Depending on who you ask, it’s the Porsche 911, or the Rolex Submariner, or whatever outrageously priced luxury piece there is, in camera incarnate.
Anything Leica produces carries with it the highest level of prestige any one manufacturer in the camera industry could only ever hope to achieve.
Leica did popularize the 35mm film format, after all, forever changing the course of photographic development itself.
That, and the countless iconic photographs by the greatest photographers in history made with the little German engineering marvel.
So for some of us — amateurs, enthusiasts, and professionals alike — a Leica M-series is the holy grail.
Now that the M11 is available for purchase, Leica fans and would-be first time Leica owners are contemplating ponying another $9,000 for Leica’s newest flagship rangefinder.
Today, we’re taking a non-biased look at the Leica M11 in the hopes of demystifying its allure with the help of pros.
What’s New with the Leica M11?
Leica made a ton of improvements on the M11 over the previous M10-series of cameras. Here are some of the features that matter most.
First off, we’re getting a “triple resolution sensor” which, from what the pros are saying, isn’t a gimmick at all. This new sensor outputs 60 megapixels; 20 more than the M10-R.
Not only does this sensor perform better in low light than its high-resolution predecessor, it now offers two separate resolution modes that shoot either 36 or 18-megapixel images. You also get better low light performance and more dynamic range as you go down in resolution.
Have a look at Ted Forbes’ take on the new M11 for a taste of what it can do noise performance-wise.
The Leica M11 retains most of the M10’s design on the surface level. Look closer however and you’ll see Leica taking another step into departing from its uber-minimalist, archaic design. Starting with a few more programmable function buttons.
While it doesn’t have dual card slots available, Leica did put 64 gigabytes of internal storage – a first in a digital rangefinder.
You’ll also find a beefier battery on the M11 and Leica claims it’s got 64% more juice than the M10’s. But it all evens out as the same exceptional battery life as the M10 with the M11 is doing more than the M10 feature-wise, like the multi matrix metering now accessible even when you’re out of live view.
This time around, Leica is more willing to introduce more modern, forward-looking design changes to the prestigious M-series of cameras. You need only look at the base plate, or lack thereof, to appreciate this welcome change.
You’ll find a base plate in every M-series produced in the last 60 years. This was a necessity back in the film days to protect your roll. But when the digital revolution took over, the base plate stuck around and it had the noble task of covering your battery and SD card. The M11 finally lets go of the base plate in place of a more sensible battery cover.
Leica sure does seem more prepared to turn a new leaf in terms of camera design, if the internal storage, absence of a base plate, and a handful of programmable FN buttons are anything to go by.
To Leica’s credit, the previous M-series cameras did start to embrace, however incrementally, the conveniences of digital as early as the release of the Leica M Typ 240 in 2012, AKA the first Leica M to get live view. I feel like Ted Forbes encapsulated what the M11 is and what it offers that the previous M-series of cameras did not: bring enough modernization to such an iconic camera without completely turning its back on its legacy.
“It’s a really difficult camera, I think, to come up with updates for because it’s got such legacy to it. We have enough modernization where it brings it in line with Leica’s non M cameras like the SL2.”
Why Shoot Leica Professionally?
When you’re committing to the Leica system, you already know you’re buying into the brand’s heritage, prestige, reputation, sense of exclusivity and all the same things that make you want to own an exotic car. But surely some of that 9 grand went into image quality? And is the M11 even suited for “professional” use?
To answer these questions, let’s take a look at Gajan Balan’s beautifully written review of the Leica M11.
Image Quality (and a Leica M6 film comparison)
Gajan is a working pro who also owns a Leica M6. He says he’s always wondered what could a digital M-series rangefinder do for his workflow. It should be noted that Gajan shoots Fujifilm professionally, both the APS-C and medium format flavors.
Right off the bat, Gajan sees a significant leap in quality on the files between his APS-C Fujis and the M11. The colors, he says, are the most “true to life” he’s seen on a full frame sensor. Even in high ISO situations, he found the M11 to produce better, more usable photos with none of the “color noise pattern you’d see in a Sony camera.”
The image quality on the M11, according to Gajan, is “noticeably better” than what he gets out of his Fujifilm X-PRO3, “marginally better” than the Sony A7R4 and the Canon R5, and just below the medium format monster that is the GFX 100s.
Quantifying Leica’s image quality may very well be a fool’s errand. You’ll often hear “3D pop” or “micro contrast” (they may or may not be the same thing), or more generally, the “Leica look” when describing the images you’ll get out of an M-series camera.
A couple of years ago when the M10 released, Usman Dawood pitted a Fuji XT-3 and a Sony A7R III against Leica’s flagship camera. And even then, the seasoned architectural photographer struggled to put a pin on what made the Leica images so special.
“On every previous occasion I shot with a Leica M series camera, there was just something wonderful about the images it was producing; I just couldn’t put my finger on it. It definitely wasn’t the sharpness and detail, but whenever I showed images from the camera to other colleagues and friends, they too responded positively to them.”
But after doing a bit of testing with the three cameras, Usman arrived at the same conclusion as Gajan’s. The M10’s immaculate color reproduction stood out as the most objective quality it delivered better than the rest.
“The hair and skin tones are a perfect way to compare all three cameras, and Leica not only does a much better job in terms of accuracy, it actually looks more pleasing. Both the Fuji and Sony have managed to get the hair color wrong quite drastically.”
This seemingly ungraspable difference in how Leica M-series cameras render images is nothing new. People started talking about the elusive Leica look as early as the first digital M8 hit the market, so it’s no surprise this magical recipe behind the sensor is alive and well on the M11.
The Rangefinder Experience
Beyond Leica’s mysterious image quality is another major draw: the rangefinder shooting experience. Coming from a traditional DSLR/mirrorless camera and straight into a Leica M is almost like stepping into a completely new dimension.
You don’t “get” what you “see” on a rangefinder. You’ll have framelines to guide your composition.
Unlike looking through an EVF, you can see what is outside the frame, therefore letting you anticipate action better.
And unlike looking through an EVF, you won’t get blackouts when you take a photo. (There are only two mirrorless cameras to my knowledge that can do this: the Sony A9 and the A1)
You also don’t get any form of autofocus when shooting with rangefinders. Everything’s manual and you get distance scales instead of focusing modes. There are no 10 FPS burst modes with the Leica as well, which is slowly becoming the norm for most modern cameras.
Gajan says the M11 lets him use all the muscle memory he’s built with years shooting the film M6 — a great testament perhaps on how well Leica transitioned the tried and true M-series shooting process into the digital age.
“This camera feels familiar and formidable where it takes the years of muscle memory from my M6 and throws behind a monstrous new engine… One of the core reasons you invest in a rangefinder is for that zero-lag experience in composing your images, and you get to do that with more ease and greater accuracy.”
Some pros would contend that, with enough time and practice, focusing with a rangefinder can be just as effective as, if not faster than, modern AF systems.
Allowing yourself only the bare bones of what’ll let you capture images is indeed a driving factor why many fall in love with a luxury rangefinder camera like the Leica M11. Stripping yourself of all the extra assistive features pushes your creative boundaries further, forcing you to slow down to a zen-like photographic process.
Now slowing down and stripping yourself of all the bells and whistles may not be your cup of tea, but it sure is for a lot of photographers. Among them is Jay Cassario who traded in his Nikon D4s system for a Leica M9 and a Voigtlander 35mm f/1.4 almost a decade ago.
You have to understand that the D4s was once on the cutting edge of DSLR technology, capable of seeing in almost pitch black environments and shooting 11 frames a second in 2014. But Jay happily switched over to a much more tamed, more laid-back shooting process for his wedding work.
“It lets the photographer do something that is often lost with all the newer technology, and that’s using their vision, imagination, and ideas to create an image without having technology interfere… In the end, I chose to keep the M9 and not the D4S because of what it offered my wedding business, a fresh new look along with a whole new shooting experience.”
The Leica Advantage
It may be a tad strange to talk about the advantages of shooting a Leica, professionally or otherwise, after just telling you how it’s a stripped-down version of far more affordable cameras.
But it does have its advantages. First off, a Leica system is a light system. Seeing as how the recent mirrorless revolution cannot deliver on the promised weight-savings versus their mirrored predecessors, shooting with a Leica probably gives you one of the best performance per pound ratios you could ever hope for in a digital camera.
Next, Leica cameras have always had a reputation to be built like tanks. They are hardy little things that can weather the most unforgiving environments, like literal warzones. Photojournalist Gabriele Micalizzi was covering the conflict in Syria three years ago when his team was hit by an RPG, and his Leica Q and Leica SL were more than happy to shield him from some of the shrapnel.
You also get access to a wide catalogue of legendary M-mount glass which is just as responsible for the mysterious Leica look fans and professionals swear by.
Then there’s the aforementioned rangefinder shooting experience. Looking through the viewfinder with the framelines to guide your composition, photographers can anticipate action better. Thanks to the freeing outside access you get beyond what your focal length sees, you gain a sort of sixth sense for what’s about to happen in your scene.
Finally, the Leica M-series cameras have always been deathly quiet in both the literal and metaphorical sense. The M11 barely makes any shutter sound, while its compact, unassuming look and modestly-sized lenses let you disappear in the crowd. Street photography legend Henri Cartier-Bresson famously made most of his life’s work with a Leica and a 50mm lens.
All of these make the Leica M11, or any Leica M-series for that matter, the perfect tool for photojournalism, street photography, general travel, weddings, and as the impeccable image quality has demonstrated, even portrait and commercial work.
Wedding photographer Douglas Fry had been shooting weddings with a Leica for a while now, and he has this to say about how the rangefinder impacted his work:
“A photographer with only a couple of small camera bodies with equally small lenses gets very little, if any, attention from anyone. This allows the wedding to proceed without any influence from the photographer. So no nervous glances from guests or weary smiles as people feel obliged to break their conversation and look towards the camera.”
Wrapping Up
So after all’s been said and done, what exactly is the Leica difference? With a dedicated horde of fans, collectors, professional ambassadors, a century of being a top photography brand, and from what we’ve seen on the images, the M11 is more than a shiny statement piece.
The Leica difference, it seems, is a combination of all three factors we’ve discussed that make it a truly unique piece of equipment. There may be cameras that deliver objectively better files. The GFX 100s come to mind at only 2/3 of the M11’s sticker price.
If you’re after speed, it’s easy to find faster bodies in both operation and function at a quarter of the cost of a now five-year-old M10. You also won’t need to look too hard to find compact cameras that punch way above their weight class.
But nothing quite comes close to bringing this level of quality, craftsmanship and a genuinely unique shooting experience in one piece of photographic equipment like Leica does it.
Being a highly sought-after camera with the price tag to prove it, any of the Leica M-series cameras in production and the collector’s display cabinet will have its detractors.
I must admit that the Leica difference may be something that cannot be fully explained in words. So when you get the chance to borrow one off a buddy or rent a kit, give a Leica M a spin. Might just change your whole outlook like the legions of professionals before you.