M10 - Serious Landscape work?

[bozu_shutterbugger]

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so I am now fully vested in the Leica. That being said I plan on visiting Maine this fall. Would you say Leica is good with Astro and long exposure photography? or should i add a Sony A7 to do all the grunt work. 

 

I have the M10, 240, WATE, 35 cron and 50 lux. They are pretty fast. I just dont want my sensor to get damaged due to all the long exposures. I been burnt a few times with Leica cameras and hence i am unsure if i should rely on taking a sports car in dirt. 

 

 

[jaapv]

Not really suitable for Astro and long exposure photography due to the limited long shutter times, unless you keep it very basic.

Sensor damage due to long exposures is not a realistic consideration, more like a myth.

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[bozu_shutterbugger]

Not really usable for Astro and long exposure photography due to the limited long shutter times, unless you keep it very basic.

Sensor damage due to long exposures is not a realistic consideration, more like a myth.

 

Thanks Jaap. This is helpful. well i believe in unicorn. You do remember that I had issues with 240 and 246 which is why i have become so paranoid.. btw M10 is a killer. (fingers crossed it stays that way) 

[mhicks]

Between pp stacking and using a Bahtinov Mask I think anything is possible with any camera as long as you a) have a tripod, and a square filter holder. I've seen lovely Astro photos with just 8s - 30s exposure times.

 

Here's the key: experiment. Before buying anything or believing anything you read, try it.

 

Here's a site I love learning from: https://www.lonelyspeck.com/astrophotography-101/

Edited July 28, 2017 by mhicks

[bozu_shutterbugger]

Between pp stacking and using a Bahtinov Mask I think anything is possible with any camera as long as you a) have a tripod, and a square filter holder. I've seen lovely Astro photos with just 8s - 30s exposure times.

 

Here's the key: experiment. Before buying anything or believing anything you read, try it.

 

Here's a site I love learning from: https://www.lonelyspeck.com/astrophotography-101/

Thanks! oh I love his work. been following him for a while. I think he uses a very minimal no frills kit. His youtube videos are great. i find him to be a very minimalist. people like me think gear brings result... i think its sheer laziness. I found a old T3i sitting in my mother in law's closet after i made this post. I am gonna buy a rokinon and shoot away on it... thanks for sharing. 

[SrMi]

Not really usable for Astro and long exposure photography due to the limited long shutter times, unless you keep it very basic.

Sensor damage due to long exposures is not a realistic consideration, more like a myth.

Can you elaborate? When shooting stars/milky-way the exposure is typically below 20 sec to avoid star trails. ND-filter supported long exposure is frequently below 1 minute. Leica M10 offers 125 seconds as longest exposure time, while Sony/Canon/Nikon allow at most 30 second exposure (automatic exposure mode).

 

I have not used my M for landscape photography yet, but I have seen many others using it successfully.

[jmahto]

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so I am now fully vested in the Leica. That being said I plan on visiting Maine this fall. Would you say Leica is good with Astro and long exposure photography? or should i add a Sony A7 to do all the grunt work. 

 

I have the M10, 240, WATE, 35 cron and 50 lux. They are pretty fast. I just dont want my sensor to get damaged due to all the long exposures. I been burnt a few times with Leica cameras and hence i am unsure if i should rely on taking a sports car in dirt. 

Astro: Not sure what you have in mind but if you are talking about start trails and milky way kind of shot then here is my 2 cents using M240. Star trails is not a problem. There is going to be LENR for same amount of time but if you keep exposure short enough (like 15sec) then the gaps are not visible in final stacked picture. If you are talking about shooting Milky Way then again you have to keep exposure short enough (like 30sec) even with ultra wide angle lenses (15-21mm) to avoid star streaks. You will also have to experiment with aperture to find out the widest aperture that you can use without getting bad coma in the corners. It all depends on the lens. Chances are that you may be needing very high ISO, north of 3200. Then you will need to enhance it in PP for Milky Way to pops out. All this make M240 not a great choice (I am speaking from practical experience). M10 may be a little better but it all depends on what is your definition of a clean file.

 

Long exposure landscape: We had a long thread on this for M240. If you are happy with M10's longest exposure time then you will be fine. My recollection is that some photographers wanted exposure of several minutes to blur water/clouds. Of course that is out of reach for Leica Ms. And there was another issue of light leak through the mount, which had a super high tech solution of wrapping your wife/girlfriend's scrunchy over lens mount.

 

edit: I won't worry about damage due to long exposure. I have let my M240 run all night doing ~1000 exposures 8sec each many times (to shoot meteorite). I hope M10 will be similar. I will only be careful about pointing it into the Sun during long exposure (or for time lapse).

Edited July 28, 2017 by jmahto

[Tobers]

I use my M10 for "serious landscape work". The combination of compact size and amazing lenses is very effective. You might want to look here for a write up I did recently on landscaping with my M10.

 

For astrophotography, here's two from last weekend in Utah when I was out "trophy hunting". I would imagine that some other cameras would do astro work better (less noise at higher ISOs) but I was quite happy with how the M10 performed. I'm using a 24 Summilux, at f/2 for both of these, with a shutter speed of 15-20 sec to reduce the likelihood of elongated stars. Some post processing work to get the stars to brighten up, but not too much. Great fun though!

 

Delicate Arch - 16 sec f/2 ISO 3200 

 

Balanced Rock - 18 sec f/2 ISO 1600

 

Andy

[chris_tribble]

I use my M10 for "serious landscape work". The combination of compact size and amazing lenses is very effective. You might want to look here for a write up I did recently on landscaping with my M10.

 

For astrophotography, here's two from last weekend in Utah when I was out "trophy hunting". I would imagine that some other cameras would do astro work better (less noise at higher ISOs) but I was quite happy with how the M10 performed. I'm using a 24 Summilux, at f/2 for both of these, with a shutter speed of 15-20 sec to reduce the likelihood of elongated stars. Some post processing work to get the stars to brighten up, but not too much. Great fun though!

Stunning!

Chapeau...

[Bill W]

WOW Andy!

[LorenzoLandini]

While I don't own a recent Leica M, I used Leica M series in the past and they are a joy to use and the lenses are simply superb. That being said, I personally believe that a Leica M would not be on top of my list for landscape photography. One can certainly use any camera and if he/she has the skills will get the job done with great results. It can certainly be done and very well as proved by the images posted above. But cameras are horse for courses and while a M is likely the best camera for street photography, by the same token other cameras are better designed for landscape. For landscape it was the view camera in the film age, it would be a technical camera with digital back or medium format digital camera today. Within the Leica family, I think a S006/007 is a better choice for landscape photography, the SL likely even better for long exposure as the S has a 125sec limit which is annoying. 

 

For your trip and especially if your landscape interest is a one off I would not be worried as you can get very good results with the M. 

 

cheers 

[Tobers]

I would like to add that the EVF is pretty much essential for getting accurate framing and examining your composition in detail. Yes, you can the rear screen, but it's much easier with the EVF.

 

One issue with the EVF though is that in very bright light the eye detection does not work very well so it doesn't automatically switch from rear screen to EVF. You have to shade the EVF by cupping your hands around it.

[chris_tribble]

[...] Within the Leica family, I think a S006/007 is a better choice for landscape photography, the SL likely even better for long exposure as the S has a 125sec limit which is annoying. 

[...] For your trip and especially if your landscape interest is a one off I would not be worried as you can get very good results with the M. 

 

cheers 

It's a case of agreeing and disagreeing. 

 

AGREE: I'm currently working on a specific landscape project which is leading to an exhibition in the new year and the M10 is proving to be exceptionally useful for this (examples at https://flic.kr/s/aHskKoMT3x)

 

DISAGREE - Although I enjoyed some aspects of the SL during a three month ownership of the camera, I found that it had no advantages over the M10 (apart from long exposure), and many disadvantages (weight and bulk + performance with M lenses).

 

OK - there are times when I'm tempted by a FUJIFILM GFX 50S, but for the moment, and for the kinds of landscape work I do (e.g. http://www.ctribble.co.uk/personal.html) the Leica M10 remains the best solution I've found thus far.

[Printmaker]

While I have not tried shooting stars yet, I find the M10 perfect for landscape photography mostly because it is small and light and therefore always with me. I used a S2 for several years and while the IQ was great, the camera was a burden. Of course the S2 kit was much smaller than the Linhof Technika I dragged around for 30 years. Scanned 4x5 chromes vs M10... I'll take the M10 any day.

 

barefootphoto.gallery

[Jared]

It's definitely reasonable for nightscapes, but it depends on what scenes you are trying to capture.

 

Assuming you don't want star trails...

- You will typically capture multiple, fairly short exposure and stack them up using a software tool aimed at registration and stacking

- Most wide angle lenses have enough distortion that registration can be challenging; I have had good luck with Pixinsight, but it's an expensive tool (that I primarily use for work with my telescope, so makes sense for me).  You'll have to play around with a few different tools to see what works well.

- The rule of thumb for avoiding star trails is that your exposure duration should be less than or equal to 500/focal length (result in seconds).  This is supposed to be conservative to work anywhere in the sky, but I don't find it good enough.  I much prefer 200/focal length as a guideline, especially for shooting towards the south where star trails will be at their worst.  For example, I tend to use 8s exposures when shooting at 21mm focal length.  Experiment and see what works for you.  If you don't mind a little trailing visible at 100%, you could try 16 seconds or even longer with a similar focal length lens.  Play around and see what satisfies you.

- Assuming you have terrestrial objects in your images as well as stars/constellations/milky way, you'll need to do separate stacks for foreground (no motion) and stars (motion) and combine in Photoshop as separate layers with a layer mask.  Usually pretty straightforward, but if you have a LOT of images, the boundaries can be challenging.

- Leica M cameras do automatic dark frame subtraction.  You don't have any choice about it.  As a result, you don't need to worry about bias frames or a master dark frame or anything like that.  This is both good and bad, but I won't get into all the technical details.  Overall, it works pretty well and is simple to manage since you have a matched dark automatically applied to every frame.

 

If you want star trails, I would not try to do it with a Leica.  Because of the automatic dark frame subtraction, stars are going to form dotted lines.  Also, exposures may need to be longer than Leica allows (the M10 has pretty low limits on exposure duration, depending on ISO setting/gain).  I'd recommend a different camera for star trails, though I remember looking up once and finding that there IS software around to "fill in the missing data" on interrupted star trail images.  You could certainly play around.

 

For really deep constellation and milky way shots that DON'T include foreground objects, you are generally better off putting your camera on a tracking mount such as an equatorial telescope and minimizing some of the hassles of registration and stacking.  This will allow you to greatly exceed the 500/fl rule of thumb.  The problem is, Leica limits the maximum exposure by ISO.  Still, you can do a lot with thirty second exposures and a fast lens, so even this can work pretty well.

 

Most lenses are significantly better for astrophotography closed down one stop.  There are exceptions, but you may want to play around a bit.  Stars are almost perfect point sources, so chromatic aberration, astigmatism, and coma will often be really easy to spot in an astrophoto, even at an aperture that works pretty well for terrestrial use.  Again, play around with your lenses to see what you like.  My 21mm Summilux, for example, has a lot of astigmatism and coma when shot at f/1.4.  Still, it's really hard to avoid the temptation of getting amazing depth on the Milky Way in just a few short seconds with a really fast lens.  See what works for you.

 

Here is a shot I took a few days ago in Aquinnah, MA.  I wasn't able to get a southern view of this lighthouse, so no Milky Way (except a hint running through Cassiopeia), but the beam's of the lighthouse were really cool.  This was with the 21mm at f/1.4.

 

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Edited July 28, 2017 by Jared

[Jared]

And here is one showing more of the Milky Way, captured a week or so ago, from Edgartown, MA.  This lighthouse it's possible to get close to from any side, so I was able to position the Milky Way where I wanted.

 

Again, 21mm Summilux at f/1.4.

 

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[FlashGordonPhotography]

There's no doubt that you can shoot serious landscapes with the M10. But it's a camera I leave at home if I'm shooting landscapes and nightscapes.

 

1. I do a LOT of long exposures. The short shot duration and LENR are a deal breaker.

 

2. Once you add the EVF and a base plate you may as well carry the SL. If I'm carrying that I'll take the X1D.

 

3. Filters are a pain. Lenses have many different filter sizes and are large if you leave a Lee ring on each lens. And the smaller front elements make lining up grads just fractionally more difficult.

 

On the plus side.

 

a. The size and build are great. Optics are sensational.

 

b. The tilt up EVF is very useful on a tripod.

 

c. I think manual focus is preferable for the way I shoot landscapes.

 

If I were a single system shooter and the M was my choice I'd learn to shoot around its limitations. I personally prefer a different system to Leica for landscape shooting that suits the way I like to shoot more. Doesn't mean I don't love my M10.

 

Gordon

[jaapv]

Can you elaborate? When shooting stars/milky-way the exposure is typically below 20 sec to avoid star trails. ND-filter supported long exposure is frequently below 1 minute. Leica M10 offers 125 seconds as longest exposure time, while Sony/Canon/Nikon allow at most 30 second exposure (automatic exposure mode).

 

I have not used my M for landscape photography yet, but I have seen many others using it successfully.

I would, but I think Gordon made my points for me.

[Tailwagger]

You'll enjoy Maine. Was shooting on the coast there yesterday. Quite a number of iconic views, both scenic and otherwise.  Just for the record, the M works pretty well for lighthouses shot in daylight as well

M240 90mm Elmarit-M, 1/350 f6.8-ish, hand-held. 

Portland Head Lighthouse, Cape Elizabeth

Edited July 30, 2017 by Tailwagger

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[mhicks]

You'll enjoy Maine. Was shooting on the coast there yesterday. Quite a number of iconic views, both scenic and otherwise.  Just for the record, the M works pretty well for lighthouses shot in daylight as well

M240 90mm Elmarit-M, 1/350 f6.8-ish, hand-held. 

Portland Head Lighthouse, Cape Elizabeth

 

Beautiful picture!  Try rubbing out the bird and buoy as, to me, they're needless distractions to the landscape.  What a wonderful sight!