Leica M10 Monochrom.

My go-to Leica dealer recently told me he has pre-orders for 49 M10 Monochrom cameras, which will take about a year to fill!

 

I honestly feel that 24 megapixels is about maximum with no image stabilization (an add-on "advantage" for the M11, I suspect). My suspicion is that people will be disappointed to discover that 40 megapixels is simply too much for hand-held shooting.

 

None of the reviewers complained stop far.

My suspicion is that people will be disappointed to discover that 40 megapixels is simply too much for hand-held shooting

@Ed_Ingold stated somewhere else that hand holding 1/*focal lenght* sec would provide the equivalent of 6MP (at best?) What shutter speed is needed to get 24 or even 40MP resolution hand held? factor 8 or even 16? - 1/1000sec with a 50mm? - Just curious.

Not sure where I stand, towards the Monochrom M10. Maybe I don't have good enough lenses. Surely I don't have enough cash to pre-order one now and trading other stuff in would leave me renewing the old insight: Having two (point five) Leicas would be better than having just one...

The "focal length" rule is that the minimum shutter speed for a 50 mm lens would be 1/50 second. The shutter speed would need to be 3 stops faster to take advantage of a 40-50 MP sensor, or about 1/500 sec.

 

This is predicated on the average camera shake for hand held shots of about 2 deg/sec, and the effect observed on an 8x10" print at a 10" distance (similar to DOF calculations). It is a rule for "good enough," but not "as good as it gets." It takes extraordinary care to eliminate blur at the pixel level for a 40 MP camera, including a sturdy tripod, electronic first shutter, and a soft release (cable or self-timer). The focus must be perfect, and you hope the subject doesn't move.

None of the reviewers complained stop far.

They generally appear to be pushing ISO to compensate. At full resolution, I'd suspect using shutter speeds below ~1/250 could be problematic.

I don't have a Monochrom (yet) but I'm sorely tempted. Not for technical reasons, but being constrained to B&W changes ones mind-set. One has to think mono from the start. And having the viewfinder show mono helps the process.

In my film era 1/FL never really worked. I was using Kodachrome and I had to use 1/250 to reliably get a sharp projected (20X30) image. And when the Olympus Trip35 camera was introduced it was widely praised for its sharp images which I think was mostly due to its 1/200 fixed shutter speed.

Sharpness as a goal can get in the way of images.

And having the viewfinder show mono helps the process.

Why buy an expensive rangefinder mechanism to utilize a (comparably) questionable EVF all the time?

I got the old one (while there was nothing else) and have no BW preview option.

You get much easier B&W out of a monochrom chip and as has been stated above you also get a 'free' increase in resolution V a CMOS or CCD chip. Leaving aside the futzing around required to use post processing and luminosity masks to get anywhere near the black blacks and white whites - the theoretical extra megapixels required to match a moncrom camera is minimum 35% more megapixels. So in the case of the M10M at 40MP - you need a minimum of around an extra 20MP to match the look after post processing - which means you have to be using the latest Sony at 64MP or higher.

 

I shoot film and digital and I can tell you that (a) I couldn't make a B&W film shot like the one below made on my original MM or what they call the M9M now...good luck trying to use a darkroom to make an image with whites and blacks like this too- teh papers aren't made these days with enough silver contgent to do so. Oh scan B&W film you say ? - oh really.....

 

This one is a discard of some shots I made for a boutique bike maker years ago - the shoot paid for the camera.

 

and this one below is a street shot made with the camera - a happy snap,

 

 

 

unless colour is an important part of the purpose of the content of an image - there is absolutely no need to have to deal with - I prefer to only have to think about luminosity when I am shooting B&W. So when I am using my Fuji I have the viewfinder see in B&W - no distractions - I do the same for all my cameras. Ironically the Leica's rangefinder doesn't allow for this ( obviously).

 

I am thinking about the M10M - its one draw back is the rangefinder focusing mechanism - my eyes aren't what they used to be and I find that nailing focus when shootingt wide open has caused me 'focus anxiety' the 40MP will only exaggerate the fear based on low hit rates compared to SL/SL2. - still I do miss the files I used to get from teh original CCD MM.

 

PS : the spot in the sky was the beginning of the infamous rusty chip issue...

Edited March 5, 2020 by petera(downunder)

I honestly feel that 24 megapixels is about maximum with no image stabilization (an add-on "advantage" for the M11, I suspect). My suspicion is that people will be disappointed to discover that 40 megapixels is simply too much for hand-held shooting.

 

The resolution of a camera system is, as you probably know, a product of lens and camera. A lens will thus never "outresolve" the resolution of the sensor, nor vice versa. More megapixels will, ceteris paribus, give greater resolution, as will a better resolving lens no matter the resolution of the sensor. (If more resolution is your goal you should, hovewer, update the "weakest link" first since, arithmetically, increasing the lowest of the two factors will yield a the greater product).

 

When it comes to motion blur, a photography printed the same size will not be more blurry with a higher resolving sensor (or lens!). The potential resolution of the sensor will, of course, only be achieved with adequate stabilisation/high shutter speeds.

 

I'm not a sharpness fetishist, by any means, but especially appreiciate the fact that high resolving sensor can bring old, somewhat soft—but otherwise beautifull—back to life, so to speak, by giving the system as a whole a little bump in resolution.

 

PS: I'm sure we are in agreement on these points, I just wanted to clearify for the sake of readers not wrongly getting the impression that more megapixels will give more blur with same print size (or the related misunderstanding that the additional megapixels are totally lost on lower resolving lenses).

Edit: It should read "(...) otherwise beautiful—lenses (...)". When I tried to make this small edit in the original post, I got the error message that my edit was "spam-like". AI, it seems, is getting dumber every day.

Too bad Robert Frank passed away. He could have used this camera (not).

Just saw our friend, Ken Rockwell, posted one of his [worthless] reviews on the M10M. Although there are some "sample shots" I'm wondering if he actually used the camera?

Looks like big Freudian typo.

I am happy to hear about that release. The previous CMOS Mono wasn't selling too well, was it? - This one sounds like a toy ready to tempt lots of folks (hopefully some resolution worshippers, previously shooting only color Ms, too) and sell quite well.

Maybe we'll even get 2 waves of used ones; a 1st after high res color M release and a 2nd with the 4th Monochrom later? - What could Leica pack into that next one, to make it even more tempting? While it is out of my convenient reach, it would be nice to have, some day...

Wait, you're talking about the next when they just announced the new one?? So its already obsolete?

Peter, I do hear lots of great things about the M9M. Try finding a used one in this country. If they are around, they aren't on eBay.

talking about the next when they just announced the new one?? So its already obsolete?

No (if we talk Leica M only, with everything else faded out), but since there 'd be a waiting list, in case you ordered one right now, we are talking about the future anyhow, aren't we?