Having written about what I like best about it, here are the things that I've noticed that are, for me, the downsides of the Leica M10 Reporter (NLA new). But please, note those italics. I'm not a hater, and if you love your digital M, I get it and have no quarrel.
Cost: First is the elephant in the room, cost. I believe I read when I was a boy and still into military enthusiasms (ancient history now) that the German Tiger tank was superior to any armor the allies had, but that Soviet T-34 tanks were so much cheaper, and could be produced in such numbers, that a strategy developed whereby four T-34s would attack one Tiger. While a T-34 could never beat a Tiger one-on-one, at four-on-one it was no contest the other way around.
That metaphor might be brutal in light of the tank battles in Ukraine (sorry), but, very honestly, I think the excessive expense goes against Leica's stated intentions of providing a tough working tool for extreme conditions. To me, an important aspect of an all-the-time, on-the-go working tool is that it be replaceable. You either need to be able to buy a readily-available replacement quickly, or you have to have a second body already waiting in reserve. And the replacement/reserve obviously needs to be something you can afford, and cheap enough so that if you break or lose it, it's not a catastrophe.
Now, I know full well after having written this blog for 16.5 years that "price sensitivity" is an individual thing. We have everything from multi-millionaires to retirees on pensions reading this site (we used to have students, but I don't think so much any more). What is out of reach for some is a throwaway cost for others, and there's a whole range of people in between. Still, if you're doing weddings for pay with a Fuji X-T4, you probably have a backup body; yet I doubt that even millionaire owners of the M10 Reporter have a second one set aside and waiting in case they drop one into the punchbowl or set it on a concrete wall in a parking garage and accidentally knock it off and it falls four stories. (Both scenarios based on true stories!) I did meet a pro once who switched from a perfectly good main body to the more recent one because a replacement for the more recent one could be overnighted to him the next day, whereas the older body had been discontinued. But you might counter that the "tough working tool for extreme conditions" is actually just symbolic in the case of the Reporter—an homage to the concept, if you will. That's a valid point.
As you know if you read the comments to Friday's post, Jack Mac actually encouraged me to take the M10 R out for walks, and even said he wouldn't mind if I scratched it. Which is pretty generous of him. Still and all, cheapskate that I am, I must duly report that I find myself highly constrained by the preciousness of the M10 R. The most expensive camera I ever bought was an M6 c. 1990, $3k then and $6,700 in today's dollars. There were times when I felt uncomfortable carrying it around with me. I want a camera I can use up.
In any event we can no doubt natter amongst ourselves about the meaning and implications of a $10,000 camera body (the current going price for a Reporter) all day and all night, so let us move on.
No autofocus: To my mind, manual focus and autofocus are just options, and one is not better than the other. I'm pretty familiar and comfortable with rangefinder focusing, for at least the last 30 years anyway, and there are some advantages to manual rangefinder focusing: no clutter in the viewfinder; a direct view of the subtle intensities and colors of the real light because a rangefinder window is WYSIWYG in that respect; the infinity stop; and the focus stays where you place it until you change it. You hold focusing distance in your mind and can check on it with a glance if you forget. (Some of these can be simulated in various ways with some AF cameras.)
There are also some usability benefits that I pointed out in the previous post, for instance that it frees up a half-press of the shutter for AEL rather than AF-lock, and I like that.
However, I like AF too. Despite my transplanted cornea, my eyes aren't what they used to be. I'm not complaining at all; I don't wear glasses at age 65 except for computer use and reading, and I'm plenty thankful for that. But manual RF focusing requires some learning and practice, and I'm just as happy to let the camera focus itself, even though my use of AF is pretty limited. (I only use two modes, and don't begin to utilize all the Sony's capabilities).
No EVF: All you have to do is photograph with the Voigtländer 12mm (NLA) to have it blatantly pointed out to you that the field of view can be hard to see with an RF viewfinder. The M10's various framelines are approximate, and, despite Leica's clever perspective correction in the digital domain (called Perspective Control), there are still the usual headaches of parallax at closer focusing distances. An EVF is not WYSIWYG in terms of providing a window to the light and the color of the scene, but it's perfectly WYSIWYG with regard to perspective and the exact boundaries of the frame. Verdict? Six to one, half a dozen the other.
But the real gotcha with the viewfinder? It's that I've gotten into the habit of reviewing using the viewfinder! I love it, and I do it both while shooting, to check various parameters, and also while reviewing to see what I got. It takes ambient light, sunlight, out of the equation. Again and again with the Leica I would like to check what I just shot in the viewfinder, and of course can't—you can only review on the viewing screen on the back of the camera, which is hard to see in sunlight.
No image stabilization: It's been my observation that many times when you'd like to use something that's obsolescent, it would do fine in many respects, but there's often just one or two modern features that are so useful or sensible that it's hard to do without them. (I think of this every time I see Jay Leno tooling down the highway in an old car with no airbags. He's a head-on collision away from some fine old wooden Nardi steering wheel making contact with his spine from the wrong side. No thanks. I've watched "Idiots in Cars" vids. I'll take an airbag.) In the '90s I bought a Nikkormat FT-3 and considered using it as my main camera, and it would have been fine except that the 1977 groundglass was just very dark in comparison to more modern ones. If just that one thing could have been modernized, the older camera would have been fine. (At the time.)
Well, most old things have "just that one thing." In cars, backup cameras—stories of people backing SUVs over their own children deeply horrify me. You know where this is going: IS is one modern feature I happen to think is useful. Of course the M10 doesn't have it. Cartier-Bresson was rumored to go to bed early and abstain from coffee so he could handhold 1/4th sec., so there are workarounds. :-)
Handling: The M10 was famously the first digital M to replicate the exact size and shape of the classic Leica, represented in Leica's literature by the M4. And of course the standard party line for half a century was that the Leica M was small and handy and "a camera you can get to grips with." It's received wisdom: i.e., you're supposed to believe it because everybody has always believed it. Yeah, but. The trouble is, the M10 is not small and handy by today's standards. It's handy compared to a 1930s folder and small compared to a TLR. It's not that they haven't done a great job replicating the original; it's that the world has changed. Today it's a little on the clunky and awkward side...
...Most particularly, the grip, or lack thereof. I'd consider a handgrip mandatory with this camera, although I don't have one here to try. The Sony A6600, which has the biggest grip of any of its ilk, makes that camera very handy and satisfying for a small camera. And I just handled a Nikon Z series (Dave Levingston's), which is excellent ergonomically, and it felt greatly more comfortable and secure in the hand than the 70-year-old design of the Leica.
Finally—and this is just a nitpick—I noticed that whenever I switched to vertical orientation (shutter release at the bottom and viewfinder window at the top right), my left thumb naturally hit the menu button. On the good side, even with the menu open on the viewing screen you can still press the shutter button and the camera will take a picture normally.
But you get used to handling. With a "you're in control" camera like the M10, you learn it. I'm sure I'd get used to the handling if it were mine.
Weight: The M10 Reporter is too heavy. With the 35mm Summilux especially. That combo tilts my scale at 972 g (34.3 oz.). That's not heavy for a camera, necessarily, but the smaller the camera the greater the subjective density and the more its weight is emphasized. My A6600 is also a bit on the porky side: with the 30mm ƒ/1.4 Contemporary it's 767 g. Like the handling, you'll get used to the M10 if you use it a lot. But it's too heavy. It can be lightened by using a lighter lens, but, like most of us, it would benefit from going on a diet. Weight loss of 15% or even 20% would benefit the body. (My body too. You?) You might say this is a matter of taste, and I'd have to grant you the point, but a cost-no-object camera should attain an ideal, and feeling like it's made of lead isn't ideal IMO. Note too that a handgrip would add yet more weight, putting this camera + prime combo at ~1150 g (over 40 oz.). Compare to the Nikon Z7 II and kit zoom at 1115 g.
Second car
What's the upshot here? Obviously, there is more than one reason to buy a Leica M. They're status symbols, very satisfying toys, cool body accessories, tickets of admission to various communities of geekery, and also, within their range, excellent working tools. Everyone's going to have his or her own mix of reasons for either wanting or buying one. As I made clear on Friday, it's a digital camera that goes most of the way to recovering/recreating the simple and secure experience of using a film camera. It fully realizes the promise of the early, imperfect first digital M, the M8. And it's a digital M that will be satisfyingly, gratifyingly familiar to those with histories as film M owners/users.
I do think its "beautiful simplicity" is plenty of reason for owning one. So is using it purely for serious photography. I see no impediment to that, if its natural limitations suit the kind of work you do or aspire to do.
Well, and if you have good insurance. (Consider a rider on your homeowner's insurance, or dedicated camera insurance.)
However, even if money were no object, I would probably not be happy with an M10 as my only camera. (Although I think I'd like to do an OC/OL/OY with a Q2 Monochrom, which has AF and IS, and is weatherproof.) And I'll go out on a limb (way out on a limb) and guess that most M10 owners also own other cameras. I wasn't a pro for very long—only 6–7 years in the '80s–'90s—but during that (pre-digital) time I noticed that most pros I knew or met had pretty complete systems in at least one, more often two, and not infrequently all three major formats (35mm, 6x6 or 6x7, and large format); and then, many of them also owned a Leica M and a few lenses for "personal" work, as personal jewelry, and/or to tie in to the tradition of intrepid globetrotting photojournalists or committed art photographers such as Capa, Koudelka, Eisenstadt, Winogrand, and so many more great names from the olden days.
I also knew a few photographers who used only a film Leica M. I'm sure their "digital equivalents" are out there, and power to 'em. All I'm saying is that an M10 really is like a Miata*: you'll probably be happiest if it's your second car. Er, camera.
This ain't all. In our discussion of the M10, there's more yet to come.
Mike
*Steve Renwick said this.
Book o' the Week:
Inspiration Leica Akademie (English and German Edition). A "group show" of 76 Leica Akademie photographers from 16 countries worldwide, curated by Heidi and Robert Mertens. It looks to me like this is going out of print soon, so act soon if you want one.
The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you choose to support the site.
Leica at B&H Photo
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Bryan Hansel: "On Friday, you gave me camera envy. Thankfully this posts brings me back down to Earth."
PWL: "Well, I have the M10 P, and to be honest, I don’t notice most of the difficulties you mentioned in your article, perhaps because I shot Leica M film cameras for years and are used to their idiosyncrasies. Where I will agree with you is that the price is a real issue. Makes it hard to use a very good camera in a lot of instances, because you’re afraid of destroying, damaging, or losing such an expensive item (although I should note that I do have it insured, but still…). And yes, I do have another camera system that gets a lot more use: Fuji X-Pro cameras. Pretty much my go-anywhere workhorse system."
Jeff: "I don’t mind the weight (provides stability for me), but the M11 black version, which is 20% lighter (530 g vs. 660 g for the M10, both with battery), provides an option for those who might. The EVF and hand grip issues can each be addressed via accessory add-ons, albeit at the expense of added bulk and weight. I don’t use either, but do use the accessory thumb rest (attached via hot shoe) for much better handling.
"My complementary system (for EVF, AF, IBIS, weather sealing, zooms, longer and wider focal lengths, etc) is the SL2. It has a virtually identical menu interface as the M, and seamlessly adapts M lenses. But I prefer keeping my M lenses (28mm/35mm/50mm) on my M."
Alex Mercado: "Pff…I always keep an M10 at easy access in the boot of my Morgan Plus Four. What is this 'My-At-Tah' you speak of?"
Bob G.: "Had to laugh (sort of) at your Nardi analogy…I had one on my '67 E-Type and it was scary to think about being in an accident with it. My mechanic said, the metal bends, but the wheel doesn’t. I felt 'better' with my single-spoke, downward-facing '71 Citroen Safari wheel…all this way before airbags for sure…."
Mike replies: Plus, you never wanted to go fast in a '71 Citroen. :-)
Centeredlens: "+1 for camera insurance. I was afraid to take my M10 on vacation until I bought the peace of mind that I could replace it if it fell off a wall or got stolen. (Not that I’ve had to test the insurance yet, fingers crossed….)"
Jack Mac: "Mike, My explanations that if you ding it, it’s OK is partially based on my history of dropping cameras. Right after I wrote you that last week, I dropped an M 10 monochrome. It now has a loving ding in the upper corner. The digital M cameras are still robust. The Rangefinder patch was still in alignment and everything worked perfectly. Except I noticed that it doesn’t record color."
Mike replies: Heh. Reminds me of that old joke, 'Doctor, after my operation, will I be able to play piano?' Plus the fact that car repair shops occasionally car mechanics see cars towed in with the complaint that they will not start...and all that's wrong is that they're out of gas.
Dan Khong: "Twenty-five years back when the M6 and Rollies and Hassies were more seen and used side by side, the ownership of a Leica M stood out head and shoulders above the rest. Today, I am more likely to attract attention with a Rolleiflex TLR than—might I dare say—even the M10 Reporter (which I don't own so I am guessing). When I stroll around with a grey Rolleiflex T, I can almost always get a subject to agree to have their picture taken."
Pierre Charbonneau: "Digital M's are indeed a bit heavy in the hand. There are days when I prefer the Fujifilm x100 for walking around with friends.The autofocus is then a blessing. I guess it shows that I am then more casual and my subjects are appreciating this. And the pictures aren't bad either for all that."
Nicolas Woollaston: "the difficulty with wide angle lenses is also similar to the limitations in trying to use long lenses and in wanting to use any lens focused close, let alone macro."
Ben: "I just bought an M11. The cost is tough to swallow...I feel very lucky to be able to afford it now and able to use the lenses I've gathered over the years. And I definitely feel uncomfortable about the price/cost/value, so I always cover the silly dot. At least that's the only visible marking. The black M11 is, I think, pretty close to 25% lighter than the M10. So the weight is...perfect. It should've had IS, of course! But it's great to have really good high ISO performance in an M, so I can shoot at faster shutter speeds to avoid camera shake. Agreed about the hand grip...I added a stick-on one. We'll see how it goes, but the handling seems better. For whatever reason, I've always felt most comfortable with a rangefinder and OVF. I do also have a Micro 4/3 system (Panasonic GX8 forever! ;-) and a Fuji X100V...I quit Nikon some time ago. Have thought about a Sony system but the size of the lenses is off-putting."
Luke: "I'm so happy to see this post. Modern electronic gizmo cameras produce better pictures due to AF, EVF, IS, etc. If it's easier to use, yes, your pictures improve. IS or give up coffee?? Hah! Also, Mr. Mercado, does your Morgan even have a boot? Maybe you strap your Leica to the luggage rack?"
Kenneth Tanaka: "Chiming-in very late, sorry. But as a long-time and very current Leica owner here are my thoughts.
First, I agree with much of your earlier praise. Leica’s excision of video from the M cameras and converting the user control interface to the SL-style design greatly simplified the camera’s actual and apparent usage. Until last week I owned an M10-R and, previously, an M10-P, M240, and M9…so I’ve keenly observed and welcomed the camera’s evolutionary refinement. I am pleased to say that the new M11 maintains that design line and even extends it in new and useful ways.
"I also mostly concur with your 'downside' points of this post; cost, no autofocus, no image stabilization, awkward handling, and weight, although these have always been intrinsic characteristics of this type of camera. Your 'No EVF' point is not entirely accurate as the camera does offer an accessory EVF (Visoflex) that attaches to the hot shoe and articulates 90 degrees [$740. And more weight. —Ed.]. Regarding handling I would also add that an accessory grip has long been available for these M cameras giving the hand at least a better purchase on the camera. Regarding weight, as someone noted, the new black M11 with its aluminum top plate is significantly lighter than previous digital Ms. In fact, its weight is slightly less than that of the film M7!
"Beyond your downside points I would add three others that, in my experience, represent practical limitations of the M rangefinder that should be paramount to anyone considering using such a camera for particular jobs. I don’t think they’ve been noted yet:
Lack of weatherproofing: The Leica M is simply one of the least weather resistant cameras on the market. Lens mounts are metal-to-metal. Heck, the whole bottom of the camera must be removed just to change batteries and SD cards! I have never had an M camera fail from weather although I have never pressed the boundaries.
Metering: The nature of the M10’s design is such that center-weighted-average is what you’re going to get. (That has changed somewhat with the M11.) This is easy to manage but it’s important to understand that exposure precision will be entirely up to you.
Close focus range limitation: The nature of the M rangefinder’s optical design leaves most lenses with a closest focus distance of approximately 3 feet. There are accessories and at least one special macro lens that enable you to get closer to subjects but this has been a notable limitation of the camera’s design since its invention.
"But let's be honest: nobody buys an M with their head. Nobody needs one of these cameras for anything any more."
Josh: "As a Brit, talking about backup cameras (second cameras) and backup cameras (reversing cameras on a car) in the same post confused the hell out of me for a second!
Mike replies: Oh—sorry! That didn't even occur to me. But it should have.
Sroyon: "I enjoyed Josh's comment about backup cameras. Made me think about using a backup camera as a backup camera (forgot your Leica at home? Simply ask your subject to stand behind the car and record them on video) or alternatively, a backup camera as a backup camera (reversing camera on your car not working? Gaffer tape your spare Leica ME to the rear fender and stream video to your phone)."
