolution Metering Connectivity Size & Weight For the M11, this section should be titled Silver Brass vs. Black Aluminum. The M10 was available in only one type of metal arrangement, brass top with magnesium body. The M11 however is available with two options: Silver with brass top and magnesium body, weighing 640g with battery Black with aluminum top and magnesium body, weighing 530g with battery I had originally ordered a silver M11 because silver looks absolutely incredible on Leica cameras, however, in this case, I ended up with black. I didn’t choose black, but black chose me. I ordered three M11s for launch day, with two silvers and one black. My colleague and I wanted silver and my partner wanted black. However, Kai Wong leaked a YouTube video a few days before the launch where he disparaged the new black finish; this resulted in many Hong Kong buyers switching their orders from black to silver. Since I was already being greedy in wanting three M11s on launch day, the shop notified me that I’d have to wait a few weeks to get two silvers. Not being the patient type, I decided to go for one of the plentiful black M11s. When I was packaging the M10 for sale, I really thought I made a mistake in accepting the black M11, having internal debates on whether I should have just waited to get the colour I really wanted. However, with use, I’ve come to love the black, not so much for the colour, but because of the weight savings. Usability Live View Metering The M11 takes a huge step forward in usability with multi-field metering being the standard setting. The multi-field metering means that the sensor takes into consideration the full scene and tries to apply exposure settings that will result in a properly exposed image. Typically, cameras try to expose so that the average of the image equals ~18% grey, and the M11 now operates much in the same way as any modern digital camera. While the screen is not active with this new metering mode, the sensor is always exposed and on. When you take an exposure, the shutter now has to close, expose and then re-open. The whole process feels laggy with an uninspiring shutter sound; however under controlled testing, the shutter lag is actually very minor compared to the M10. I’m hoping that Leica can introduce an Electronic Front Shutter Curtain mode so that it reduces the lag and improves the shutter sound. If you have an M11, go into the Fotos app and please submit a request for this feature. 64 Base ISO Another big improvement is the base ISO coming down from 200 to 64. This makes it much more convenient to shoot lenses wide open in bright conditions without having to use an ND filter. If the shutter speed does not come down to a sufficient level wide open, the next improvement in usability may help, with the introduction of the electronic shutter. Electronic Shutter If 64 ISO is not sufficient to bring the shutter speeds down, the electronic shutter will help. The new electronic shutter can be used from as slow as 60 seconds to as fast as 1/16000 of a second. The new hybrid mode engages the mechanical shutter between 60 minutes and 1/4000 of a second and electronic from 1/4000 to 1/16000 of a second. Battery Life With the M11 always being in live view mode (albeit with the LCD screen off), I was worried about battery life, but it has thus far not been an issue. I have yet to exhaust the battery in an outing. However, and I think this is due to some firmware bugs, I’ve experienced inconsistent and excessive battery drain at times. I can go out with 100% and come back home with 85% battery remaining, and then do the same thing the next day and come home with only 45% battery remaining. At first, I thought this was due to the battery taking some time to calibrate, however even with a few weeks of use, I don’t feel fully confident in the battery or the reading. Regardless, 45% battery remaining is still very good after a day’s shooting. Battery and SD Card Access This usability section has become really long, but it’s clear that Leica made improvements in a number of areas to improve the usability of the camera. Another big step forward is the elimination of the traditional bottom plate, a cool relic from the film era. As in the introduction, I can only imagine the debates at Leica HQ around the decision to stick with the purists or move to something more modern. The M11 brings this great improvement to everyone with the elimination of the bottom plate and aligning with Leica’s other models in having a clever battery that also forms part of the bottom of the camera. A nice (and rather intense) release mechanism ensures that the battery ejects only enough so that you must push it back in slightly to release it fully from the camera. It’s something that only Leica would do and it’s implemented to perfection. If I wasn’t concerned about wear and tear, I’d latch and unlatch the battery all day just for the satisfaction of feeling its wonderful mechanical precision. Internal SD Card Leica has done something that makes me scratch my head as to why other camera companies have not done this. Leica now includes 64GB of memory in the camera as standard. It can be used to mirror images, save RAW or JPEG formats onto each card, or as an extension of your inserted card. The idea is right, but the implementation is a bit cumbersome. As of firmware 1.2.0, the only way to import the images from the internal card on MacOS is to use the clumsy “Image Capture” app. There are rumours that Leica will implement a better protocol to allow MacOS Finder to see the camera so that they can be imported more efficiently. Overall Performance The M11 has an improved Maestro III processor, which provides the camera with a tangible improvement in how quickly the camera responds to inputs. This is especially noticeable in reviewing images, moving around the image, making changes in menus or any other normal interaction with the camera. You’d never know that this camera has more than twice the number of pixels as the M10. The only interaction that feels laggy is the shutter, but that’s due to reasons noted above. Build Quality If you’ve owned or held an M10, the M11 will feel very familiar. In regards to build quality, nobody can touch Leica at the volumes that they sell. Whether you choose the lighter black or the hefty silver, you’ll be rewarded with the best build quality of any camera on the market. The M11 really does feel like it’s built from one block of machined metal. Controls Leica perfected the controls on the M series of cameras starting from the M10. The M11 takes that and evolves it slightly with the movement of a button from the front to the top. Leica seem to have further improved the touch interface in the M11 from previous cameras with the touch interface being responsive and intuitive to use. It’s far better than the ones in my Fujifilm cameras, and for many functions (zooming in and deleting images), has become my go-to interface. I love the new menu system (taken from the SL and Q series) and how easy it is to find items. Leica are the masters of taking something very complex and simplifying it, while still offering a rich set of options to choose from. I absolutely love the touch screen grid layout that first appears. The ability to click on an item and easily adjust it is very intuitive. I wonder why other companies like Fujifilm don’t allow touch in their similar Q Menu. Connectivity Being able to share images on social media or with friends has become a basic requirement in the modern world, however most camera companies have yet to figure out how to make this seamless for the user. Leica is making great attempts at closing that gap, but the Leica Fotos app is still a work-in-progress. There are times where it’s brilliant and transfers images quickly, and then there are times where it seems to freeze or operate very slowly. It’s so inconsistent that I can’t rely upon it at this time. The MFI or Made for iPhone cable gives me some hope, but we’ll have to wait and see once Leica Fotos is out of beta with the M11. Image Quality If you’re coming from an M10, the image quality will knock your socks off. However, if you’re coming from a Fujifilm GFX100S like I am, the image quality will be excellent, but not up to Medium Format levels. At the pixel level, with super sharp lenses like the Voigtlander 50MM APO or any Leica lens stopped down to F5.6, the detail is pretty much the same as the Sony A7R4 when using GM lenses, but a slight step down from the GFX100S using Fujinon lenses. The M11 takes two big steps forward over the M10: High ISO is now totally usable up to 12,800 without any fear of the image detail being swamped by noise or grain. The highlight recovery is now on par with the best cameras on the market. I think a 50-100MP sensor is the sweet spot for photography for the coming decade. While higher resolutions provide the ability to crop or downsample noisy images, the extra resolution starts to introduce sloppy technique and/or intentional odd framing in order to extract multiple compositions from the image. On my Fujifilm GFX50R, I often had issues in getting sharp images and needed to increase the shutter speed from 1/1xFL to 1/2xFL or even 1/3xFL. To my surprise, I haven’t found this to be as much of an issue as I expected. I almost didn’t buy the M11 because it lacks In-Body Image Stabilization (IBIS), but I’ve found that 1/2xFL is sufficient for tack sharp images. It also helps tremendously that the Leica M mount has many wide aperture lenses which provide fast shutter speeds in even low-light situations. One area I don’t think Leica chose wisely was there investment of engineering resources into the variable resolution capability. The M11 has a unique feature that allows the user to select 18MP, 36MP or the native 60MP for both the RAW and JPEG files. On the surface, this would appear to have some advantages, but in practice, I haven’t found any difference in image quality, noise or dynamic range. I think Leica introduced this feature to placate the traditionalists that often complain on Leica forums that anything more than 24MP is sacrilegious and a waste. I don’t see myself using this feature much, if at all, and I wish that Leica had instead put this engineering talent towards introducing an Electronic Front Curtain Shutter or improving the buggy firmware. Packaging For anyone that has purchased a Leica M prior to the M11, you would have experienced one of the coolest unboxing experiences out there. The outer shell systematically unravels itself to expose a beautifully built box with a magnetic flap hiding the camera, and well defined cardboard drawers encasing user manuals and cables. It’s an unforgettable experience and makes the first interaction with the camera really special. Unfortunately, likely due to environmental reasons, Leica has moved away from this packaging and now has a very basic box with foam inserts. The camera sits in the foam insert as do the cables. The user manual now sits on top of the foam under the very normal and uninspiring outer box. When I first opened the M11, I asked the shop for the “real box” instead of the shipping box, to which I was saddened to hear, “this is the real box”. Improvement Opportunities Firmware For people new to Leica that come from other quality brands, there are some things that may surprise you. For both my M10 and now the M11, the firmware straight out of the box has felt unpolished. I assume the new processor and menu system required a rewrite of the firmware. The M10 used to freeze up now and then, especially when using the EVF, but the M11 freezes in many more situations, and often at random. Shutter The shutter feel and sound on the M11 is really rather poor. I can understand why Leica appears to have put no engineering time into the shutter. This goes back to the introduction in that I see the M11 as a bridge into the future. The future M12 will likely have a fully electronic shutter so there would be little benefit to investing R&D into a dying mechanism. Leica Fotos I won’t go into detail on the issues with this app because it’s still in beta for the M11 and that wouldn’t be fair. However, I think Leica can take this app in an interesting direction. With the MFI cable, we have the opportunity for high speed data transfer. With that capability, it would be great if Leica could allow in-camera RAW editing in the way that Fujifilm does. Conclusion The M11 is a big step forward over the M10, and a bridge to the future. It has just enough traditional characteristics to keep long-term conservative enthusiasts onboard, and just enough modern technology to bring new customers into the Leica fold. As great as this camera is, and I’m very happy to have upgraded, I really do see this camera as a stepping stone to where I think Leica really wants (and needs) to go with the M cameras. This is not the end-game M camera for me; what would make it end-game is where I think Leica is taking the M system. I’ll make some bold (and perhaps foolish) predictions of what the future holds for the M system for M12 and beyond: Hybrid Rangefinder / EVF – One of the great little known joys in the photography world is using a Fujifilm X-Pro2 with a manual focus lens and the excellent “Digital Rangefinder Patch” in the OVF. With Leica’s incredible engineering talent, I’m sure they can come up with an even better solution than this already excellent one. There are hints of this coming with the introduction of close focusing lenses like the 35MM APO, that focuses down to 30cm instead of the rangefinder’s limit of 70cm. Electronic Shutter – As much as I love the noise and feeling of a mechanical shutter, it’s obvious that the future is fully electronic. The technology exists today to have a fully electronic shutter at resolutions up to ~50MP. By the time the M12 rolls around in ~4 years, there should be scanning rates sufficient to support higher resolutions. High-speed Connectivity – Leica has taken a step forward with the MFI cable. I think they truly appreciate the need for a modern camera to have the capability to connect and transfer images seamlessly to a mobile device. I think Leica will find a way to make this simple and easy for the end-user by using high speed wireless technologies instead of a proprietary cable. If they can also add in-camera RAW editing, that would be the perfect end-to-end solution for instant sharing. In-Body Image Stabilization – For many people, the lack of IBIS is a dealbreaker for the M11; I was of the same mind before actually using the camera. As noted above, I haven’t found it difficult to get tack sharp images at 1/2xFL, which is easily achievable given the wide variety of F1.4 (and even F1-F1.2) lenses available for this system. However, it’s been my experience that there’s really no downside to IBIS, so I think Leica will eventually implement it once they move to an electronic shutter, which would make room inside the body to add other technologies such as IBIS. To wrap up this review, there’s a lot to love about the new M11. The lighter weight, higher resolution, excellent battery life, elimination of the cumbersome bottom plate and vastly improved highlight recovery make for a compelling upgrade from the M10. However, if you’re coming from an M10-R, I think the decision becomes a lot more difficult. The M10-R has more than enough resolution and also doesn’t have the highlight recovery issue of the M10. If you can get a like-new condition second hand M10-R, it might be the current sweet spot for M cameras; then in four years’ time, you can upgrade to the M12 which I think will re-write the playbook for what an M camera should be. The full review with images and more content can be found here. The above is a summary of the full review.

Very odd behaviour just noticed today. When reviewing images if I press the ok button the lcd screen gets rid of all the info and just the photo alone is displayed. This is ok. But then if I want to get back to the screen with the info overlay I’d need to click twice. If I click once, nothing happens. This does not seem right !!! Is it just my M11 or it it normal?

Here is another review of the M11, this time from Shutterbug magazine and Jon Sienkiewicz, who seems to think highly of this camera. Included are some great images, including a few of a beautiful orange McLaren Senna LM. Review of the Leica M11: The Ultimate M https://www.shutterbug.com/content/review-leica-m11-ultimate-m That's high praise. I can't say that I think he's wrong...

A bit late in its arrival, but here is another review of the M11. This reviewer explains some of the technical details in a more straightforward/less tech head manner, which IMO is where the value of this review is found. Leica M11 hands on: Primus inter pares By Claus Sassenberg https://www.macfilos.com/2022/01/21/leica-m11-hands-on-primus-inter-pares/

https://camerajabber.com/reviews/leica-m11 (fairly limited review) https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2022/01/leica-m11-review-the-ultimate-digital-m/

After five months using the Leica M10, 20,000+ pictures and through 12 countries I finally made my first part of the Leica M10 review. I go over the SD-cards, Lightroom profiles for M10, EVF use and design, and more in this article. Enjoy, next article and video coming up real soon :-) http://www.overgaard.dk/Leica-M10-digital-rangefinder-camera-page-00-Expect-Simplicity.html