Jono Slack: Leica M10 Monochrom Field Report

[jonoslack]

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7 minutes ago, Alistairm said:

I’m picking mine up as soon as I get home from holidays and I can’t remember being more excited about a camera. Having own many M bodies, both film and digital, I think the M10P is the obvious pick of the litter. The Monochrom version with a 41MP sensor should see me into my dotage. Bravo Leica and thank you for the early review Jono, based on usability and not shots of brick walls. 

Hi Alistair - it's a lovely thing!

I do have some pictures of brick walls (actually beech hedges) if you're missing them!

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[marcg]

21 minutes ago, Alistairm said:

. The Monochrom version with a 41MP sensor should see me into my dotage ....

You really think it's going to be that long before Leica bring out an M11M?  

Edited January 17, 2020 by marcg

[Louis]

1 hour ago, jonoslack said:

Hi There Huw

It is indeed - a thing of beauty and wonder!

Hello Jono; how are you. Thanks for the great review, as always.

BTW, the Governor of Crete is very upset you didn’t test this camera over there! 😉

My very best to Emma,

[duoenboge]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb LUF Admin:

...

Focusing and Image Stabilisation (or not)

The Leica M Rangefinder (or, in German, Messsucher, hence the “M”) was first released in 1953, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to wonder whether it is still fit for purpose for a 41mp sensor 67 years later in 2020.

I’m not fortunate enough to own a 50 or 75 Noctilux, but I’ve found rangefinder focusing with my 50 Summilux Asph and 75 APO Summicron to be easy and reliable, even wide open (I mostly shoot wide open). I have a practice game I play, which involves focusing with the rangefinder, and then checking whether it’s correct in the EVF, it always reassures me what a wonderful tool a rangefinder still is.

...

 

That gives hope for slim body on the M11. 🙂

[CharlesL]

1 hour ago, Jeff S said:

I convert RAW/DNG to b/w as an initial PP step and proceed from there, using color channels only if needed as a later, secondary refinement.

 

If the camera has a color filter array, the conversion of raw to b/w is some weighting of R,G,B.

[Jeff S]

1 minute ago, CharlesL said:

If the camera has a color filter array, the conversion of raw to b/w is some weighting of R,G,B.

Of course, I didn’t suggest otherwise; hence the opportunity to adjust color channels.  The point was about timing and the prior comment about color adjustment before conversion.

Jeff

[SaW]

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Thank you for this review Jono. I'm a bit concerned by your comment on the slower operations (slower from shot to shot, slower to display pictures). Is it M9 slow, even slower ?

It looks like this is the ultimate monochrome 35mm. Hopefully Leica didn't screwed up with the processor...

[jonoslack]

16 minutes ago, SaW said:

Thank you for this review Jono. I'm a bit concerned by your comment on the slower operations (slower from shot to shot, slower to display pictures). Is it M9 slow, even slower ?

It looks like this is the ultimate monochrome 35mm. Hopefully Leica didn't screwed up with the processor...

Hi There

No, it's not M9 slow (or anything like it), but for continuous shooting it's slower - I didn't have any issues at all, there is no shutter lag, but it's the same processor, so there is inevitably some hit having the larger files. 

[jonoslack]

1 hour ago, Louis said:

Hello Jono; how are you. Thanks for the great review, as always.

BTW, the Governor of Crete is very upset you didn’t test this camera over there! 😉

My very best to Emma,

Hi there Louis

I'll good here thank you, I hope it is with you as well. As for Crete, I did have the SL2 !

Emma sends her best right back atcha!

[Giulio Zanni]

From the specs I see that finally it's able to do proper long exposures. Did you test it in the range of 4-8 minutes?

[Photoskeptic]

Thanks, Jono, for your usual concise informative review. Will there be a classic chrome version?

[roma]

Thanks for the post Jono! Will you please elaborate a bit on the speed of operation of the camera. I realize the card write speed is slower. 

How about turning on Live View and after taking a photo in Live View? Any delays or black-outs before you take the next shot in LV? 

Any noticeable shutter release delays between shots when not in Live View?

How fast does it wake up from the sleep/power-saving mode?

Thank you!

Roma

 

[SrMi]

3 hours ago, balooo said:

I know the pics files have been reduced for the post, but i'm sorry to say that it looks incredibly bad, and even worst, uninteresting... In addition, there is no way - except greed - that can justify a $8500 price tag for this camera, even with a 41MP sensor. I’ll give it $4000/4500 because, hey, it’s a Leica, but not more. It don't worth more, i'm sorry.

DPR reports that the M10M sensor was "designed from the ground up with Mono in mind." If that is true, then Leica will lose money on M10M, as it will never be able to recover the cost of development. Yes, M10M is a steal in that context :-).

[J.Nordvik]

5 minutes ago, SrMi said:

DPR reports that the M10M sensor was "designed from the ground up with Mono in mind." If that is true, then Leica will lose money on M10M, as it will never be able to recover the cost of development. Yes, M10M is a steal in that context :-).

I think the next S3 have the same pixel pitch? 64MP for S3 and 41 for Monocrome full frame. The next M color will probably also have 41MP.

[helged]

16 minutes ago, SrMi said:

DPR reports that the M10M sensor was "designed from the ground up with Mono in mind." If that is true, then Leica will lose money on M10M, as it will never be able to recover the cost of development. Yes, M10M is a steal in that context :-).

Q2 Monochrome with the M10M sensor is rumored to hit the shelves later in 2020. A high-res M10 as well (possibly with the same/similar sensor). Time will tell, but these add-ons would certainly add volume to the in-house designed sensor...

[Arrow]

SL2 Mono?

[J.Nordvik]

Mirrorless sensors have other needs (AF) then sensor for M and S. I think there will be two different sensors from now on.

[shirubadanieru]

10 hours ago, LUF Admin said:

Articlex by Jono Slack

Introduction

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

I have been lucky enough to test all 3 of Leica’s Monochrom cameras. The 18mp M9 Monochrom was launched in Berlin amongst much excitement in November 2012. The 24mp M246 Monochrom was announced two and a half years later on April 30th 2015. We have had to wait nearly 4 years for the latest version: the M10-Monochrom being announced on January 17th 2020.

I think that for many of us the M10 was the ultimate digital expression of the Leica Rangefinder camera. They had managed to reduce its size to that of an M7, to speed it up, quieten the shutter and streamline the operation. Then came the M10-P with an even quieter shutter.

The M10-Monochrom retains the quieter shutter of the M10-P, but adds a completely new 41mp monochrome sensor (7864 x 5200 pixels). Of course this brings up a number of immediate questions:

• Are the M lenses good enough to support such resolution?
• Does anyone really need this much black and white resolution?
• Is the M10 electronics sufficient to deal with such big files?
• Is it possible to hold the camera steady enough with no Stabilisation?
• Is it possible to focus accurately enough with the rangefinder

I’ll be looking at these questions in the course of this article.

As usual I should emphasise that my job with Leica is as a camera tester, and my job is to report problems to Leica (which I certainly do!). On the other hand I would never miss out anything which seemed to me to be critical and I don’t get paid for writing these articles (either directly or indirectly). I’m not asked what to write, and although I do show them to Leica first for fact checking that is all that they do.

In the past (and always by chance) it has turned out that testing cameras has coincided with one of our trips abroad. This time it hasn’t been the case, what’s more I’ve had a pretty busy time at work, so, apart from a brief working trip to Cornwall (where it rained every day), the images accompanying this article have mostly been shot within walking distance of home (or in a local pub!).

The Body

The M10-Monochrom body is a beautiful thing, and I think this might just be the loveliest of all the variants (perhaps of all the digital M cameras). The body is a stealthy black chrome, with no red dot (just the big screw of the M10-P). It has no logo on the top plate, just the word MONOCHROM engraved in small letters at the front (mine also has P03/15 engraved to indicate it’s prototype status). On the back it says LEICA CAMERA WETZLAR - MADE IN GERMANY, but like the engraving on the top plate this is not picked out In colour.

The shutter speed dial has the shutter speeds picked out in white (as usual), but the A setting is grey rather than red, and this goes for the M setting on the ISO dial and the red dot on the on/off. The rear plate is the same as a normal M10, with LV, PLAY and MENU buttons on the left and a 4 way rocker switch on the right with a central button. The thumb wheel and it’s bump are also the same as the M10.

The whole effect is very discreet and really smart.

Operation, Speed, and Menus

If you put a much larger sensor into a camera with the same processor you are inevitably going to have an impact on the speed of processing, and it’s certainly the case with the M10-Monochrom. Shot to shot times, writing to disk and review times are all slower. So perhaps it isn’t the camera for sport!

On the other hand I mostly use Sandisk Extreme Pro 64Gb 95ms SD cards, and with the camera on continuous-fast it takes 10 DNG files at high speed before pausing, and another 10 before really slowing down. I can’t imagine anyone using continuous on a camera like this, but it does show that for measured shooting the slightly slower processing times are unlikely ever to cause an issue. Certainly I’ve never been inconvenienced by it.

On the rare occasion the camera is behind itself reading or rendering a file it shows the file number (rather than a question mark or error).

If you’re a fast shooter, then you should be aware of the issue, but for most normal photographers it won’t ever be relevant. The important point is that as far as I’m aware there is no shutter lag involved, whether you use the EVF or not.

I’m not going into the menu system in any detail. As expected, it is pretty much identical with the M10, but with colour and white balance options removed.

Having spent much of the last year using Panasonic and Fujifilm cameras it’s a real joy getting back to Leica’s simple but functional menu system. I think it’s sometimes overlooked how much purpose and determination Leica put into keeping it like this.

Focusing and Image Stabilisation (or not)

The Leica M Rangefinder (or, in German, Messsucher, hence the “M”) was first released in 1953, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to wonder whether it is still fit for purpose for a 41mp sensor 67 years later in 2020.

I’m not fortunate enough to own a 50 or 75 Noctilux, but I’ve found rangefinder focusing with my 50 Summilux Asph and 75 APO Summicron to be easy and reliable, even wide open (I mostly shoot wide open). I have a practice game I play, which involves focusing with the rangefinder, and then checking whether it’s correct in the EVF, it always reassures me what a wonderful tool a rangefinder still is.

Which brings me back to the EVF. I know there have been a lot of complaints that it’s rather old school, and I long since stopped using it with the M10 (I’m pretty good at focusing with a rangefinder, and I like to see around the subject).

I found that I liked using the EVF with the M10-Monochrom; partly because it was nice to see the image in black and white, but also for focusing: I think it works best with focus peaking turned off, and with auto zoom turned off (with zooming on the front button). For most images I found there was a shimmer of excitement over the area in focus, with no need to zoom in for critical focus. I particularly enjoyed using it with the 60mm Macro Elmarit R.

I imagine that for those lucky enough to have a Noctilux or the 90 Summilux the EVF will be a real benefit, but I’ll only use it when I want to see the end result before I take the picture. Surely the point of a Leica M camera is the rangefinder (at least that’s how I see it).

With respect to image stabilisation, of course, it would be nice to have it, but the very quiet shutter and the solid body seems to have made camera shake a relatively minor problem, and the fantastic high ISO together with the extra stop you get without the colour filter array means that you can use the ISO settings to preserve a high enough shutter speed. In this context I found the 1/f 1/(2f) and 1/(4f) minimum shutter speed in the Auto ISO settings particularly useful.

Image Quality, Resolution and ISO

I’m afraid that I was dead set against Leica increasing the resolution from 24mp which seemed to me to be the perfect compromise between quality and convenience, resolution and file size, perfectly capable of a good sized print and fast processing.

But I’ve changed my mind; the extra price to pay in terms of processing power and storage space is really small in the face of the extra advantages in terms of image quality and crop-ability.

With the SL2 and now the M10M I’ve found myself shooting just with a 50 or a 35, when previously I would have used a zoom, or a 35 and a 75 (and the lens changes that implies).

The Monochrome sensor in the M10-Monochrom foregoes the Bayer filter required in colour cameras. With a Bayer filter groups of 4 pixels (with Red, Green, Green, Blue filters) are processed in a batch and then separated into 4 pixels in the demosaicing process. This means that theoretically the Monochrom has 4 times the absolute resolution of a colour sensor.

In actual fact the modern demosaicing routines are very good, and so the resolution bonus with a Monochrome sensor is perhaps more like 2 times. But that still left me wondering whether M lenses are up to a comparative resolution of 80mp.

I thought I’d test this with my idea of the Leica M Triumvirate:

• Leica 28mm Summilux Asph
• Leica 35mm Summilux Asph
• Leica 50mm Summilux Asph

I shot my tame copper beech hedge at a nasty 10 metres at f1.4, f2, f4, f5.6 and f8 with each lens. Each of them lost a little at f1.4 and f2 in the very extreme corners (the 35 FLE was probably the best). Stop down a little and the corners are perfect, but even wide open all but the very corner of the frame is beautifully sharp.

Unfortunately I don’t own a Leica M246 Monochrom, but I do have my M9 Monochrom with the CCD sensor, and I thought it might be interesting to do some comparisons between the original Monochrom (from 2012) and this new version.

I took pictures of our kitchen dresser in low artificial light with each camera on a tripod with ISO between 160 and 10,000 (for the M9M) and up to 100,000 (the maximum ISO on the M10M) I did 100 percent comparisons at natural resolution, and with the M10M scaled down to match the resolution of the M9M. I then made A4 prints at critical ISO values.

What is immediately clear is that both cameras are actually quite usable right through the ISO range, but there has been a huge boost in image quality over the last 8 years, and the difference between the cameras in terms of noise amounted to about 2 - 3 stops. So that the M9M at 10,000 ISO was marginally better than the M10M at 100,000 ISO but not as good as the M10M at 64,000 ISO.

Dynamic range is quite a different thing, you still have to be a little careful not to overexpose the highlights, but the amount of detail which is hidden away in the shadows in the new camera is nothing less than breathtaking.

Conclusion

The easy part is to say that this camera is a joy to shoot with, a joy to handle, and produces wonderful images quite suitable to make very very big prints. The only possible functional criticism which I can find is that it’s a little slow processing images and writing them to disk (SD Card).

But why a monochrome camera? Sure, it was exciting and interesting in 2012 when Leica brought out the first Monochrom, and arguably the resolution benefits were bigger then, when the M9 sensor was just 18Mp.

These days converting from colour to black and white in post processing is much easier, it allows you to change the conversion on different colour channels and the higher resolution of modern sensors surely makes the increase of resolution of the monochrome sensor largely academic.

But shooting with a black and white camera imposes a discipline on the photographer which can be really valuable: It really makes you think about the structure of the image and the composition whereas colour encourages a ‘think about it later’ ethos.

And then there is Leica. Whilst other manufacturer’s chase each others technological tails and moan about falling camera sales Leica have the courage to produce excitingly different cameras, free of the function fetish of their competitors and still brave enough to produce something which really is exciting. I’m absolutely convinced by this camera and it’s been a real pleasure to have it and shoot with it for the last 4 months.

Great report! I was hoping to find out also how old lens work? The MM1 and old lens is such a great combo and to my eyes it’s the camera where vintage lens look the best. Given I only have lens from the 1950s it would be great to know if the m10M would be a good option for people like me:) thank you! 

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[Jeff S]

5 minutes ago, shirubadanieru said:

Great report! I was hoping to find out also how old lens work? The MM1 and old lens is such a great combo and to my eyes it’s the camera where vintage lens look the best. Given I only have lens from the 1950s it would be great to know if the m10M would be a good option for people like me:) thank you! 

My prediction is that the higher resolution that many seem to crave will prompt a lot of discussion from owners regarding use of vintage glass, as well as adding grain/noise, to achieve a more filmic rendering. Ironic.

Jeff

[SrMi]

It would be interesting to see the difference between images from M10 Monochrome and MF images (GFX, X1D) when converted B&W.