M11 vs. M11M Counseling Requested!

[dante]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Dear Dr. Leica:

I am in a window where I am looking to  buy an M11 (either regular or Monochrom) to replace one or both of my M240 and M246, which is a pair I like for the use of common accessories (batteries, EVFs, magnifiers, cases, multifunction grip, SCA adapter, mic set, flash).

I am not likely to spend big on upgrading two Leica bodies, and this is an exercise in which both M bodies will likely go in favor of one new one, if only for the sake of reducing the clutter in terms of batteries and other M24x-specific accessories. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but I've had both the M24x cameras for about 10 years now (from new), and I feel like I've gotten a lot of good pictures out of that investment. I am also getting irritable about the EVF situation, which I find necessary to keep things level and square with wides. The Visoflex I (Olympus EVF-2) is just too slow sometimes.

My question is really:

If I have an A7CR (60mp, same sensor likely as M11) that can handle color, what would be compelling in getting an M11 (color) over an M11 Mono?

(You can assume that the Zeiss primes I have for the A7CR are at least as capable as the M lenses I have, that I like rangefinders but not exclusively, and that my color work with an M240 or A7CR is not in contexts where size/bulk/weight is an issue)

My experience with the M240/M246 is that native mono is completely different (and better results-wise) than converting color. That said,

(1) metering is a lot less fun due to the generally muddy previews (yes, I know they are previews and that output is malleable, etc. - but even after 9+ years, it still leads to a lot of bracketing in the moment just to be sure - there are places in the world I am not coming back to...) and

(2) the complete unrecoverability of blown highlights, which drives part of #1.

Does the M11's highlight-priority metering improve this? The performance in mono at 60mp is not a small consideration if I can also retire some medium-format film cameras in the bargain. If the perspective control is reliable, then it could also reduce the need to use the EVF to keep things completely on the level.

Thanks!

 

[Stevejack]

There's a lot to unpack there but here's my take. You already use M cameras so you know if you like the process of using them (or not). 

I currently have the M11 + M11M, and came from the M240/M10 + M10M prior. Given that you already own a colour + mono body I think you're in the best place to decide whether you prefer Mono vs Colour, but when I had the M10-M and purchased the M11, I was very happy with the colour to mono conversions coming from the M11, to the extent that the M10M hardly got used at all. This was mostly down to the vastly improved visoflex experience. If you like using the visoflex, the M11 is a no-brainer. 

I rarely use a metering mode (I'm mostly a manual shooter) so I can't really help there. The odd occasion I've used Auto-ISO on the M11 I've been happy enough, the metering is as good as my Sony from what I've seen but I haven't used it extensively outside of manual mode. 

Highlight recovery is really only an issue when you're in auto, but I will intentionally blow highlights if that's how I choose to shoot a scene. I've played a little bit with recovery on the M11 just to see how it is, and it's fine, about on par with Sony. Obviously the M11-M can't recover highlights in the same way so you need to be more careful. I did try the highlight priority mode briefly on the M11-M and it seemed to work well, but I found it too aggressive for my tastes, severely underexposing scenes to preserve highlights that don't need to be preserved (working as intended, in other words). With the mono of course you can bring all the shadows back, but I prefer to capture the scene in camera as much as possible. 

Perspective control I tried, it works well, but I don't use it often. 

60mp aside, I think the biggest improvement is the Visoflex 2. I generally use the rangefinder to focus, and the Visoflex to frame up and check my exposure. If that's how you prefer to shoot, the M11 won't disappoint. The resolution is low (too low for accurate focusing at narrow apertures IMO), but it's fine for everything else. The latency which was present on the M10 series is essentially gone so there's no handicap when using the visoflex. 

Edited February 24 by Stevejack

[Photoworks]

The M10-M is a good camera, but side by side to the M11, I was having difficulty using the same exposures on the M10-M and noctilux lenses, I needed to ad filters on the monochom bodies.

I have used only the M11 for the last few years now and love the sensor and preserving the highlights, this was my main upgrade reason from M10-P.

I have the Highlights metering on all the time, Auto iso, and minimum shutter of 1/250s. The adjustment is not aggressive, the images don't look heavily underexposed, but good for the recovery slides in processing DNG files.

At night I will just the EV to -2/3 to 1 stop in the street, that works out well.

The images are very good to convert in B&W, I don't see too many people benefiting from a monochrom body. M11M is probably cleaner in high ISO.
The combination of using DxO PureRaw and a bit of film grain added to bring the B&W photos to excellent results. The extra editing is slower and I do it only in selected photos.

You will find the M11 advanced over the M240, EVF, fast wifi, in combination with Fotos app you can do GPS, Trasfare quick pix to print on polaroid, use the app to do quick remote shooting cable...

If you use 64 ISO you get extra tones and colors that you can unlock in post.