Gorgeous.
As a once upon a time (a long time ago) Leica M enthusiast, it’s hard not to look at the new M11 and come away impressed with the sheer physical beauty of the machine.
While the entry price – reckon north of $20,000 for a body with three aspherical Leica lenses to do justice to the monster sensor – is ridiculous, and the absence of IS and AF makes the tool anachronistic, it’s a beautiful thing to behold.
$9,000 to replace.
Seems like they made the M9 just recently.
All modern cameras are disposable, their life expectancy 2-3 years. Don’t be silly. Pass on that Leica. The best of the best is just $300 a year.
Update September 17, 2020:
A New Jersey repair shop claims to have analyzed the cause of the ‘sensor’ corrosion down to an untreated sensor cover glass, and offers a coated repair/replacement cover glass for $1500. Click here.
We have never had it so good.
My first ‘serious’ camera was a Leica M3. Originally marketed in 1953, it came with an optical viewfinder with a central rectangle for focusing. This rectangle superimposed a second image, its coordinates determined by the subject distance. When the lens was focused on this subject distance the two images fused into one and the subject was in sharp focus. The experience was binary – there was simply no doubt about sharp or unsharp, such was the genius of the design. Leicas had long used optical rangefinders but the one in the M3 was the first to incorporate the rangefinder image into the viewfinder and the first to have crisp edges to that rangefinder image. Heretofore, the finder on the earlier screw mount Leicas was separate and, frankly, pretty awful. The M3 added icing to the cake by including an illuminated frameline to accurately define the subject area.
There was but one thing to complain about and that was that the 50mm finder frame was too thick with rounded edges and did not disappear when 90mm or 135mm lenses were mounted. These actuated the relevant frame lines but the one for the 50mm remained stubbornly in place. An otherwise uncluttered finder lost some of its minimalist appeal. I suppose there was one other complaint which was that use of the ultimate street snapper focal length, the 35mm, required either a separate finder (ugh!) or a version of the Summaron/Summicron/Summilux with the attached ‘goggles’, an auxiliary finder set designed by Rube Goldberg and about as elegant as that man’s inventions.
So Leica went one better and made the Leica M2 which for decades was my street snapper of choice. The M2, conceived as a ‘bargain’ M body (maybe the ultimate contradiction in terms, because it was still exceptionally costly) absolutely nailed it. The finder was now 0.72x rather than 0.91x in magnification, the frame lines were slim, rectangular sidelines and the focal lengths were the more useful 35/50/90 combination. No auxiliary finder lens device was required with 35mm lenses and the body + lens combination now handled like a dream.
The ‘bargain’ M quickly became the photojournalist’s body of choice. Best of all, attach any of those three focal lengths and all you would see was the framelines for that lens and that magnificent central rangefinder focusing rectangle. This was a perfect as the Leica M finder got. Later versions added clutter with multiple framelines visible at one time and cheapening of the rangefinder’s design saw to it that the focusing rectangle would flare out uselessly into the sun. Try focusing an M6 against the light and you will see.
The left opening is for the rangefinder image, the central one is the
frame line illuminator and the finder itself is on the right. The cam
roller which actuates the split image is visible atop the lens opening.
Now the Leica’s viewfinder was useless for very wide or telephoto lenses, and the growing popularity of these optics saw to it that the SLR would wrest primacy from the Leica. You could mount 20mm, 18mm, even 15mm wides on your Nikon F SLR and see the image through the lens. And 200, 400 or even 1000mm telephotos were just the ticket. But for low light snapping with the fastest manual focus possible, no SLR challenged the Leica M for speed.
Then a couple of technological developments happened. Building on Leica’s Correfot autofocus system (developed in 1976, Leica abandoned it, to their eternal shame) the Japanese developed/stole autofocusing and suddenly the subpar focus experience of the SLR was no more. Point the central rectangle at the area of interest, half depress the shutter button and critical focus was assured. Low light shooting with slower lenses was now easy and the benefits of Leica’s magnificent optical viewfinder started to fade. Then in 2008 Panasonic introduced the G1 which abandoned the SLR’s flapping mirror and clunky pentaprism, opting for an electronic viewfinder. This was like a small TV screen inside the body and its benefits were immediately obvious.
First you truly saw the exposure for the first time in a viewfinder. Mount a manual lens on the body and as you cranked the diaphragm to ever smaller apertures the image automatically maintained brightness as the circuitry cranked up the gain. Just like the brightness control on your TV, but automatic. Now you could not only see in the dark, you cold also focus in it and I jumped at the opportunity.
Sure, the G1 abandoned the 24mm x 36mm full frame of the Leica, substituting the seemingly minuscule 12mm x 18mm instead, but the quality was more than adequate and later sensors and electronic finders only made matters better, so much so that now EVFs are the happening thing in both FF and MFT bodies. Response times continue falling and we are now close to the point where EVFs can serve as well in live action ‘pan and scan’ snapping as the Nikon F of yore.
When it comes to finders, photographers have never had it so good.
My street snapper of choice is the now obsolete Panasonic G7, updated with the latest 12-35mm pro zoom. It mimics the body shape of the Leica M in an even smaller package and the electronic shutter is truly silent when activated. The only sound is the slight susurrus of the diaphragm stopping down if the lens is not at full aperture, and only the photographer can hear it. I have no use for the rear screen ‘finder’ or for the traditional focal plane shutter with all its attendant noise. Perfection.
The ultimate street outfit. Two Panny GX7s, 12-35 and 45-200
zooms, along with an inexpensive and excellent Rokinon fish-eye.
A great photographer passes.
The New York Times published a fine obituary of David Douglas Duncan who died yesterday at the great age of 102.
Duncan was famous for two things. His coverage of the Korean War (still unresolved after almost 70 years of American bungling) and his documentation of Picasso. Duncan chose culture over commerce, moving to the south France in 1962. Every day makes me increasingly think I should emulate his decision.
Duncan was renowned as a Leica photographer. In the image above he has a 400mm f/6.8 Telyt mounted on a Leicaflex SL. Leitz honored his Korean work with four special Leica M3 bodies, numbered M3D-1 through -4, fitting each with a custom adapted baseplate rapid winder which subsequently became a standard part which would fit any later Leica M2 without modification, becoming the Leicavit. Duncan’s M3D bodies sell at auction for over $1 million and you can bet they are confined to rotting in some jerk collector’s china cabinet.
Interestingly, while Leica dominated the reportage marketplace in the 1960s, Duncan unwittingly sealed their fate by adapting early Nikkors from Nikon to his M3 bodies, they were that good. These were made in a rangefinder mount for Nikon’s S series of excellent rangefinder cameras (the Leica M’s finder was far better, however) and once Nikon grafted on a prism and added a flapping mirror the Nikon F was born in 1962 and the Leica was toast, now sold to hedge fund managers and anti-talents like the Kardashians.
The Nikon F was tougher, there was no complex rangefinder to go out of alignment, you did not need viewfinders for anything shorter than 35mm or longer than 135mm and the lenses were as good or better than the contemporary Summicrons, Elmarits and Super Angulons from Wetzlar. I mostly use Nikkors of that vintage on modern Nikon Dx bodies and can attest to their wonderful optical and mechanical qualities. David Duncan had a great deal to do with Nikon’s (and Canon’s, for he also grafted their lenses onto his Leicas) success. The ensuing competition between the two great Japanese marques continues to this day, and all photographers benefit from it and from Duncan’s experimentation.
The University of Texas houses his archive and you can see more here.
Leica may finally have done it right.
The Leica ideal was always about street photography. Fast, quiet (well, OK, reasonably quiet), with great lenses and fairly robust bodies. And none of Leica’s digital M film clones has managed to capture the spirit of the M2/3/4 which were the definitive rangefinder film cameras. The digital variants were either silly and deeply flawed, like the M8 with it’s half frame sensor which rendered wide angle lenses useless, not to mention its host of technical issues/random lock-ups/purple casts and so on, or the cameras simply started getting fat. An M9/M240 body is nowhere near as svelte as an M2 and still retains a clunky, bog slow optical rangefinder with manual focus only, not to mention a far from silent shutter. Every time I read some hack going on about how quiet his M’s shutter is I laugh. It’s not remotely quiet, and only a mirrored DSLR user could accuse it of being so.
However, it rather seems as if Leica may have finally got it right with the Leica Q, announced yesterday. Sure, not cheap at $4,250 with a fixed 28mm f/1.7 Summilux lens and not especially small, but it’s full frame, reviews suggest the sensor/software are excellent and it has autofocus. Further, there’s a silent electronic shutter mode, no optical rangefinder to go out of alignment as soon as you look at it and the whole thing rather harkens back to those compact and capable Leica Ms of yore.
The top plate is surpassingly simple and the street snapper can disregard the movie mode and the LCD rear display. There’s a high quality EVF, finally, and the autofocus is reputed to be snappy and accurate. Why, there’s even wi-fi capability and an iPhone app for remote operation and the like. Leica’s association with Panasonic is beginning to bear fruit.
Automation follows the approach seen in the Panasonic LX100. Turn either the aperture ring to ‘A’ for shutter priority, the shutter dial to ‘A’ for aperture priority or both for program automation. The test shots I have seen from the lens suggests it’s a crackerjack and while it’s not exactly small, the overall price becomes more palatable when you look at what a 28mm Summicron or Summilux for the M runs. There’s a handy macro mode and up to 10 images can be machine-gunned every second for those of the video generation incapable of capturing the decisive moment.
That ‘not exactly small’ lens shows that not even the optical geniuses in Wetzlar can alter the laws of physics. You want a fast aperture and full frame coverage, this is the result and it’s why I am not getting a Q. You get a camera which is not exactly small with an outstanding optic, one that appears to be as good as it gets at any price. For this street snapper the right answer is Panny’s LX100 where you get the same ergonomics and f/1.7 in a far smaller body with one signal advantage. The lens zooms from 24mm to 75mm. Yes, the frame is one quarter the size so there’s more depth of field than you want (PS and the Magic Lasso tool easily fixes that) and at the extreme gargantuan prints from the Q will be easier to make, but the trade offs are all in the wrong direction – bulk and weight. And 4x the sensor size also means 4x the cost. Steal my LX100 and I buy another. Nab my Q and it’s debtors’ gaol.
Finger loops come in three sizes and allow the carrying strap to be dispensed with. As for the objectionable ‘look at me’ red dot on the front, a spot of electrician’s tape will put paid to that.
A very exciting development and if the camera lives up to the early reviews Leica is to be congratulated. Now let’s hope they come up with a fixed lens 90mm f/2 variant for an ideal two camera street outfit. Why, like my two GX7s with 35mm and 85mm lenses ….
The factory’s web site is here.