Long exposure on the m11?

[Olaf_ZG]

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So, with the m11 out for a while, I would love to hear feedback from users who use the cam for long exposure. Not talking seconds here, but minutes.

My LE normally goes from 4-15 minutes, and ofcourse, in this case I don’t want LENR on.

The SL2 (what about 2s?) can switch off LENR but quality in shadows is not the best.

When the m11 came out, some people said long exposure is really possible. Therefore my question, is it?

(will it be better or almost good as tye gfx50?)

thanks.

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[mosh1]

No issues here with the M11 and long exposures. I've done 4 minute exposures for astrophotography on the M11 with a tracking mount and LENR off.

[250swb]

If the M11 is the same as the M10, M240, and M9 the mount will leak light around the coding sensor with long exposures. This is only a problem in daylight because obviously that is when ambient light can get in. It is a well known problem first found on the M9 and old hands at this use a hair crunchy or similar around the base of the lens mount to baffle the area of the coding sensor. It is particularly bad if a lens mount screw coincides with the coding sensor as this minimises even more the distance between the mount being light tight. So, steal a hair crunchy or take some masking tape with you for long exposures with a digital M. It does depend on the direction of the ambient light and how long the exposure for how bad the leak can be.

[Jeff S]

Best to avoid ‘crunchy’ hair products, but a scrunchy will serve well. 😉

Jeff

[Hausen17]

I am 100% a long exposure shooter and come back to Leica from Hasselblad 907x solely because you can now turn off LENR. I always use one of my daughters scrunchies and I also have a Benro lens tent which I use sometimes with the WATE because the WATE filter adaptor has holes in it and no matter how much tape I put over it I occasionally get leaks.

It is really easy to use with the Visoflex II, love carrying around small screw in NDs rather than 100x100 squares and M11+ 4 lenses easily fits is my Wotancraft Pilot with room to spare. See my LEs at @longexposure_queenstown on insta.

[SrMi]

I did a 10-minutes exposure (metered for 20 minutes but had to abort after 10 minutes), and M11 produced excellent IQ (no LENR). In a way, it is even better than Hasselblad cameras (kings of long exposures) as the Visoflex amplifies the scene more than Hasselblad, which allows framing where Hasselblad shows only a dark EVF. Like Hasselblad, Leica can meter up to 60 minutes properly, while most other cameras can do it only for 30 seconds.

[Olaf_ZG]

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Thank you all for feedback.

@Hausen17, great images, I followed you already but was not aware you used a m11.

@SrMi appreciate your feedback as I know you do LE and have HB as well.

 

[Omarnk]

I would second the comments above. The M11 really is a very viable long exposure camera now. I've come from the Hasselblad X1D, which was a great tool, and I'm amazed what the M11 can provide in such a small form factor. It really is now a very versatile camera. With the help of the new visoflex or just using Live View you can shoot exposures of multiple minutes without any issues. Having said that, I did notice quite a few hot pixels (avg. exposure time was around 5 minutes, no LENR though) when I opened it up in Lightroom. I had the same thing with the X1D too, though. My most recent instagram image  https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj8WPbeMmq0/?next=%2F was a long exposure seascape taken on the M11/Summilux 50mm 1.4 ASPH combo using a 10-stop B+W circular filter.