Anybody own an M10 Monochrom?

[Rayt]

I shoot 99% b/w film and the rest with an M8.2 which I just sold. I did own an M9 Monochrom at one time though I liked it a lot did not use it enough so sold it right after the sensor change. I am almost certain I will go all digital with 135 format and only shoot 120 film with Rolleiflex. The images I got with the M9M was very good and now wished I had made the jump earlier. So if I sold my film Leicas I will have the funds for a new M10 Monochrom. I am wondering if vintage lenses like the 35mm Elmar or 50mm Summitar will do well with that 40mp sensor? Or will I need the higher resolution from modern ASPH lenses? The APO 50mm Summicron exists for a reason right? What kept me in Leicas was because I already had the lenses so if I had to factor in another $8k for high res lenses then maybe I’ll get something else.

 

[Doug]

Older wide lenses tend to be less suited for digital imaging than the latest ones, mostly due to the later optical formulas' better handling oblique rays... Digital sensors prefer light coming in perpendicular to the surface. So, older lenses will typically have some color fringing. BUT, without color, this is not a concern on an M Monochrom!

Otherwise, it's the combination of lens and sensor that delivers resolution. A high resolution lens can make a lower resolution sensor look better, and vice versa. So I daresay your older lenses will deliver fine resolution on the M10 Monochrom. Possibly a bit of smearing and/or vignetting in the corners, depending on the lens. Putting a modern hi-res lens like the 50 APO on it will give a somewhat different look, and some will prefer that while others will not.

Sounds like interesting times ahead for you!

 

[Rayt]

I love photography but really dislike scanning! So with nothing to do sitting at home I am scanning years of 135 negs. Maybe I am just throwing my hands up and say heck with it.

 

[icebear]

My experience from the MM (M9M) is that the special character of lenses if even more appearant in digital images than with film. Critical issue is that the lenses should be matched to the body. Not as critical with a thicker film but the sensor plane of focus is razor thin. You can have a body that within specs and lenses that are within specs but still one at the upper and the other at the lower end of the range. If you use lenses wide open at closest focus range, then issues will become obvious.

I take it that with higher MP resolution this effect will be even more important. I have no idea if the inherit resolution capabilities of older lenses will limit the resolution of the image in real world photography ... i.e. other than lab tests.

Optimized exposure, short shutter speed and exact focus are probably the first line of struggle and then the image quality of the lens comes into play. I don't have the funds for a M10M. Other priorities right now. But I feel I have pushed the limits what is possible with the 18MP MM and up to 24x36 inch prints, I don't see the need for an even higher resolution sensor.

 

[sepiareverb]

My experience from the MM (M9M) is that the special character of lenses if even more appearant in digital images than with film.

My impression as well from when I shot the M9M. I am in a similar situation, wondering about the M10M vs just the M10X when it comes out. I found the files from the M9M pretty hard to process at times, and have been shooting with a Q2 and seeing some similar problems at times. I may just stick with the M10, as those files are more M9 like.

I haven’t shot a roll of film since January. I could wet print as often as I have for the last ten years and never run out of negatives in the files.

 

[rhl-oregon]

One of the first projects I took on in our quarantine was trading away gear that could be replaced by the M10M, and I’m pleased that it ended up being cashless horse-trading.

I’m not going to pretend that I know or indeed care much for lens profiling in this move—making images, and making them work in development, are foremost. And between my ZM f2 lenses and the pre-aspherical Summilux, I can get what I want in raw imagery.

The secondary consideration was the state of my eyes and RF focusing. One eye is due for cataract surgery ASAP, and the other can’t be far behind. Shooting handheld wide open at f1.4-2, often in low light, I have not been able to count on getting focus where I wanted. The Typ 020 EVF ameliorates that. I’ve been using it on a Leica T for 3 years, so I knew what to expect—immediate magnification/peaking during manual focus. These two were significant improvements, for me, over using the EVF on the M246, and the percentage of images worth keeping for development has borne that out.

I’m in the third act of life, the final act for many (though I might have one or two acts to go ;-), and I do photography because art and vision and mortality and bearing witness are intertwined. The M10M, for my current time-being, is an apex tool for decisive manual photography, and I’m going to give it a while to get used to the 35/50 lenses I have.

But I’ll be interested in learning what y’all have to say here about upgrading lenses.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Old lenses like 35 Elmar and 50 Summitar shows their flaws on any digital sensor.
Monochrome images are not any different.

It is up to each individual to praise it or to say "king is naked".
Just like Winogrand liked 21mm lens, but didn't used it because of adding special effects over subjects on photos.

If you could have enough from selling of film M for M10M, you might have money for more recent lens to have pictures without too special lens signature (different from how it renders on film).

Also M10M isn't any different from the previous Monochromes. Still only few of owners, users seems to be capable of getting decent images from it.
Majority is pushing low contrast, dull images or/and over processed like in Saldago book with penguins. Which is lousy BW, IMO. To be honest I haven't seen decent image from M10M yet. Well, I looked at first test (some of the images were really bad with noise banging) and was looking at M10M images thread and it was not impressive at all.
I see much better Monochrome images from cameras like Pen F.

 

[Rayt]

Robert,

My eyes are pretty messed up. I had cataract surgery and corneal transplants on both eyes. I am not sure if that’s the cause but I have poor night vision and don’t drive in city traffic at night. I have trouble with manual focusing film SLR and surprisingly also live view peak focusing. Live view magnification takes too long for street photography so I am stuck with traditional rangefinders which isn’t bad at all!

 

[Godfrey]

At present, my only M is my favorite old M4-2; I sold my digital M cameras in favor of the CL as the latter simply does the job I want better. However, I still have most of my lenses (they're what I use on the CL, along with the R lenses).

Were I to go for another digital M, the M10M is what I'd buy at present.

I've used a wide array of Leica different lenses from all different ages on the digital M sensors (M9, M-P typ 240, M-D typ 262). Some of the short focal lengths show color fringing and corner artifacts that hardly matter with B&W rendering. All lens aberrations become easier to see as the capture resolution goes up, as does misfocusing error. But I'm not a pixel peeper ... I'm more interested in the subject and don't worry about it.

The situation is akin to what I'm seeing with new CFVII 50c digital back when used on my Hasselblad 500CM with my ancient Hassy lenses: The back shows me all the lens character beautifully, but the biggest influence on whether something is sharp or not depends on how much effort I've put into getting the focus just right. To cover misfocus error when shooting quickly and casually, I stop down two stops. To nail critical focus consistently and repeatably, I get out the tripod and use the magnifying hood, or switch to live view.

I never had my lenses and digital M bodies' focusing mechanisms specially calibrated for each other. When I took the time to align the rangefinder accurately, they all performed just fine together. With wides, I often just use the focusing scale and forget about it ... works wonderfully.

Someday I might own that M10M. It would be fun.

G

 

[Tim Gray]

Yeah I got one. Primary lenses used are Leica 28/2 ASPH, 50/1.4 ASPH, and 90/4 Macro. Also have a ZM 50/1.5, 21/4.5, and a few other lenses I don't shoot much (Nikkor 50/1.4, CV 28/3.5, etc).

It's great. The M10M has no issues with difficult lens designs like the Zeiss ZM 21/4.5 - no significant smearing! All the character from these lenses shines through just fine, though I'll be honest I've not tried the Nikkor 50/1.4 much. I did shoot that a few times on the M9M that I rented many years ago and it was nice, and the few M10M images I shot with it seem fine. As Doug stated above, sharpness comes from a combination of the sensor/film and the lens. A higher resolution sensor can only make a given lens look sharper than it does on a lower resolution sensor (barring smearing, etc.)

I have no issues getting sharp (enough) images handheld wide open. Post processing hasn't been too difficult either. As everyone knows, since it is monochome, if a highlight is blown, there is only one channel so there is no recovery from other channels. Thus I often shoot it at -0.7 exposure compensation. It's easier to get (small) blown out highlights with a wide lens as they get 'averaged' out easier by the simple Leica exposure metering scheme.

My only complaint, and this is true with all digital cameras, is that when light is plentiful, I personally find it easier to expose with negative film. Set the exposure for the shadows you want, and fire away. Highlights take care of themselves. Digital is obviously a little more finicky (I know, expose for the highlights), and the M10M isn't really any different. On the other hand, the ISO capability is amazing which really opens up options when light gets poor.

Back to the resolution - I say don't worry about it. If you like the resolution you get from 35mm film, you'll get that and more. No need to upgrade. I also shoot a Sony A7rII (also 42 MP) and find the same thing. I just shoot it like any other Leica with the same lenses and the files look great. I don't obsessively zoom into 100% and examine sharpness everywhere, just like I don't with my film images. *Maybe* sometimes my focus is a millimeter off from where I want, but when I get done processing and view the image at the size I normally would, you can't tell - adding a little grain in Camera Raw goes a long way as does downsizing the image a little bit (or not viewing at 100%). Short version - yeah there are a few photos that might not be optimally sharp, but were all my film photos sharp?

 

[Bart Bart]

I just went through the mental exercise considering the M10M and decided that I've made very good use of raw color files' color mixing in my B&W conversions versus needing to add filtration to the M10M, loosing half to two stops of ISO.

And I hate playing the vaporware game, especially when the camera industry is hard hit to keep any deadlines, but I imagine the next Nikon Z will be impressive along with the promised 28 and 40 pancake lenses. I think 60mp RGB files converted will provide ample headroom.

One trick I do is to set the image review on the color digital to B&W and that allows me to see tonal mergers and get a feel for how things will look.

I do prefer the Leica UI and feel but that's why I have film Leicas and Nikon digitals. I doubt the big Japanese camera companies will ever adopt a German design sensibility so that's my frustration. But making a list of pros and cons with weighted numbers about what's important to me in making images, I just can't get the math to work in Leica's favor!

 

[Tim Gray]

I don’t disagree with you. The Sony A7 cameras (and I’m sure Nikon Z, Fuji, micro 4/3, etc.) are all fantastic, better values, and probably flat out better cameras than a digital M. The quality you get from them is outstanding. The M10M was absolutely not worth the money. But now that I’ve spent it, I like it a lot more than my Sony

On a side note, when shooting film I shoot mostly B&W. On the Sony and GR I own, most gets converted to B&W as well, and I rarely fiddle with channel mixing. If one does that a lot with their B&W digital, then you'd be giving up a lot of flexibility using a monochrome camera.

 

[rhl-oregon]

Robert,

My eyes are pretty messed up. I had cataract surgery and corneal transplants on both eyes. I am not sure if that’s the cause but I have poor night vision and don’t drive in city traffic at night. I have trouble with manual focusing film SLR and surprisingly also live view peak focusing. Live view magnification takes too long for street photography so I am stuck with traditional rangefinders which isn’t bad at all!

Ray, thanks for this note. My cataract evaluation is a week away, and of course I’m wondering what complications may lie beyond the surgery—and your experiences will give me further questions to ask.

I am planning to bring the M with its optical RF and the dioptric EVF, and maybe a couple of other cameras, to get the ophthalmologist to address my focus issues and possible compromises. All things being equal, I’d choose a restart with good distance vision, but it depends on what the doctor has to say about camera focus, night vision, and other potential compromises.

 

[peterm1]

I don’t disagree with you. The Sony A7 cameras (and I’m sure Nikon Z, Fuji, micro 4/3, etc.) are all fantastic, better values, and probably flat out better cameras than a digital M. The quality you get from them is outstanding. The M10M was absolutely not worth the money. But now that I’ve spent it, I like it a lot more than my Sony

On a side note, when shooting film I shoot mostly B&W. On the Sony and GR I own, most gets converted to B&W as well, and I rarely fiddle with channel mixing. If one does that a lot with their B&W digital, then you'd be giving up a lot of flexibility using a monochrome camera.

What you are saying, in effect, is that buying a Leica is pretty much just like buying a European car. A Japanese one is far better value and depending on which model may objectively be a better car too despite the cachet of owning a German or Italian one. Having bought a couple of German cars over the years, I can say their reputation for being over engineered and difficult to maintain is well deserved. But now I have one I like it a lot more than any Toyota.

 

[raid]

I have owned used German cars and Japanese cars over the years, and I bought a new German car. I like driving it.
I have owned used German cameras and Japanese cameras over the years. I like using all.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Best vehicle I ever had was Landcruiser J70. But my family disagreed. I like my digital Leica, but family can't see why it is any better from Canon DSLRs, by its pictures.

 

[Rayt]

My brother used to buy classic cars, use them for a few years and sell them for profit. The nicest car I have ever driven was a Mercedes Benz turbo diesel from the 70’s.

 

[Rayt]

Ray, thanks for this note. My cataract evaluation is a week away, and of course I’m wondering what complications may lie beyond the surgery—and your experiences will give me further questions to ask.

I am planning to bring the M with its optical RF and the dioptric EVF, and maybe a couple of other cameras, to get the ophthalmologist to address my focus issues and possible compromises. All things being equal, I’d choose a restart with good distance vision, but it depends on what the doctor has to say about camera focus, night vision, and other potential compromises.

If you need the surgery then there’s is no way around it. My condition was hereditary and very rare. Anyway back to important matters, I will get the M10M with the Visoflex EVF. I can use the RF for initial focusing and fine tune with the EVF.

 

[Bingley]

Ray, thanks for this note. My cataract evaluation is a week away, and of course I’m wondering what complications may lie beyond the surgery—and your experiences will give me further questions to ask.

I am planning to bring the M with its optical RF and the dioptric EVF, and maybe a couple of other cameras, to get the ophthalmologist to address my focus issues and possible compromises. All things being equal, I’d choose a restart with good distance vision, but it depends on what the doctor has to say about camera focus, night vision, and other potential compromises.

I had cararact surgery (both eyes) in Sept 2017. My opthamologist is an avid photographer and we discussed the pros and cons of implants with anti-flare coating. I opted not to get them, on his recommendation, bc they might affect the way I see colors, which in turn could affect my photography (even though I shoot mostly bw). Very happy with the result. You will be amazed at the improvement in your vision. Good luck.

 

[rhl-oregon]

Thanks, Bing!

I guess I should start a cataract thread. Apologies to the 20/20 Leicaphiles and phobes for the tangent.