GEAR TALK - Leica M10 Monochrom

RECAPPING THE PAST 5 YEARS

I got alot of mileage out of the Leica M Monochrom Typ 246 over the past 4-5 years and genuinely loved the camera; however, the M-246 had been feeling rather dated for some while with its 2013 underpinnings. Most of my angst revolved around the antiquated 1.44 MP EVF - which was already out of date by 2-3 years in 2013 when the Leica M-246 was released.

Using color filters induces focus shift, especially red and dark red filters, so I live and die by the EVF because most of my landscape pictures are taken with a red filter and polarizer to "pop" the sky. With the M-246's EVF focus magnification permanently pinned to center, I could not move focus magnification around to focus off-axis or to inspect corners and edges.

Thus, the M-246 was an iterative workflow - focus, tweak focus by guessing some added front or back focus depending on the scene, take the shot, review the resulting image via the EVF, zoom in, navigate to the subject, corners, edges, etc. to see if focus was well placed. If not, tweak focus again, shoot again. Rinse and repeat until happy. Tedious.

ENTER THE LEICA M10

In the Fall of 2018 I purchased a Leica M10-P. The M10-P's shutter cadence with the EVF was smoother and seemed quicker than the M10. It could have been my imagination, but whatever the case, I was successfully shooting portraits handheld with the EVF and not being a chicken-shit to use wide apertures. The Leica M10-P's touch screen was a nice bonus. And there were other niceties carried over from the M10 - the favorites menu, improved 6-bit reading, GPS with the EVF.

So while using the M10-P was great, using the M10-P side by side with the M-246 made the M-246 feel all the more out of date. I had been pestering my Leica dealer for years, "when is the M10-M going to be announced?" So when Leica finally announced the Leica M10 Monochrom, well... halle-f******-lujah!

IMAGE QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS

I expected the M10-M to be a monochrome M10-P - nothing more, nothing less. Leica threw us a curve ball with a new 41 MP sensor. Huh... After using the Leica M10-M for 3 months, the biggest difference (relative to the M-246) is the crop-ability afforded by 41 MP. With the M10-M I can shoot 75mm, crop to 90mm and still have ~30 MP left. As a result I can carry fewer lenses. Stating this seems obvious, but I did not think about it prior to getting the M10-M. Loving 41 MP.

The added dynamic range is definitely there - highlight handling is better and there is less weirdness in the last couple dark tones. The M-246 could have some gradient / banding issues in the really dark tones when editing - like when adding some vignetting. The M10-M handles those types of edits better. At ISO 160 the files remind me of working with files from the Phase One IQ3-100 Trichromatic digital back in terms of smoothness and fidelity. The tonality is smoother than the M-246. Then there is the added DR and a finer noise pitch. The result is a really clean, highly detailed file. The files are very malleable in Capture One 20 (if C20 isn't crashing, but that's another story).

The M10-M's DNG's are 14-bit whereas the M-246's were 12-bit. It is reasonable to assume the added bits help with the improved graduations, and the improved dynamic range helps with the overall tonality. The Leica M-246 was a very good camera, so the M10-M improvements could be described as evolutionary or incremental, but saying that undersells the M10-M's degree of improvement. The M10-M simply delivers more of a good thing. And now that I have had 41 megapixels, I am not giving them back. And the speedometer goes to ISO 100K. Good times.

FIRMWARE WISHES

My one wish - an electronic first curtain shutter (EFCS) option when using the EVF/LV. The shutter vibration is a huge challenge with long lenses. Keeping shutter vibrations at bay requires shutter speeds of ~1/500th - and even those speeds are not always a sure bet. I spoke with Leica about ECFS a couple years ago and they said it could be added via a firmware upgrade (to the M10) if enough people asked. So please, please, please ASK!

Leica M10 Monochrom with the Mamiya 645M 200mm F2.8 APO

Upgrading from the Leica M Monochrom Typ 246 to the Leica M10 Monochrom has been an easy transition. The Leica M10-P is a very refined digital Leica M, so Leica had a great platform to work from, and then they blessed it with their best 35mm sensor to date. The files are similar to the M-246, just with more dynamic range, more bits and 17 more megapixels. And I get to be finally done with the Leica M Monochrom Typ 246's very out-dated EVF - good riddance.

So begins the next five years with the Leica M10 Monochrom 😀 And Leica, if you are listening, I need a silver-anodized 90mm Summicron-M APO.