GEAR TALK - October '21 Wrap-Up

LEICA M10-P VERSUS LEICA M10-R

Last month I rebought a Leica M10-P to compare with the Leica M10-R's color. The comparison is not how the unedited out-of-camera colors look, but how easily I can edit each camera's colors (in post) to match my mind's eye. It was an anecdotal exercise of shooting both camera side by side, picking images to edit and then reflecting on the outcomes.

• In full daylight the M10-R's colors are similar to the M10-P. This is consistent with previous comparison with the M10-R, Fuji GFX 100/100s, Sony A7rIVa, Sony A1 and Canon R5.
• As golden hour settles in, the M10-R's mid-tones and shadows take on a moderate to strong yellowish green color skew. AWB values become increasingly erratic.
• Transitioning from golden hour to blue hour, the M10-R's AWB swings wildly, like 2700º K on a sunset - when shooting towards the sun. The lower mid-tone and shadows have muddy, muted color mapping.
• As the M10-R shadows are lifted, contrast re-toned and colors edited - the shadows become very noisy, even at base ISO 100. Chroma noise and banding can be problematic.

When editing the M10-R DNGs, the first step is often dialing-out the yellowish green color twists - which can be (very) difficult. It is a tug-of-war. Fixing one color skews another color. Graduations may fall apart and noise may bubble to the surface. The Leica M10-P is not perfect either; however, to my eye it has a more neutral coloring from the git-go.

The edits tended towards the the M10-R delivering a more subdued outcome, and the M10-P delivering a punchier, bolder image. As this "testing" process wore on, I shot whichever camera I felt would do best with the light and colors at hand. I did tend toward picking the M10-P over the M10-R.

DXO PureRAW

One vote in favor of the M10-P is DXO's PureRAW app. PureRAW is a noise removal app and it will apply DXO's lens corrections. I bought it for the noise removal - it works wonders on the M10-P. The nice thing about the DXO app is that outputs a DNG. In turn I edit that DNG in Capture One just like I would any other M10-P DNG. There is no apparent degradation in the M10-P file or its malleability. The difference is super-duper clean shadows.

Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, the Leica M10-R and M10-M are not supported in PureRAW. The M10-M's ISO performance is already pretty incredible, so I do not care so much about the M10-M. But the M10-R really, really could benefit from PureRAW. I submitted requests to DXO to add the M10-R and M10-M, but who knows when or if that will happen.

41 MEGAPIXELS

The M10-R's 41 megapixels provide a nice, big warm, fluffy safety net when cropping. I can be lazy, shoot a little loose and crop in post if not wanting to change lenses. If wanting to maximize pixels for large prints, 41 MP usually translates to 30'ish megapixels - which is plenty for a 24" printer.

Whereas with a 24 megapixel camera, I have to keep a close eye on the composition and how many pixels may end up in the digital trash bin after cropping. For years I shot with 16, 18 and 21 MP cameras, so I know 24 MP is more than enough... but... having used the Leica M10-M for almost two years, 24 MP feels - tiny. Sort of like range-anxiety with an electronic car.

WRAP UP

When the M10-P's DNGs are first viewed in Capture One, my initial edits are a white balance tweak and maybe a couple color hue adjustments with Capture One's "color editor" palette. Within a minute or two, the editing process shifts from "fixing" to "sweetening". Whereas the M10-R DNGs often leave me with a feeling of "where the heck do I even start...?..." The path to "fixing" the M10-R DNG can be long and unclear.

If picking a camera based on color rendering / aesthetics (and the time needed to massage the colors), the M10-P would win. That was my sentiment a year ago after first receiving the M10-R, and today my feelings are much the same. The difficult part today in choosing the M10-P over the M10-R is losing the M10-R's 41 megapixel count. I have normed to working with 41 MP files.

After 30 days of less-than-scientific comparisons, the easy decision is a non-decision, in other words, keep both cameras and use whichever feels best for a given scene. Eventually this topic will burn itself out because carrying two color Leica M's along with the Leica M10-M is a bridge too far. While the M10-R's colors frustrate me often than not, I am still rooting for it.