REVIEWS - Leica M9 and M9-P Digital Rangefinders

OVERVIEW

While the Leica M9 was game-changing for Leica's financials, the camera itself was evolutionary - essentially a Leica M8.2 with a full-frame sensor. The IR sensitivity was addressed, so IR lens filters were no longer required. The subsequent Leica M9-P added the sapphire screen cover, removal of the Leica red-dot logo and a larger memory buffer. In broad strokes, that sums it up. Looking back on my 3 years with the Leica M9's, they went on alot of vacations and took alot of pictures, but it was a bumpy road. I do not look back on the M9 days with a warm nostalgic feeling...

BUILD QUALITY

Typical of Leica products, the Leica M9 is nicely put together with superb fit and finish. The camera feels solid and the heftiness in hand conveys a sense of quality.

The M9 continues with the Leica M8’s .68x magnification viewfinder. The viewfinder is large and bright and the framelines are optimized for 2 meters (vs .7 meters with the original Leica M8). The information displayed in the LED readout is sparse - triangles show over / under exposure, a red LED read-out shows shutter speed, and a tiny dot indicates if the exposure compensation (EC) has been changed from zero.

Focus is like any other Leica M - 100% manual. Some reviews say the Leica M9 is easier to focus than the Leica M8. To me it seems the same. The Leica M9 uses Leica’s traditional hybrid of a spot / center weighted metering. I love it and feel it works well for portraits. Sometimes I dial in -1/3 EC adjustment when shooting landscapes to help hold the highlights in clouds. If metering proves tricky, I set the exposure manually - which is easy to do with digital a-la the histogram.

The shutter is quieter than the Leica M8’s, but still louder than a film M. The shutter button feels “crunchy” as it goes through its 3 levels. Leica’s 1/3 press system is very nuanced and seldom do I get it right. I prefer a simpler 1/2 press system. For what it is worth, the Leica M Typ 240's shutter release button is very smooth.

My average battery life is ~150 clicks. When the camera is turned off and stowed, the camera will slowly drain the battery over a period of a couple weeks. Start up time is ~ 2 seconds. Pressing the shutter button while the M9 is starting up is risky business and may result in a lock-up and/or corrupted SDHC card. It is best to wait several seconds and let the M9 go through its start-up process.

Having owned both the Leica M9 and M9-P, I prefer the stealth look of the Leica M9-P. Also, the Leica M9-P has a sapphire glass cover over the rear LCD display which has proven to be highly scratch resistant.

HANDLING

While the Leica M9's build quality feels good in hand, to improve the ergonomics, there are some accessories I consider ‘must-haves’:

• Match Technical’s Thumbs Up:  It fits and works like a charm. The trade-off is losing the hot shoe, but there are Thumbs Up’s model with a cold shoe for external finders.
• Open Back Half Case:  I like the added width because it makes the camera easier to grip. Also, the half-case provides protection and a bit shock absorption when setting down the camera on a table.
• Artisan & Artist Silk Rope:  Love these things! Bought my first Artisan & Artist strap in 2006 for the Leica M8 and have been using them ever since. I like to loop the strap around the wrist for added security. When storing the camera or setting it down on a table, I loop the strap around the lens, thus providing some protection to the underside of the lens barrel.
• Diopter Lens:  I do not like wearing my glasses while looking through the Leica viewfinder, so I use a -2 diopter lens. Without the diopter lens, the viewfinder is just a blurry mess for my eyes.
• Leica 1.25x Viewfinder Magnifier:  My main M lenses are the 35mm Summilux-M FLE, 50mm Summilux-M ASPH and 90mm Summicron-M APO, so the Leica 1.25x Magnifier works out pretty well.

Compared to the Leica M8.2, the Leica M9 has not improved in some areas. Forgive my general grumpiness here, but these things should be better -

• Shutter Lag:  The Leica M8.2 was a very eager camera and the shutter response felt immediate, whereas the Leica M9 shutter exhibits a small delay. For what it is worth, this delay is not apparent with the Leica M Typ 240.
• Battery Life:  The larger sensor consumes more power and the Leica M9 becomes unstable when the battery charge drops below 25-30%. This translates into ~150 clicks per battery. A spare Leica LEBM8 battery is a must.
• Rear LCD:  The rear LCD is the same 2.5” 230,000 dot LCD screen used on the Leica M8. Trying to gauge sharpness with the Leica M9’s rear LCD is guesswork. This screen is a fail, there is just no getting around it...
• Slow CPU:  The Leica M9 is slow to write files, slow to preview images on the rear LCD, and slow to zoom in during image review. It is pretty clear to me Leica used the Leica M8's CPU and with the Leica M9's 18 megapixels, now everything essentially takes 2X longer.
• SDHC Cards:  The Leica M9 is likely to lock-up if the SDHC card is 80%+ full and/or if the battery charge is under 25-30%. Taking a SDHC card out of the camera, placing it in a reader, deleting a file (or files) via the Mac and then putting the card back in the M9 is a sure-fire way to corrupt a SDHC card.
• Lost 1/8000:  The quieter shutter came at the expense of 1/8000. A base ISO of 160 coupled with a max shutter speed 1/4000 translates into needing neutral density filters if shooting outdoors with fast apertures.
• No Weather Sealing:  A $7000 camera should have weather sealing - period.

I like using Leica M’s so I work around the shortcomings or just accept them because there is no fix. But some of the shortcomings are difficult to ignore - especially the SDHC card issues because that has resulted in lost images. Then there are other considerations like the limited high ISO range and the lack of Live View. If considering a used Leica M9 versus a used Leica M Typ 240, the Leica M Typ 240 addressed the areas listed above except for weather sealing.

COLOR RENDITION

The Leica M9 files are pretty sharp, and if sharpness was the only measure of file quality, then I would be pretty smitten with camera. But the colors... I do not care so much about accurate color. I just want aesthetically pleasing colors.

• Auto White Balance:  Compared to the Leica M8’s warm white balance, the Leica M9’s auto white balance runs 300-600Kº too cool in most instances. Correcting white balance is tricky because sometimes the best choice is to back off the white balance Kº value to a lower number and then add in warmth with a magenta white balance tint slider (referencing Phase One’s Capture One RAW editor software). Other times, warming up the Kº value is the right thing to do. Shooting a gray card is one option, but when shooting outdoors with direct light, reflecting light and light passing through foliage - which WB do you select?
• Leica M9 Color Mapping:  Whether LightRoom, Capture One, Raw Developer, or Aperture, I am not happy with the default color rendition, thus I suspect my color gripes start with Leica’s in-camera color interpolation. To my eyes the colors are too blue and too cyan.
• Raw Editors:  There are times when the Leica M9 in-camera jpeg color looks more pleasing than the color produced by C1 or LR when processing the DNGs. This suggests neither Phase One nor Adobe did a good job profiling the Leica M9. Phase One simply relabeled their C1 M8 Profile as the M9 Profile.

So what does this all mean? It is unlikely any camera will output something like the edited image presented below, but this example shows just how "blue" the Leica M9's can be -

Original Out of Camera Image vs Edited Image

My angst with the Leica M9 is not so much the initial color it outputs, but rather how much editing it takes to get the image into a more pleasing color. Yes, the images can be edited and shaped, but it is time consuming and it can be difficult to achieve specific look and/or color rendition.

DYNAMIC RANGE

The Leica M9’s dynamic range at ISO is respectable and probably comparable to the Canon 1Ds Mark III. Having more dynamic range would be great, but I do not feel handicapped or limited by the Leica M9’s dynamic range. The only negative would be a 1:1 relationship with ISO - as ISO goes up 1 stop, dynamic range essentially decreases by 1 stop. Shadows usually have a respectable amount of detail and can be boosted in the raw editor without too much concern. But as the ISO goes up, that shadow detail (and dynamic range) goes away quickly, and colors can get ugly too.

ISO PERFORMANCE

Up to ISO 800, the Leica M9's noise is usually okay. ISO 1600 can be usable if there are no deep, dark shadows and/or those shadows do not need to be boosted. Occasionally the colors and tones mask the noise and file looks surprisingly good (for ISO 1250 or 1600). Fortunately raw editors are always advancing and noise reduction has radically improved over the years. Sometimes I go back and reprocess files. The M9's upper ISO definitely "challenged", but modern raw editors may be able rescue what would have been trashed in 2011.

TONALITY AND GRADIENTS

The Leica M9’s uncompressed DNGs are more “durable” in post-processing than the Leica M8’s DNG files. Under moderate editing in Photoshop (levels edits, curves edits, color balance edits, etc.) the Leica M9 files are more likely to show banding or some form of pixelation compared to the Canon 1Ds Mark III. Sometimes this was issue because the file could not be processed in the direction I wanted to go.

SHARPNESS

The Leica M9 DNGs do not have the same level of sharpness as the Leica M8. Whether this is because of the new firmware or somehow related to the sensor, I do not know. The Leica M9’s firmware includes built-in moire reduction. The Leica M9 has a thicker IR filter too. Those variables can impact sharpness. The Leica M9 files are sharper than a Canon 1Ds Mark III file, but not as bitingly sharp as the Leica M8.

CONCLUSION

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Leica M9 is its “Hero or Zero” results. If the Leica M9 is fed a healthy diet of good light and good content, then it does great - and so will just about any other camera. But in less than ideal settings the Leica M9 produces washed out colors and low contrast files.

Overall I consider the Leica M9’s image quality a big step forward compared to the Leica M8; though, I am still partial to the Leica M8 black and white images. I tend to believe the M8’s weaker IR filter led to better black and white images. I was happier with the M9-P files during my last year with the camera, but the degree of editing required per image was quite high.

I know many people love their M9’s, I just not one of those people. But if you are reading this today, then you are probably looking to buy a used Leica M9. The Leica M9 is not a bad camera, but it has some quirks and limitations. And of course there are the sensor replacements. The Leica M9 is a nice budget choice, but I still recommend the Leica M Typ 240 generation over the Leica M9 generation.