Before I buy M-D 262.......

[Pingus]

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Greetings;

Current  M-9 owner seriously thinking about getting a used M-D.  Before I pull the trigger and drop between $3-4K on a used camera, i’d appreciate some feedback from current owners. I’ve done all the research, read reviews, held the thing in my hand at B&H, etc, but am lacking real life experience.

what was the biggest surprise after owning the camera for a month ?

biggest drawback ?

best feature

what do you wish you had known before buying

would you do it again ?

 

loking forward to thoughtful feedback from those who took the plunge.

 

thanks much 

 

 

 

 

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[a.noctilux]

Nothing magic with Leica M-D (typ262).

If you want one, buy one and accept it's philosophy/"flaws"/lack of...

In my case, I've bought one M-D after M10 and don't regret a bit this "late" purchase (as I wanted one M-D when I foolishly decided for M10 which has more appeal).

M-D let me in 100% to create (and "maybe deceptive" afterward, at home and not trying to do it better after chimping) in the field.

Film M experiences with digital body can't be duplicate.

😇

Well, if one day arrives kind of "M-D Monochrom", I may swap some of my now Ms for it.

 

[rhl-ferndale]

The M-D was my first M digital. It’s like shooting an M7 without advancing film. I shoot both side by side, and there is no significant difference in feel or use. I just don’t have to scan negatives before getting to work in Lightroom.

I have not cut the cord, so to speak, in repudiating digital menus (or chimpy behavior); I still use Sony A/RX, Sigma Merrill, Ricoh GR (not to mention a Leica T!) But conventional digital cameras do reinforce trivial anxious habits about serving the god of electronic visualization through elaborately layered menu protocols— and the M-D does not. It’s a rangefinding instrument in which the computing is assimilated and invisible. 

I first used mine on a trip abroad. I did not see the images I had pre-visualized and taken until weeks later. It was like having shot film—except that most of my exposures were good with plenty of working latitude, rather than the old “3 out of 36” ratio. And I was very happy, in developing, to have almost forgotten the images I’d made; they didn’t nag me or obsess me, e.g. switching on review yet again to determine whether I could have framed images X better, or whether I might solve white balance problems in image Y when I got home....

It’s not a high ISO device. But you’re used to an M9 (as I am used to Sigma Merrill ISO constraints). And if one has shot a lot of film rated mostly 100-400, in natural light conditions,  this is not a big change: it’s a refinement, a convenience, an evolution. 

Edited February 17, 2019 by rhl-ferndale

[plaidshirts]

4 hours ago, Pingus said:

what was the biggest surprise after owning the camera for a month ? How much more I liked it than I thought I would.

biggest drawback ? You can't shoot JPG, but that goes back to the film experience where you have to process (develop) the frames to get a picture.

best feature The overall simplicity, clean look, battery life, lack of a screen.

what do you wish you had known before buying Nothing comes to mind.

would you do it again ? Yes!

2

If you like or liked shooting film, then you'll like, even perhaps love, the M-D.

I love it because it's a digital camera with an analog soul.

Very good read: http://www.overgaard.dk/Leica-M60-and-Leica-M-D-262-digital-rangefinder-camera-page-1.html

Edited February 17, 2019 by plaidshirts

[poli]

Biggest surprise: how much i like the simplicity. No worries about menu, settings, etc. Because there is nothing to set up (apart from date & time). 

Love the feel, batterylife, quiter (than m8, my former m) shutter. Love the iso button. Very happy with sensor/results. 

Only drawback, but no biggie, is the weight. It felt quite a bit heavier than the m8. 

I would buy it again. Actually i did! I bought mine secondhand, then sold it thinking i wanted the m10-d. But i actually like the m-d better. I was lucky to be able to buy the last new one in NL for a very good price. 😂

[a.noctilux]

2 hours ago, poli said:

Biggest surprise: how much i like the simplicity. No worries about menu, settings, etc. Because there is nothing to set up (apart from date & time). 

Love the feel, batterylife, quiter (than m8, my former m) shutter. Love the iso button. Very happy with sensor/results. 

Only drawback, but no biggie, is the weight. It felt quite a bit heavier than the m8. 

I would buy it again. Actually i did! I bought mine secondhand, then sold it thinking i wanted the m10-d. But i actually like the m-d better. I was lucky to be able to buy the last new one in NL for a very good price. 😂

From another M-D thread

On 2/15/2019 at 9:05 PM, a.noctilux said:

M-D is heavy comparing to M262 with it's aluminium top.

Weighted mine sometimes ago, M-D at 686g and M262 ...595g (with battery).

Nice idea if the aluminium top (of M262) can be swapped on M-D, however it would need to drill a hole for M-D's "function button".

 

 

...this one

 

Edited February 17, 2019 by a.noctilux

[roydonian]

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Due to work deadlines, I've only had one outing with my newly-acquired M-D. The only surprise I had was that of repeatedly lifting the camera to my eyes a few minutes after taking a pic and realising that the bright lines were no longer visible. But the positive feature is that when lit, the bright lines are much easier to see than those of my M9. Although the battery that came with the camera is presumably some three years old, it still showed 85% capacity after I'd taken 100+ pics. What did surprise me was that force-of-habit was not making me look down at the camera back after taking a pic - I'd effortlessly reverted to film-era behaviour.

[hilm3]

I had mine for over a year, my only Leica digital. I have lots of film M's - 2, 3, 6, 7. The feel of the camera is to me just like a film Leica. Familiar, reliable, with an endless number of frames, and ability to change ISO on the fly. I like the files from the M-D more than scanned film files. They are very easy to work with in Lightroom CC (gave up on Classic) and Photoshop. Also use Luminar on occasion. I am even happy with BW conversion on files. No regrets. Film cameras lie idle. Of those my favorite was all of them. Can't decide among them.

[jaeger]

MD262 cannot use EVF2 if that's a thing to you.  RF is not easy to focus at low contrast subject or in the dark, when EVF comes to play.

Other stuff is really personal preference...

 

[Shu]

Biggest surprises for me are the ergonomic advantages offered by a screen-less back and how much I really enjoy the simplicity and shooting experience. 

Biggest drawback is hard me to identify. If I must choose something, I suppose it is the ISO performance at 6400 or above. Not much of a drawback in real world usage. 

Best feature is the unique digital shooting experience and overall process this camera offers. 

Would I do it again? Absolutely; in fact, this is my second go around with one. I also have a M10, and while I like it, I absolutely LOVE the M-D. The M10 will be sold. 

[kentishrev]

I knew I wanted an M-D from the moment Leica first announced it. I managed to put off and keep going with my M9.  However, a very well priced M-D appeared with a dealer I trusted and I took the plunge.  The camera is everything I wanted - a pure digital photographic experience; I’ve learned a lot about composition, self-confidence, ISO trade offs and more.

The M9 has not been touched for several months now (I have a CL if I need live view, but it’s not used as much as I expected).

I looked at the M10-D recently too, but could see that the myriad menus and options (hidden in an app, but still there) would defeat my current enjoyment.

No regrets.

[littlelio]

I am a fresh owner of M-D, and last week I was back from a trip with it (35mm Cron and 21mm Zeiss Biogon). Here are some of my thoughts:

• No LCD = great. It pushes you to think and slow down. I am not expanding on this point because many others have mentioned.
• Focus performance - by your hand! For me it is okay. I checked after I am back, only 10% of them were in bad focus, which is quite low rate of missing since even with AF camera you will miss the focus. So, without LCD to preview, it is all right.
• Wrong exposure - I put shutter speed in A, but accidentally I touched it to some like 1/2000. I checked afterwards, only a few was wrong, but the DNG has plenty room to pull the exposure back. But still, check regularly, in case have all the black images when you are back home!
• Battery is great. by the way I did not use the wifi sd card.
• 21mm wide angel is difficult to frame in view finder. This is a rangefinder-related issue, but since there is no LCD to preview, you may want to bring a 21mm viewfinder attachment.
• High ISO is not bad, and shutter is fast enough in C mode.

OK, here is the catch that I hope it can be better:

• Maybe it is wise to stick with coded lenses. Since there is no menu interface, you can do nothing with uncoded lenses in camera. And it is too late when it is captured in DNG.
• So, with wide angle (wider than 35mm) lenses, the red cast on the frame edge can be bad, and you can do nothing with it in camera. Yes, in post processing there is way to improve it, but it is better to get fixed in camera right?
• DNG is large and more complicated to process, so I did miss JPG. Especially when I want to share quickly via wifi sd card - DNG is slow (not too bad) and complicated to process on my phone (there is a way, but complicated. for example you can not preview thumbnails due to DNG format).

Generally, it is good, but you do need to check carefully before you use it. There is no preview LCD, so if you have a trvael with it with, say 1 week, and you have no laptop with you. A mistake will be with you for the entire journey... For example, wrong exposure for the whole trip? Not good... and a huge dust on every image during you travel? Not good...

I am not sure how M10-D would help. The jpg should be helping, and Leica app would help to preview, but the battery may get eaten more. So I think M-D makes me very happy still.

Hope it helps!

 

[roydonian]

To expand on my earlier comment, the only disadvantage of the M-D is its inability to provide JPEGs for quick-look assessment of images. Last week, a second-hand lens arrived my mail, and having previously purchased two examples that did  not work correctly (one would not focus, the other had inaccurate rangefinder coupling) I wanted to check it. Fitting the lens to the camera took a matter of moments, and the task of photographing objects at infinity and two medium distances took only a few minutes, so the last thing I wanted was to mess around with a Lightroom session. It was easier to move the lens to my M9, retake the test shots, slip the memory card into a reader, and use Irfanview to display the JPEGs of the three images. Leica really should have offered a simple conversion tool able to read the DNGs on the card, then write JPEG and DNG versions to a selected location on the hard disk. I've looked on the internet for a utility that could do this simple task, but the only one I've found takes more than 18 sec to convert each image.

[a.noctilux]

Roydonian,

I use "FastStone Image Viewer" to view my M-D's files.

Only few seconds to open DNG with my medium speed computer.

 

[roydonian]

I have used FastStone Image Viewer for about a decade, but had not realised how out-of-date my version is. So I've downloaded and installed the latest version. My attention has also been drawn to XnConvert, a freeware utility that seems to do just what I want. I can point it at the folder containing the DNG files, tell it that I want JPEGs, specify the destination folder, and set it to work. It takes about five seconds to convert each image, so a 4Mb card containing 100+ images takes about 10 minutes to process.