First time Leica M owner - sharing my first impressions

[Leicaboy Norway]

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Hey guys!

First time I am writing here...

So I have owned the Leica Q for a few years. The reason I really like it is the portability, fast lens, nice IQ and good looks.

I also have a Pentax K-1, Canon R5 and a Fujifilm X-T30 and have shot Sony and Nikon before.

Like most photographers I struggle with motivation from time to time. All of a sudden I decided to part with my huge, but excellent Canon RF 85mm f/1.2. It is the sharpest out of every lens I have ever used, but the size and weight made rarely wanting to pick it up. And if so, it was very result oriented. Not a super fun lens to shoot with (for me).

I used the money to buy a Leica M240. I already had a Voigtlander Ultron 35mm 1.7.

2 days after I received my Leica M240 I decided to get a Leica Summicron 50mm f/2 v5 (got a deal here in Norway for $1300 and it barely shows signs of use. Is that a good deal btw? I know it is silly, but the Voigtlander is great and all but I wanted a real Leica lens too.

 

Anyway, having shot loads of cameras, mirrorless, dslr, analog and digital - this was my first manual focus rangefinder experience.

And wow, I am having so much fun. I am getting faster and faster at focusing. And that 50 mm lens is super nice. It actually feels like a better lens than that 28mm 1.7 Summilux on the Leica q???? Would love to hear from others regarding this comparison...

I am also seeing photos with more character and depth, but it may be subjective. It really feels quite different from the Leica Q, and I am not only thinking about the autofocus vs manual focus. The Leica Q feels quite similar to Fuji and other brands, although a slightly better fixed lens camera than those.

 

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Leicaboy Norway

[Al Brown]

Congrats. Now swap the obsolete M240 for any M10 ASAP and double the immersive joy of the M experience. Trust me on this one.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Leicaboy Norway]

8 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

Congrats. Now swap the obsolete M240 for any M10 ASAP and double the immersive joy of the M experience. Trust me on this one.

Thank you!

 

Hah! Not sure if you are joking, or not since you don not say why I should upgrade. Really like the M240!

[Al Brown]

10 minutes ago, Leicaboy Norway said:

Thank you!

 

Hah! Not sure if you are joking, or not since you don not say why I should upgrade. Really like the M240!

To explain: I went the same route, all written in good will. Could not believe how much better the M10 is over M240... Finally a digital M where Leica got 99% right.
Why upgrade? The M240 has a terrible form factor (too thick), super small buffer of 7 images, worse ISO performance compared to M10 and terrible green hues with banding in shadows - try lifting the shadows of any raw photo you shoot with M240 in ACR/Lightroom and you will see it is all green (a well documented problem). Click on the image I attached.

 

 

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Edited August 29, 2023 by Al Brown

[Leicaboy Norway]

3 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

To explain: I went the same route, all written in good will. Could not believe how much better the M10 is over M240... Finally a digital M where Leica got 99% right.
Why upgrade? The M240 has a terrible form factor (too thick), super small buffer of 7 images, worse ISO performance compared to M10 and terrible green hues with banding in shadows - try lifting the shadows of any raw photo you shoot with M240 in ACR/Lightroom and you will see it is all green (a well documented problem). Click on the image I attached.

 

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

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

Ah, ok. Maybe i will in due time! But personally I don't mind the form factor and mostly shoot in low iso. 

 

I Definetely see the green tint in your photo though.  
 

And btw your Instagram-photos are super nice 🤩👌

[RexGig0]

Enjoy your M Type 240! If you discover that you miss the 85mm focal length, Zeiss marketed a quite nice Tele Tessar 85mm f/4 ZM lens, made for them by Cosina, for the Leica M mount. 

[Ray Vonn]

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Because of the general manual/ rangefinder/ hyperfocal focusing operation of the camera, it is such a different experience to other mirrorless cameras currently available, so much so it changes the way one shoots and sees things.  And because it is only Leica that has manufactured or is manufacturing FF digital rangefinders, it's extremely likely you're going to stay in the system like the rest of us here as the whole experience is comparatively quite unique.  I can almost promise you that once you get used to it, this will be reflected in your images.  Enjoy!

[dpitt]

1 hour ago, Leicaboy Norway said:

Hey guys!

First time I am writing here...

So I have owned the Leica Q for a few years. The reason I really like it is the portability, fast lens, nice IQ and good looks.

I also have a Pentax K-1, Canon R5 and a Fujifilm X-T30 and have shot Sony and Nikon before.

Like most photographers I struggle with motivation from time to time. All of a sudden I decided to part with my huge, but excellent Canon RF 85mm f/1.2. It is the sharpest out of every lens I have ever used, but the size and weight made rarely wanting to pick it up. And if so, it was very result oriented. Not a super fun lens to shoot with (for me).

I used the money to buy a Leica M240. I already had a Voigtlander Ultron 35mm 1.7.

2 days after I received my Leica M240 I decided to get a Leica Summicron 50mm f/2 v5 (got a deal here in Norway for $1300 and it barely shows signs of use. Is that a good deal btw? I know it is silly, but the Voigtlander is great and all but I wanted a real Leica lens too.

 

Anyway, having shot loads of cameras, mirrorless, dslr, analog and digital - this was my first manual focus rangefinder experience.

And wow, I am having so much fun. I am getting faster and faster at focusing. And that 50 mm lens is super nice. It actually feels like a better lens than that 28mm 1.7 Summilux on the Leica q???? Would love to hear from others regarding this comparison...

I am also seeing photos with more character and depth, but it may be subjective. It really feels quite different from the Leica Q, and I am not only thinking about the autofocus vs manual focus. The Leica Q feels quite similar to Fuji and other brands, although a slightly better fixed lens camera than those.

 

 

Welcome to the forum!
I see you enjoy your M240. Do not mind others who have more recent models. Of course they are better at some things. IMO the M240 is giving the best value M for the money on the used market today. The M9 is my favorite, but it has even more issues and only half the functionality of your M240. I still love my M9 though. At base ISO it is probably the best 18MP camera money can buy. Good corrosion free samples are getting rare, so it is now sold around the same price or higher than your M240 and it has no video and live view for example.

The Summicron 50 v5 is one of my favorites too.  No wonder you think it might be better than the Q lens. It probably is better in a lot of ways. It is probably the best pre-ASPH lens and it shows the full strength of the non-ASPH rendering. To my eyes some ASPH lenses are a bit too much. Maybe it is the classic vs ASPH design that pleases you. If it is, then you will have lots of fun trying vintage Summicrons, Elmarits and Elmars if you want to. Maybe it is the Summicron vs Summilux look that catches your eye. You can see that difference between modern ASPH designs of Summicron and Summiluxes too. A Summicron is not a Summilux that is made a bit slower, it is a different and 'better' design. Differences get smaller when you stop down the Summilux, but the character differences remain. (BTW, I think you got a good price for your sample)

For me the M is all about the rangefinder and manual focus. It gives me complete control and I really like seeing the world through the RF viewfinder in stead of through a 'tube'. And in that aspect it is totally different from anything else Leica (or most others) have on offer.
 

28 minutes ago, RexGig0 said:

Enjoy your M Type 240! If you discover that you miss the 85mm focal length, Zeiss marketed a quite nice Tele Tessar 85mm f/4 ZM lens, made for them by Cosina, for the Leica M mount. 

I suggest looking at some vintage Elmar 90's and Tele-Elmarits too. They will be cheaper and possibly more fun than the Zeiss.

[Leicaboy Norway]

8 minutes ago, dpitt said:

Welcome to the forum!
I see you enjoy your M240. Do not mind others who have more recent models. Of course they are better at some things. IMO the M240 is giving the best value M for the money on the used market today. The M9 is my favorite, but it has even more issues and only half the functionality of your M240. I still love my M9 though. At base ISO it is probably the best 18MP camera money can buy. Good corrosion free samples are getting rare, so it is now sold around the same price or higher than your M240 and it has no video and live view for example.

The Summicron 50 v5 is one of my favorites too.  No wonder you think it might be better than the Q lens. It probably is better in a lot of ways. It is probably the best pre-ASPH lens and it shows the full strength of the non-ASPH rendering. To my eyes some ASPH lenses are a bit too much. Maybe it is the classic vs ASPH design that pleases you. If it is, then you will have lots of fun trying vintage Summicrons, Elmarits and Elmars if you want to. Maybe it is the Summicron vs Summilux look that catches your eye. You can see that difference between modern ASPH designs of Summicron and Summiluxes too. A Summicron is not a Summilux that is made a bit slower, it is a different and 'better' design. Differences get smaller when you stop down the Summilux, but the character differences remain. (BTW, I think you got a good price for your sample)

For me the M is all about the rangefinder and manual focus. It gives me complete control and I really like seeing the world through the RF viewfinder in stead of through a 'tube'. And in that aspect it is totally different from anything else Leica (or most others) have on offer.
 

I suggest looking at some vintage Elmar 90's and Tele-Elmarits too. They will be cheaper and possibly more fun than the Zeiss.

Thank you so much my friend for sharing your reflections. Interesting!

 

And I'm going to check out those lenses you recommend 🙏

[Topsy]

24 minutes ago, dpitt said:

Welcome to the forum!
I see you enjoy your M240. Do not mind others who have more recent models. Of course they are better at some things. IMO the M240 is giving the best value M for the money on the used market today. The M9 is my favorite, but it has even more issues and only half the functionality of your M240. I still love my M9 though. At base ISO it is probably the best 18MP camera money can buy. Good corrosion free samples are getting rare, so it is now sold around the same price or higher than your M240 and it has no video and live view for example.

The Summicron 50 v5 is one of my favorites too.  No wonder you think it might be better than the Q lens. It probably is better in a lot of ways. It is probably the best pre-ASPH lens and it shows the full strength of the non-ASPH rendering. To my eyes some ASPH lenses are a bit too much. Maybe it is the classic vs ASPH design that pleases you. If it is, then you will have lots of fun trying vintage Summicrons, Elmarits and Elmars if you want to. Maybe it is the Summicron vs Summilux look that catches your eye. You can see that difference between modern ASPH designs of Summicron and Summiluxes too. A Summicron is not a Summilux that is made a bit slower, it is a different and 'better' design. Differences get smaller when you stop down the Summilux, but the character differences remain. (BTW, I think you got a good price for your sample)

For me the M is all about the rangefinder and manual focus. It gives me complete control and I really like seeing the world through the RF viewfinder in stead of through a 'tube'. And in that aspect it is totally different from anything else Leica (or most others) have on offer.
 

I suggest looking at some vintage Elmar 90's and Tele-Elmarits too. They will be cheaper and possibly more fun than the Zeiss.

I'm with @dpitt on this I love my M9s they give me the nearest to film experience I can get but with some of the convenience of digital. The CCD sensor is just like shooting slide film (with the ISO limitations to boot) and the fact I have no live view or video for me is a good thing. 

Continue to enjoy your "old tech" camera and long may they continue to allow gereat photos to be made.

[R6M6]

The Elmarit M90 is a wonderful lens and works very good with the M9 and most probably also with the M240.

[darylgo]

The M240 continues to be one of my favorite cameras, and as previous posts have suggested all Leica M digital cameras can render beautiful images.  In contrast with other digital cameras of the same vintage it has aged very gracefully.  The M240 is unique in some ways, other M cameras don't have a functional grip, the M240 has flash, AC capabilities etc.  The red frame lines are fun also, later cameras have white only.  Enjoy your new camera.  

[vkdev]

Welcome!
I'm glad you bought the m240. this is a wonderful camera.
They tell you here that you should sell 240 and buy m10 (why change one old camera for another old one?), but I think you just buy another m, m246 monochrom, it would be great pair for your 240  
and summicron for m240 i like more than summilux.

you made a good choice!

Edited August 29, 2023 by vkdev

[evikne]

Welcome to the forum! I am also from Norway. I bought my first Leica camera seven years ago, a used M9. I thought it was the latest model (but it wasn't 😉). Since then I have learned a lot about Leica, primarily through this fine forum. This place has also led to many temptations: I bought a new M10 the following year, and I have bought and sold many Leica lenses after reading about them here.

You'll probably get a lot of well-intentioned advice, but don't forget to filter it through your own mind. Enjoy your new camera!

[Leicaboy Norway]

15 hours ago, dpitt said:

A Summicron is not a Summilux that is made a bit slower, it is a different and 'better' design.

Sorry, but this was intereting. Would you care to explain? As only a Leica Q shooter and first now stepping into the Leica M world, I honestly thought it was only the aperture/speed that differentiated them. But would to learn the background!

[Ray Vonn]

2 hours ago, Leicaboy Norway said:

Sorry, but this was intereting. Would you care to explain? As only a Leica Q shooter and first now stepping into the Leica M world, I honestly thought it was only the aperture/speed that differentiated them. But would to learn the background!

Unfortunately, the very best and perhaps only way to determine this is to use them both (notwithstanding fwiw I agree with dpitt).

[dpitt]

2 hours ago, Ray Vonn said:

Unfortunately, the very best and perhaps only way to determine this is to use them both (notwithstanding fwiw I agree with dpitt).

Exactly right. Choosing lenses is very personal in the first place. So trying them out is the only way to be sure what works best for you. What I see as a weakness can be a strength for others and vice versa. I own (an have owned) Summiluxes and Summicron's. Mostly in the 35 and 50mm FL. Leica M, Leica R and now even a Leica TL 35mm Summilux. I am afraid my heart is won by the Summicron lenses and over the years I collected a lot of the vintage models. And I experimented with the vintage Summiluxes of the same period. Even regardless of price the Summiluxes not always win for me over a Summicron. So I bought and sold a few of them. I will try to explain why in my answer below.

5 hours ago, Leicaboy Norway said:

Sorry, but this was intereting. Would you care to explain? As only a Leica Q shooter and first now stepping into the Leica M world, I honestly thought it was only the aperture/speed that differentiated them. But would to learn the background!

I am not a lens designer, so I leave the technical in depth explanation to others on this forum. But, I can try to explain what I see, having handled more than a dozen of Summicron Leica lens types of the sixties to the current ones. I compared them to quite a few Summiluxes, both from the same period and vintage ones.

First of all, let me compare both on an abstract level. A Summicron always has F2.0 as largest opening. A Summilux has F1.4. So you have one stop advantage for the lux. But this one stop is not always desirable. At 35mm, F1.4 is always providing enough DOF to be practical. But at 50mm and indoors F1.4 gives a DOF of a few cm or even mm only. This is not always practical to make a useful photo. At 75mm, F1.4 is even harder to use.
Indoors, F1.4 seems the holy grail to keep ISO low. But the longer your lens is, the more you will want to stop down anyway. And in this digital age, it is far easier to add a few stops of ISO value than it was in the film age. ISO 400 was high back then and ISO 1600 was a big compromise. Now with the M240 you can use 400 and 800 without hesitation. So the need for F1.4 is far less than it was 20 years ago.

So even if you got F1.4 for free, it would not be useful all that much. And it is far from free. Any lens is a big set of compromises between price, quality and practicallity. In general a Summilux will be twice the weight and size compared to the Summicron of the same FL. And it will cost between 1,5 to 3 times as much.

And it is not only the weight you pay. The optical formula for the Summicron is still the best guarantee to achieve the ultimum in performance (at any F stop). Probably one of the reasons why the SL primes are all Summicron designs. There is an evolution over the last 60 years. In the beginning years the Summilux versions where really soft wide open compared to the Summicron's wide open. Designers had to make a big compromise to reach F1.4 at all, and Leica was one of the best around, but any Summicron was easily better at F2.0 to F4.0 or F5.6 even. Even today a Summilux design is a compromise compared to what the Summicron design can achieve, and the size it would be (see Summicron SL lenses)

Sometimes you want that kind of dreamy look and play with light a Summilux gives you. It gives a more artistic look, and I also like it to some degree. But for some applications you do not want that. And in those cases, I make my choice for the more compact, practical and better IQ and price of the Summicron version. Because I like the vintage look that much on 50mm FL, my vintage Summilux often stays at home when my Summicron 50 v4 is mounted on my M9. (v4 is the same optical design as v5, and smaller + tab, without built in sunhood)

For 35mm, I tried the Summilux 35 v1 and v2. It was as small as the Summicron 35, so very attractive to me. Unfortunately, I did not appreciate its soft look wide open in most circumstances. This is one of those where you really have a completely different character wide open and stopped down. The Summicron 35 is much better from F2.0 to F4.0, and a lot cheaper, so I sold the luxes. I think, I would like the Summilux 35 ASPH versions better, because they are much sharper wide open, and there are a few compact versions too. But they cost much more and I am more a 50mm person on FF.

I bought the Summilux TL 35 ASPH, sort of by accident. I got an offer I could not refuse, and now it is the best lens that I have for my TL2. I even use it with fine results on my SL (in cropped mode). I think it is my favorite ASPH lens now. Possibly because with the crop it is equivalent to 50mm. I keep coming back to that FL.

I really can see the appeal for F1.4, but for practical reasons like weight, price and IQ, I keep coming back to the Summicron.

One of my best results with both TL2 and SL have been made with a Summicron 50 R and of course the marvelous Summicron 90 R. Summicron's again.
I also own a Summilux 50 R... The 90 Summicron R is my favorite on the SL so far. You may notice,  I do not mention the Summicron 90 M. I do not like going large and heavy on a M body. So no 90 M for me.

The Summicron 90 R is very small and compact compared to any SL lens. That and the price makes me think twice before going for the excellent Summicron SL lenses or SL zoom lenses.

 

 

[Leicaboy Norway]

23 hours ago, dpitt said:

I do not mention the Summicron 90 M. I do not like going large and heavy on a M body. So no 90 M for me.

Thanks for the post as a whole!

 

Agree regarding big lenses on a small rangefinder. Not for me either. But the 90 2.8 isn't too large (I think?). Also considering the voigtlander 75 1.5 in the long run.

 

Had a summicron-r 50 mm f2 v2 that to me was totally unimpressive on my Pentax k1. Kinda weird the 50mm m v5 is so nice.

[Ray Vonn]

4 minutes ago, Leicaboy Norway said:

But the 90 2.8 isn't too large (I think?).

The Tele Elmarit isn't, I've got one primarily due to its relatively small size albeit the Elmar Collapsible is probably nicer (people I respect always seem to prefer it over the Tele Elmarit) and size-wise, the Elmar C fits into the same category.  As always, I would try before you buy if you can do that where you are and make sure you are ok with the rendering.  I like the rendering of the Tele Elmarit but a lot of people don't.  This is such a subjective game!

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Gregm61]

Either of the later 90mm f2.8’s, the Tele Elmarit or the last, 90mm f2.8 Elmarit-M, are plenty small enough.

And either one can be, if you want, retrofitted with 6 bit codings.