Dismayed by the M10-D

[marknorton]

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I understand there are some Leica purists out there who will buy it but I am not among them. I've been using the M10 since it was launched and two M8s, two M9s and an M240 lie unused like those planes in an Arizona desert.

Most recently, I have bought a Nikon Z7 - 45 MP, excellent EVF - and I use it with Novoflex M and R lens adapters so it's a higher resolution platform for M and R glass than anything Leica have to offer. The older wide angles (21/24 Emarit ASPH for example) are not great but the newer wides are very good, the APO 50 Summicron, the 28-90 R, the APO 180 R, the 100 R macro, Leica glass shining. Worth also mentioning Nikon's solution for legacy F glass is much better than Leica's feeble effort to support R glass on the SL.

Makes me think that what I want from Leica is an M body with the SL EVF and no rangefinder. The M10 EVF is a toy now and completely outclassed. Yes, I know M stands for Mess-Sucher and an M camera without a rangefinder is not a true M, but so what? An M10 body with the SL EVF and a higher resolution sensor would provide the same user experience I am getting from the Z7 now and if a hump on the top plate is the price to pay to accommodate the EVF, that's fine.

Leica have produced an M10 which dumps the screen. I would much rather they produced a version which dumps the rangefinder instead. It's now a dated and expensive anachronism, witness the difference in price between an M10 and an SL.

 

 

 

 

 

[Stuart Richardson]

Isn't what you are describing the SL? Or at least the SL2 which should be out some time not long after they release the new S? It is likely that the only reason they have not done so already is that they probably could not raise the resolution until the S was updated. It seems unlikely to me that you are going to get what you ask in an M camera...it is Leica's bread and butter and key point of differentiation to other camera makers...they are not likely to dump it. I kind of thought what you were asking for is the whole point of the SL...I agree that it is outclassed by a Z7 when it comes to sensor specs, but isn't that always the case with Leica? They come in to update two or three years after Sony, Canon and Nikon get to a certain resolution.

[pgh]

I enjoy the rangefinder, but agree the sensor is just getting worse by comparison - it already was a solid 4-5 years behind upon launch. 

Personally, I prefer the M because it is the smallest full frame solution with interchangeable lenses. I don't want extra mass on an M body, however, and I'd rather keep the rangefinder than get a great EVF if it makes the body any bigger. 

If Sony made a 50mm version of the Rx1RII (the smallest, lightest full frame solution out there with a fantastic sensor and leaf shutter) I'd probably sell my whole Leica kit. I would miss it a little, but am happy to adapt to better tech for my purposes. But 50 is my preferred focal length, 35mm second, so the M is still the best option as far as I can tell. 

[JDFlood]

Yep, sounds like the S3 is for you. High res sensor Single lens. Personally I have a Nikon D800 when I want a DSLR, i’ll Probably upgrade the body next time they upgrade the sensor. But my favorite camera to shoot is the M10. I understand the benefits of the rangefinder for me. I love the output of lens plus body.

Getting rid of the rear LCD on the M10-P seems really odd to me... retro for the sake of retro.wish they would ditch the removable bottom cover.

[i-Leica]

vor 13 Minuten schrieb JDFlood:

Getting rid of the rear LCD on the M10-P seems really odd to me... retro for the sake of retro.wish they would ditch the removable bottom cover.

I think that getting rid of the LCD was the right decision - going back to the M7 - the best Leica ever made. The M10-D ist the true Leica, the only "real" one. If you want Leica, get the M10-D but if you want a modern camera.... get the Sony A7, Nikon etc....

[lucerne]

58 minutes ago, JDFlood said:

Yep, sounds like the S3 is for you. High res sensor Single lens. Personally I have a Nikon D800 when I want a DSLR, i’ll Probably upgrade the body next time they upgrade the sensor. But my favorite camera to shoot is the M10. I understand the benefits of the rangefinder for me. I love the output of lens plus body.

Getting rid of the rear LCD on the M10-P seems really odd to me... retro for the sake of retro.wish they would ditch the removable bottom cover.

Are you Getting confused????

Leica most definitely haven’t removed the display on the M10-P.   They’ve created an additional variant of the m10  called the M10-D.   It’s not the first time that a -D variant has been made available.    To some, this becomes a very desirable purchase option, but no one is forced to buy.   

 

 

Edited December 14, 2018 by lucerne

[jaapv]

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4 hours ago, marknorton said:

I understand there are some Leica purists out there who will buy it but I am not among them. I've been using the M10 since it was launched and two M8s, two M9s and an M240 lie unused like those planes in an Arizona desert.

Most recently, I have bought a Nikon Z7 - 45 MP, excellent EVF - and I use it with Novoflex M and R lens adapters so it's a higher resolution platform for M and R glass than anything Leica have to offer. The older wide angles (21/24 Emarit ASPH for example) are not great but the newer wides are very good, the APO 50 Summicron, the 28-90 R, the APO 180 R, the 100 R macro, Leica glass shining. Worth also mentioning Nikon's solution for legacy F glass is much better than Leica's feeble effort to support R glass on the SL.

Makes me think that what I want from Leica is an M body with the SL EVF and no rangefinder. The M10 EVF is a toy now and completely outclassed. Yes, I know M stands for Mess-Sucher and an M camera without a rangefinder is not a true M, but so what? An M10 body with the SL EVF and a higher resolution sensor would provide the same user experience I am getting from the Z7 now and if a hump on the top plate is the price to pay to accommodate the EVF, that's fine.

Leica have produced an M10 which dumps the screen. I would much rather they produced a version which dumps the rangefinder instead. It's now a dated and expensive anachronism, witness the difference in price between an M10 and an SL.

 

It appears to me that an SL2 with a ~40 MP sensor would be your camera of choice.

[pgh]

The SL body is nothing close to an M though - at that point you're actually paying more for a brand badge and regressing in image quality when you could just stick with your Z7 or A7Rx for effectively the same tool. I think besides the rangefinder, the size of the M is one of the biggest selling point (still, after all these years). SL2 will have the same value issues when compared to the other makes, but hopefully at least an up to date sensor. 

[ramarren]

I see no reason to use a camera that isn't making you happy. And no reason to try to defend Leica. 

If you find the M is no longer the right camera for you, go get whatever camera is and use it. Photographs are much more important than the equipment you use to make them.

[jaapv]

6 hours ago, pgh said:

The SL body is nothing close to an M though - at that point you're actually paying more for a brand badge and regressing in image quality when you could just stick with your Z7 or A7Rx for effectively the same tool. I think besides the rangefinder, the size of the M is one of the biggest selling point (still, after all these years). SL2 will have the same value issues when compared to the other makes, but hopefully at least an up to date sensor. 

Yes, but Dr. Kaufmann suggested the SL2 would be less severe.

Whatever else, Godfrey hits the nail on the head.

[scott kirkpatrick]

No consensus here.  Each of us seems to have areas of Leica attraction coupled with things that have irritated us to the point of skin inflammation.  But I'm glad to hear from Mark.  It has been a long time since he did an M8 teardown and power management analysis that revealed just how early on the learning curve Leica was at that point.  Roger Cicala also does teardowns and puts his victims back together without any pieces left over, but only on lenses and rarely on Leica lenses since his outfit rents only a few of them.

I'm currently enjoying the enforced time separation between shooting the M10-D and seeing what worked out visually, since only the bigger ideas are left when you finally sit down and go through the results.  But there are technical issues about the direction set by the M10-D that pose interesting questions, right up Mark's alley.  Somebody at Leica is aware of the power and flexibility of the multiple-point touch screen interface and the rate at which computing power is available in smartphones.  In the TL series, with its icons and a single-point touch screen, and also in the touch-focus implementation on the SL/CL we see a little of what can be done on the camera itself.  I think the limits there are that most of the camera's computing power is tied up in a fixed-function imaging ASIC, leaving only a simple general purpose processing macro to move data about.  So why not go to a smart phone platform and today's rich computing platforms to add some real back room editing power to the combination?  The bottleneck in this seems to be the WiFi. 

So Mark, why is consumer camera wifi so low-performance compared to what we see in phones today, with their assisted GPS, rapid startup and ability to keep track of backup antennas while moving about?  Phone batteries are even smaller than camera batteries so total power can't be the answer. ???  

edit:  And pace, Godfrey, Mark shares a different itch that some of us have to scratch at times.  Wondering why Leica's very capable engineers have come up with the sometimes strange solutions that they bring to market.  I wonder about that, too.

Edited December 15, 2018 by scott kirkpatrick

[easy_action]

12 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

Isn't what you are describing the SL?

Are the microlenses on the sensor of the SL optimised for the M mount wideangle lenses that the OP mentions?

I've never seen this confirmed anywhere.

[IkarusJohn]

1 minute ago, easy_action said:

Are the microlenses on the sensor of the SL optimised for the M mount wideangle lenses that the OP mentions?

I've never seen this confirmed anywhere.

The SL sensor is certainly optimsed for M lenses - the 28 Summilux and the 0.95 Noctilux actually perform better on the SL.  Microlenses?  No idea. I have always assumed so as all my M lenses seem to perform ad well on the SL as they do on the M.

[marknorton]

Yes, you’re right, the SL2 does what I’m asking for but it’s substantially bigger than an M. The small size of the M in M10 guise is very appealing.

The CL hints at what an integrated EVF in an M might look like but of course it’s APS-C and the EVF is lower resolution than the SL’s.

Still, I doubt Leica will mess with the M, removing the screen is already divisive enough...

As for whether the M is still really Leica’s bread and butter as someone said, it’s tough to know. If it is, it’s surely more because the S, SL, TL, CL and all the rest are proving less successful than expected. I do wonder whether Leica lack focus these days - 4 system cameras, 3 lens mounts and on and on.

It’s interesting that Leica are licensing the L mount, presumably to gain traction and also provide a wider range of lenses for SL users.

Anyway, I am enjoying using my Leica glass on the Nikon Z.

[pgk]

This discussion has been done to death already - please, not again!

[jaapv]

1 hour ago, marknorton said:

Yes, you’re right, the SL2 does what I’m asking for but it’s substantially bigger than an M. The small size of the M in M10 guise is very appealing.

The CL hints at what an integrated EVF in an M might look like but of course it’s APS-C and the EVF is lower resolution than the SL’s.

Still, I doubt Leica will mess with the M, removing the screen is already divisive enough...

As for whether the M is still really Leica’s bread and butter as someone said, it’s tough to know. If it is, it’s surely more because the S, SL, TL, CL and all the rest are proving less successful than expected. I do wonder whether Leica lack focus these days - 4 system cameras, 3 lens mounts and on and on.

It’s interesting that Leica are licensing the L mount, presumably to gain traction and also provide a wider range of lenses for SL users.

Anyway, I am enjoying using my Leica glass on the Nikon Z.

Where do you read less successful than expected? My camera shop tells me the CL is doing rather well, far better than the M10. The lenses were sold out for months. And what do we know about Leica's expectations?

[pgk]

Perhaps we ought to campaign for an optical SLR with an EVF fitted instead? Just a minute, that would be pointless wouldn't it? Enough said?

Actually what seems to be wanted is a full frame EVF camera with an M mount which would not be an M camera and which would be a real cul-de-sac camera.

Edited December 15, 2018 by pgk

[jaapv]

1 hour ago, easy_action said:

Are the microlenses on the sensor of the SL optimised for the M mount wideangle lenses that the OP mentions?

I've never seen this confirmed anywhere.

Yes they are, and it has been confirmed many times, including by Leica.

 

For instance:

http://gmpphoto.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-future-of-sensor-technology-at-leica.html

 

[Guest]

Here it comes again, the plea for the M system to go to an electronic finder and dump the optical rangefinder that has worked so well, created such a legend for so many decades, nearly a century in fact. And yes I am well aware of some of the gifts of new technology, but with the M, no thank you, no EVF. For me that would go against the very reason I have been using this system for more than 50 years. There's befuddlement out there as to why someone in this day and age would want to buy, at some considerable expense too, cameras like the MD's that shed many of the advantages that newer digital camera design can offer which in many cases can be a bewildering set of options......but that's just it, there's some amongst us, users of various photographic tools, that want or even need to simplify our cameras down to the bare essentials, and this is where the MD's come in and I applaud Leica's bravado for going this route with what is of course, along with the Monochrom's, a very niche product indeed.

The M10-D was something that I simply had to own. I have the regular M10, a 240 and a MM1and they are all three "keepers" for various reasons, but as a  pro' the D is a camera that I couldn't in this day and age even think about going out with on a paying shoot, even though those days are fading as I get further up life's ladder. The MD is by it's nature and it's limitations a camera for personal photography and that's why I bought it, no diversions, or at least very few. Having set up the camera some weeks back I ignore the WiFi connectivity completely now, it has no value for me, a distraction I do not need and I'd rather it wasn't there at all and camera set-up was enabled through the EVF, but that horse has left the stable I guess. For those that criticise the D's for their expensive lack of features and options, no offense, but you just don't get it and there's a host of other choices out there that will more than satisfy your needs, not just Leica. The D isn't a camera for everyone, to the contrary, but it works for me. 

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[easy_action]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

Yes they are, and it has been confirmed many times, including by Leica.

 

For instance:

http://gmpphoto.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-future-of-sensor-technology-at-leica.html

 

That article doesn't mention the sensor in the SL, just the sensors in M system cameras and the CMOS sensor of the M240 specifically.

If I mount a wide or ultra wide M mount lens on an SL, can I expect the same performance in the corners of the image as I would get with an M10 or an M240?

I adore using my MD and it's optical rangefinder, but for certain applications (and lenses) the same camera with an EVF would be attractive - I could see myself owning both.