M262 - a few musings after a week of shooting in Florida

enboe · December 26, 2015

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Pardon my waste of bandwidth here on the site, but I thought I would pass along a few observations about the new M262.

I picked up the M262 from the Leica Gallerie in Los Angeles. I was fortunate enough to get my name on the list early, and received one of the first, if not the first, unit in Los Angeles.

Fit and finish is all M, even if a bit lighter weight. Speaking of the weight loss, one especially notes it with small lenses, I used the 28/2.8/ASPH, and when quickly shifting between portrait and landscape shooting multiple times. Of course the weight difference is all but nullified if you put on any interesting, fast glass. One item I did note was that the Off/On switch felt like it was also made of different materials than the M240 or M-P 240. The difference was not major, but reminded me of the difference in feeling of shooting an M4-2 and shooting an MP. The switch on the M262 just didn't feel as smooth and nice as the M-P 240. Perhaps someone can comment if this is sample variation or if the switch is actually made of different materials. Note: my M240 and M-P240 are both silver chrome, so that may account for the difference as well.

The shutter sounds better dampened and the advance is smoother when compared with prior M digitals. Online videos capture this well, so I cannot add much here.

Metering, which uses reflections off the shutter curtains, is trickier than with the previous digital M's in similar operation. I found myself frequently chimping my files after an exposure, only to see something significantly under or over exposed if there were any areas brightness or darkness in the frame. Note this was with the 28/2.8/ASPH, so I often had areas of sky or wide dynamic range areas to the image. I learned to look at the shutter speed and then to use the exposure meter between my ears to say, no, that doesn't make sense, add or subtract to the exposure. For images with consistent illumination across the frame, exposures were decent. A little more context, I have shot with the M8, M8.2, M9-P, Monochrom, M240, M-P240, M246, M6, M6TTL, M7, and MP, and am very comfortable with getting good exposures from shutter curtain reflection meters. This one is a little more challenging. Perhaps a firmware update will make it more dependable in high-key, low-key, and high-dynamic-range situations.

There is a saving grace for the meter giving me so many off-exposed images. The DNG raw files are very flexible for under exposure, something like 3 stops of available range on the low end to pull images out of the shadows (or everywhere when underexposed), and 1 stop of range on the high end. The M240 series exhibits similar behavior, but the meter is better, so you don't need the sensor dynamic range to save your images.

Battery life is excellent, as it is with the M240. With a 3-second review of every image, and a trip through the menus to tweak the ISO every 5-10 images, I still had an extrapolated battery life of around 900 DNG shots. Sans chomping, reviewing, and playing with menus, I see no reason a person couldn't shoot 200 images a day for a week on one battery.

One last item for this post. I often travel to Florida, and the week of 12/12 was hot and humid, as it often is. I regularly have a 5 to 10 minute period between the air conditioned hotel and the humid outside when the camera top plate sweats and the viewfinder fogs up. Not so with the M262. Aluminum has a much lower specific heat than brass, so the camera reaches equilibrium with the outside temperature much more quickly.

Drop me a note if you have any other questions and I will attempt to provide any information I might have.

Thanks.

Eric

December 26, 2015

Hi enboe,

Take a look here M262 - a few musings after a week of shooting in Florida. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!

Lax Jought · December 26, 2015

The shutter sounds better dampened and the advance is smoother when compared with prior M digitals. Online videos capture this well, so I cannot add much here.

Hi Eric, just curious - how much of the shutter can you hear if, for example, you were standing in a busy city street around lunch time, holding the camera at arm's length?

Edited December 26, 2015 by Lax Jought

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

otto.f · December 26, 2015

Did you notice something with startup time, faster than 240 ?

enboe · December 26, 2015

Lax and Otto,

Thank you for your queries. Luckily I had some play time to try various comparisons this morning.

Setup: M262, M-P240, M246, MP, Monochrom bodies, 2 identical Sandisk 64GB Ultra Plus 48 MB/s cards plus 1 32GB Sandisk card for the Monochrom. All cards freshly formatted in bodies before each test.

Startup times: Identical between M262, M-P240, and M246. Startup defined as time between On/Off switch operation and stop of activity LED on back. This is when the camera is able to shoot. Estimated startup - 2 seconds. Side note: When my 64dB card was >50% full last week in Florida, I noted a slowdown in startup to around 4 seconds. I did not delete any images along the way, so the file system should have been clean and contiguous.

Shutdown times: Identical between M262, M-P240, and M246. Shutdown defined as time between On/Off switch operation and stop of activity LED on back. Estimated shutdown - 1 second.

Shutter/advance sound level: This is far more subjective, as I don't have a high-fidelity audio meter or high-fidelity video capture capability. No, I don't consider the M-P240 to be good enough to capture the nuances of shutter volume. That being said, I fired pairs of cameras back to back multiple times, all set to 1/60 second, single advance. I would gauge the M262 to be half as loud as the M-P240 and M246. The shutter action is also roughly half the volume of an MP at 1/60 second. The comparison of the M262 and Monochrom duplicated the youtube video of the M262 and M-E when setting the Monochrom to Standard advance mode. When setting the Monochrom to Discrete+Soft, the shutter action alone is very similar to the M262 when actuating the shutter and advancing the mechanism. The wind on the Monochrom in Discrete+Soft sounds the same as in Standard advance mode, just deferred to when you release the shutter button.

Anyone planning on attending the Anaheim camera show tomorrow? Would you like for me to bring the M262 for a meet-up?

Thank you.

Eric

otto.f · December 27, 2015

Thanks a lot Eric. That is because the advertisement for 262 of Leica on their site says:

At the same time, the camera’s Maestro processor guarantees fast processing of captured images and immediate readiness to shoot.

Edited December 27, 2015 by otto.f

enboe · December 27, 2015

Otto,

I think the claim listed above is more related to queueing of images being processed and freeing of queue space for the next image once an image is processed. The M240/246/262 series all free up a slot as soon as an image is processed, no waiting for the queue to empty completely if you fill it up.

In real-world shooting, once the camera is turned on and ready to shoot, I never ran into a buffer full issue that delayed my shooting. Note that I tend to take one to three snaps of a subject, not long bursts. The only delay that annoyed me was the previously mentioned start-up delay with a 64GB card with the card more than half full. I hypothesize a 32GB card would address this issue, and may try just that option on my next trip in March.

Eric

otto.f · December 27, 2015

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think so too

thanks, curious about the 32 card

NZDavid · December 31, 2015

How clear is the view/rangefinder? Photographers report a difference between the M9 and the M-240. How does the M-262 compare?

Also, how about white balance and dynamic range?

enboe · December 31, 2015

David,

Apologies for the delay in my response. The viewfinder is basically identical in clarity to the M240/M-P240/M246 series. One exception is you have white-only frame lines. White balance and dynamic range match the M240 cameras, more specifically, auto white balance does a decent job, but the WB eye dropper in Lightroom is always handy for fine tuning, and the dynamic range is good for the standard 8 stops or so you can see on a monitor plus a 1 stop over and 3 stops under, so at least 12 stops.

Does that provide the information you need?

Respectfully,

Eric

NZDavid · December 31, 2015

Many thanks Eric. I thought I'd also elicit more info on the camera in a separate thread, but this is most helpful. It sounds like the M262 definitely beats the M9 in terms of dynamic range and WB. I forgot to ask about ISO? Having not used any of the post M9 cameras (they are a rarity here) how would you rate the ease of rangefinder focusing? I have read the rangefinder is clearer on M240 than M9.

enboe · December 31, 2015

Rangefinder focusing is an area where my opinion may diverge from the crowd a bit. I find all of the post-2003 rangefinders equally easy to use, with near identical clarity and contrast. 2003 is when they made the small-but-important adjustment to the design and manufacture of the MP film camera to mitigate flare in the rangefinder patch. The rest have followed those design principles. Perhaps people are referring to the additional focus option you have of Live View with the M240, but that point is moot on the M262. I will defer to others to highlight what they see that is different between the M9 and M240 generations.

For ISO performance, I used the M262 up to 3200 and was pleased with the results. Good, clean files. This is identical to the performance of the M240 series. The M8 and M9 series cameras are generally OK to 1250 in color, 2500 in B&W shooting.

Respectfully,

Eric

Lax Jought · December 31, 2015

I'd have to disagree that the M8 is good to ISO 1250, especially in colour, and especially in low light.

Max ISO with the M8 would be 640.

Edited December 31, 2015 by Lax Jought

jcespite · December 31, 2015

I'd have to disagree that the M8 is good to ISO 1250, especially in colour, and especially in low light.

Max ISO with the M8 would be 640.