Some M11-P thoughts...

[ldhrads]

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My opinions. IDK how qualified I am, but I've been doing digital Leica's since M8.2 and have recently moved from M10-P to M11-P. 

As a long time rangefinder operator, I am happy that the M11-P still has an optical rangefinder. I do use LV occasionally, more than I did with any other digital M. But truly appreciate the optical rangefinder still.

This past weekend I took the M11-P out with the Canon 50/0.95 to shoot a bit at an outdoor music festival. Sunny day, all day. No ND filter! It was somewhat a transcendent experience to be able to shoot at f0.95 with no ND, ISO 64 and the hybrid shutter. It was a challenge at first to realize that when the electronic shutter fires there's no "shutter noise". I wasn't even sure I had taken pics at all. The other thing that caught my eye was that when processing these pics given the 60 MP file size I was very comfortable cropping aggressively and not losing anything!  

I'm also very happy with the new metering capabilities.  I hesitated going from M10-P to M11-P but wow, what a difference!!!

 

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[Derbyshire Man]

Yep, totally agree with the cropping ability. As I said elsewhere it does mean that focus & re-compose has a plan B when time doesn't allow.

[Bobonli]

Thank you for sharing this. As someone who is in the final decision-making phases as to whether to go with the M11-P or continue hunting for an M 10 P, your commentary feedback is very helpful.I just spent a limited week ( I had to work after all) with an 11P rental and really couldn’t be happier with the images it produces. It’s a camera you want to have with you, even if I don’t need all those megapixels most of the time. Indeed I planned to dial back the settings to save some space but couldn’t bring myself to do it! 
 

I’m pretty much past the “should I look for an M10” part of the purchasing algorhythm. 

[Josh Rainey]

Im a Leica newb who recently acquired a M11-P

I had never held a Leica and the last one I saw in public was in Barcelona in 2015. Been in a couple stores but was too intimidated to ask to hold one

Ive been filming with Red cameras for years and not really using a dedicated stills camera. Just grabbing frames from the video file (still Raw).

The X100vi got me me to put in a preorder, but the long wait times had me considering my options.

I wanted a 50mm focal length and good manual focusing. My old lust for a Leica started to reemerge.

I actually settled on a 50mm Summilux asph first and traded in some old gear for that. The clock was ticking to get a body.

I played with m10, m10r and m11 files intensely with my normal color workflow, which includes DaVinci resolve (which actually works great for photos, especially with DNG files)

The M10 files looked amazing but broke down the fastest in fringe areas like highlights. I was totally set on an m10r, but finding one used is only a couple grand less than a m11. So having a full warranty and the best sensor available pushed me over the edge. When spending lots of money, I like to spend a little bit more to make sure I have the right thing.

So thoughts:

1. I can't deny I didn’t have a little fetish for the look of the -P version. But I actually hardly ever look AT the camera. It’s too nice to look through the camera. It just became a camera.

2. Even as the lightest Leica (black) it felt heavy when I first handled it. But now it feels perfect. No grip or thumbs up.

3. I’m not using live view at all, the rangefinder is too fun. I’ll lay on the ground to keep using the rangefinder. 

4. The rangefinder is totally accurate for shooting at 1.4. Ive been using manual focus cinema lenses almost exclusively previous to this, so I’m used to the realities. It just turns photography it a sport. I do find with a lot of action I get more ‘man in the middle’ compositions as it’s hard to take the rangefinder patch off the subjects face.

5. The live view focus peaking is horrendous. Coming from cinema cameras where it is well refined, it’s a comparative disaster on this.

6. Because I’ve been getting into the groove with focus and composition. I’ve been using Aperture priority and letting the meter do it’s thing. It’s working pretty good. I’d say it’s 90% reliable at highlight weighted and the 10% it’s not is easy to see coming. Like half the scene dark, half light. The exposure tools are seriously lacking coming from Red cameras which have raw sensor RGB histograms and from the sensor false color. Clipping blinkies on the M11 give me mostly what I need. I don’t even really need them as the screen shows white pretty accurately, even outside. 
 

7. I don’t really care about the Leica colors as I do a different process, but the previews have great tonal qualities and the colors keep me excited that I got something good.

8. There appears to be some sort of magic in that whenever I see a great quality of light the camera seems to enhance whatever I saw. Could be the lens as the Summilux is almost unbelievably good. It sometimes feels like there is a fill light or bounce added that wasn’t there.

9. Battery life is good but going dawn to dusk will require turning the camera off sometimes. I don’t do sleep mode cuz it messes me up.

10. I like using the rangefinder much more with contacts vs glasses. But I also learned there’s a technique to even looking through the damn thing. And why is there a pink patch in the middle: finger over the ranger finder (total newb)

11. The stock strap is really nice. Perfect about of friction so I can twist it and leave it without fear of it sliding around.

12. I guess weather sealing on the body is fine as I’m mostly worried about sweat. I’ve had it out in a drizzle too… and at the playground with wet sand getting flung at me (the best place to lose that sense of a camera being precious).

13. Electronic shutter is useful but not for action the rolling shutter is really bad (people know this already)

 

Ive mostly been shooting family so far, but did do a real shoot on the second day I got it to try and get into the zone.

This was the first morning and assured me that I made a good decision.

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 Then a couple shooting paragliders on day 2

[ldhrads]

18 hours ago, Bobonli said:

Thank you for sharing this. As someone who is in the final decision-making phases as to whether to go with the M11-P or continue hunting for an M 10 P, your commentary feedback is very helpful.I just spent a limited week ( I had to work after all) with an 11P rental and really couldn’t be happier with the images it produces. It’s a camera you want to have with you, even if I don’t need all those megapixels most of the time. Indeed I planned to dial back the settings to save some space but couldn’t bring myself to do it! 
 

I’m pretty much past the “should I look for an M10” part of the purchasing algorhythm. 

I also thought I'd reduce the number of megapixels, but boy it's nice to have room to crop!

 

[Derbyshire Man]

@Josh Rainey I agree with bullet 5, I had a Q2M and the peaking on that seemed much better. I’m not convinced on the M11 and do everything I can to avoid it. Having said that I don’t think it’s any good on the Fuji 100vi either!

[10j6F18r]

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Like you I’m looking at getting an M11-P. I have a M10-R but I’ve read about all the issues with the M11. Then I see there are some users who are having decent luck with them. Can I ask what is the serial number of your M11-P? Thanks

[Josh Rainey]

I'm not sure where to find that, but I did get a demo unit, so maybe it was vetted. Based on the feedback, I lot of the issues seems resolved.

I thought it was freezing at first, but the ol' lens cap was on creating a super long exposure. Almost like lens cap protection when in A priority.

I've also been using a UHS-I card with no problems.

I've had a power board go out with my Red camera so understand that things can go south, but if you get a camera with a return period then just stress test it in the first few days and it should let you know if there's a hardware issues, freezing, or file write issues. 





 

[Mr. Protocol]

I own an M11-P, my first Leica, and I too have occasionally been burned by leaving the lens cap on.  But I also remember the first time the hybrid shutter first kicked over into electronic shutter mode: "Why the *^((* isn't this super-expensive load of crap taking the damn picture!"  Imagine my chagrin when I figured out what was going on...and, brother, did I have a boatload of images of the same subject waiting for me on the memory card...

[Josh Rainey]

Posted this in the wrong thread:



Back to the newb realizations: 

I've been working on shooting manual and hadn't noticed before how the shutter speed dial works with your "trigger finger". So nice to dial things in. Duh.

I'm using highlight weighted in A priority.

For manual, I like spot, then I can meter off the highlight and then bump the exposure up 1.5 to 2 stops from there. That usually keeps it out of clipping mode (except for specular which is fine to clip).

I do wish you could add exposure compensation on your previews. As I think shooting at 64 ISO and underexposing might give the best DR, versus bumping the ISO to get the "correct" exposure. So I could shoot 2 stops under, but the preview shows me it "push" to stops back up. But the underlying data is there. But with clipping blinkies and the histogram I'm able to more or less make sure I'm getting what I need on the "negative".

I plan to do a complete over/under cinema camera style test when I'm back home in a week or so. 

Still love the camera. I did have a file write issue, with no SD card in the cam. Not too worried about it.

Now that I'm getting a hang of exposure, I'm starting to pine for a M11-D...

[LikameLeica]

On 7/29/2024 at 9:45 PM, ldhrads said:

The other thing that caught my eye was that when processing these pics given the 60 MP file size I was very comfortable cropping aggressively and not losing anything!  

For Lightroom users, if you have not tried the "enhance" feature and then "super resolution" it is fantastic.  You do this on the 60MP file and then your cropping ability is even more capable.  Carry the 35M Summilux one lens and you have so much flexibility.

[brickftl]

2 hours ago, LikameLeica said:

For Lightroom users, if you have not tried the "enhance" feature and then "super resolution" it is fantastic.  You do this on the 60MP file and then your cropping ability is even more capable.  Carry the 35M Summilux one lens and you have so much flexibility.

I've played with that feature and don't see that it make much of a difference if any.

[Mr.Kite]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb LikameLeica:

For Lightroom users, if you have not tried the "enhance" feature and then "super resolution" it is fantastic.  You do this on the 60MP file and then your cropping ability is even more capable.  Carry the 35M Summilux one lens and you have so much flexibility.

Where can one find those features in LR Classic?

[marchyman]

On a mac is the "Enhance..." item in Photo menu or the same item in the context menu.  It appears to work from both the Develop and the Library modules.

[Mr.Kite]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb marchyman:

On a mac is the "Enhance..." item in Photo menu or the same item in the context menu.  It appears to work from both the Develop and the Library modules.

Thanks ! Found it.

[LikameLeica]

11 hours ago, brickftl said:

I've played with that feature and don't see that it make much of a difference if any.

I use Enhance "Super Resolution" extensively and the results are very impressive in my opinion.   I also use the Enhance "Denoise" feature on high ISO images to remove excessive noise with equally impressive results.  This as shown on the Adobe website below, is mainly for maintain resolution when cropping into an image.

From Adobe Website.

https://helpx.adobe.com/au/lightroom-classic/help/enhance-details.html

Super Resolution helps create an enhanced image with similar results as Raw Details but with 2x the linear resolution. This means that the enhanced image will have 2x the width and 2x the height of the original image or 4x the total pixel count. This feature supports the same file types as Raw Details, plus additional file types such as JPEG and TIFF. Super Resolution is especially useful to increase the resolution of a cropped image.

 

[ldhrads]

On 7/31/2024 at 5:42 PM, Mr. Protocol said:

I own an M11-P, my first Leica, and I too have occasionally been burned by leaving the lens cap on.  But I also remember the first time the hybrid shutter first kicked over into electronic shutter mode: "Why the *^((* isn't this super-expensive load of crap taking the damn picture!"  Imagine my chagrin when I figured out what was going on...and, brother, did I have a boatload of images of the same subject waiting for me on the memory card...

Leave the lens cap home.  Best solution!

[marchyman]

13 hours ago, LikameLeica said:

I use Enhance "Super Resolution" extensively and the results are very impressive in my opinion.

I used it to make pictures taken with my first P&S digital camera at a whopping 512x385 resolution bigger than the thumbnail size they look like on a 4K or 5K monitor.  The pictures were not very good to start with.  Super Resolution did not make them any worse.  That's a win, I guess.

I also use it to expand small images sent to me in email (or text!) destined for a web site I maintain.  Again, it doesn't make the images any worse.  I'd prefer people to send me larger images, but many only use their phones and never think about what the image might look like on a large screen.

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