I've been waiting 5 years for THIS! - Leica M11
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
1,751 words · ~8 min read
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- Today, we're trying something new on ShortCircuit and we're looking at the Leica M11.
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So Leica has updated the sensor in this camera. It is now 60 megapixels, backside illuminated
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and you can actually use crop modes 1.3 and 1.8 while shooting.
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So if you don't want to see your entire image
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right off the bat, it'll crop in for you and you don't have to do that in post
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but you will still retain the entirety of your image. And it's one of those things where Leica
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wants you to experience as much in camera as possible.
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And the experience of using their cameras is the entire point of them.
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The body overall hasn't changed a ton from the M10.
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You've got the custom button that was on the front of the camera,
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is now on the top of the camera. One of the features I actually really love
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about this camera is each button on here. The scroll wheel, for example, is now a button.
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And then the custom button, if you hold them down,
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it actually brings up all the features that you can use this for.
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So for example, if I wanted to change my digital zoom with this dial,
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so I can press it once, there's the frame guides for 1.3,
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press it again, and there's the frame guides for 1.8.
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That's handy and if I wanted to do something else
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like change my shutter type, I'll press it one more time
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and that brings me to the shutter menu. So mechanical and electronic, which is the first 4AM camera.
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So this camera actually has electronic shutter.
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Unfortunately, you're probably going to still have rolling shutter issues
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like other cameras that have electronic shutter. The readout on this sensor probably isn't quite fast enough
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for super fast moving objects. But if you're shooting a subject that's fairly still
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and you want it to be quiet!, now that's a situation where the electronic shutter
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on this camera might work to your benefit. On the top of the camera, the ISO dial goes down to 64
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which is a significant improvement from 100 and 200 being technically the lowest settings
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that you can use on the M10 and 64 ISO is really are gonna help
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for those really really bright days where you just want that extra lower exposure to protect your highlights.
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The shutter speed max on this mechanically is one over 4,000, but thanks to the electronic shutter
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if you're shooting something that is a still image, it's actually one over 16,000
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which I don't actually have on my M10, quite an interesting experience using an electronic shutter.
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Am trying to turn the electronic shutter on. I'm gonna switch it to auto, change my ISO to 64
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and see how this performs.
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Wow, it actually is very strange to have the experience
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on a Leica, not hearing the shutter 'cause the shutter is such an integral part
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of the shooting experience. I think my favorite physical change on this camera,
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is the fact that they made the battery plate, well, there is no battery plate.
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It is just now a single bottom plate that is all attached except for the battery that pops out.
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Doesn't fall out when you do that, one press,
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and the battery comes out. Another addition to the hardware that I really appreciate
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when I first started using this about a week ago is the camera has 64 gigs built in internal storage now.
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Finishing off the bottom of the camera they actually added a type-C port to the bottom as well.
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And it comes with a type-C and a lightning cable which you can use directly to your iPhone
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with the Leica photos app. And you can transfer your photos to your iPhone directly.
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If you're curious, I'm using the 35 mil 1.4ASPH
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that Leica sent with the camera. If you like modern glass and a very clean look,
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this pairing would be very good.
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But this package together is about $15,000.
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So personally I'd probably use a different lens.
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One nice thing, but also I have a couple gripes with it is the touch screen on this camera.
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It's nice that it has a touch screen. So you can open your menu, click here
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but then you can't do things like scroll through the menu.
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And if I try to click any of these settings, it doesn't work.
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It's kind of a weird implementation of a touchscreen menu. I still appreciate it because it has,
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you can punch in to zoom, change your focus point,
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or check your focus. In the menu we actually have DNG resolution,
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you can change it from 60, 36 or 18.
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So when you take an image at 36 megapixels
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it will use the full 60 megapixel resolution
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compress all the pixels down to 36 megapixels.
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So you're essentially taking your full resolution of the sensor and getting extra stop of dynamic range
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by using a lower resolution in the camera. This can also go down to 18 megapixels.
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So if you need both smaller file sizes for the photos
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so you don't need to blow up your image or you don't want as much resolution
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but you still want the performance of the sensor, you're giving up resolution that you didn't need
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for extra dynamic range and better noise performance.
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So Andy and I were very curious since we both own different M cameras, I own an M10
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and Andy owns an M9, how it compares to the M11.
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Wow, that is much louder already.
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The shutter is so much slower and the display is horrible.
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This is the display I'm working with. I can't even tell if this photo is in focus on this thing.
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Okay, so we're gonna go back to the office now and compare the differences
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between these three photos and look at some photos that we've already taken on this camera.
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So here's this first photo of Cloverdale Coin Laundry. And right off the bat, you can tell the color
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is what I would expect from a Leica camera, it's not overly saturated.
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It has kind of a warmer tone, even though it's an overcast day in this shot,
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you could post this photo as it is. You wouldn't really need to do that much editing
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if you didn't want to. And that's kind of the nice thing about cameras like this and most cameras these days,
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you don't have to force yourself to do a bunch of editing that you don't want to do
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if you don't want to do it because this camera produces an image that is good already.
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I actually have a previous edit from a couple days ago
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and I'm just gonna apply the settings from that, man.
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I think that's one of your advantages with post on most Leica cameras, but particularly this one
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is the color is so easy to work with in Lightroom.
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And I didn't really do anything that special with this photo. And it looks really good already.
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So Jono just asked what the file sizes on some of these photos are, they're about 17 megabytes each
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which doesn't sound like a lot but it's one photo being that amount.
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And then you times that by a thousand it'll add up. So this is that photo we took outside
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that was at 64 ISO and dang!
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That is a clean image.
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The last thing I wanna look at with these photos is the comparison that we did
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between the M9, the M10 and the M11. I know which ones are which, but just right off the bat
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let's just take a look from left to right here. You can see how much more dynamic range is in the M11,
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the M10 and the M9 are right up against
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on the left in the shadows whereas the M11, that kind of nice gradient up.
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And you can see it in the photo itself. If you look at this furniture barn building,
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the shadows look like they've been lifted in Lightroom
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but that's just because the camera itself has that much more dynamic range.
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The sky in the M11 photo has a cleaner roll off .
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On paper, doesn't feel like a couple stops of dynamic range might be that big of a deal
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but in really harsh scenarios where the sun is right behind the building
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and you're trying to get the sky and whatever is in shadow,
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you want the detail for both, that might be the difference between getting a good shot
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and not a good shot with the M10 and M11. So here's a bunch photos I took with the M11
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the two weeks I had it. I mean, as you can see it doesn't take that much editing
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'cause I didn't touch these that much to make the photos look pretty good, in my opinion,
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and 60 megapixels is more than any M camera has ever had.
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And if you want that resolution to blow up your photos or maybe you're doing commercial work
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and you want some fun stuff and you're using an M camera for commercial work, I don't know how common that is,
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but the resolution is there if you want it. And I think that this is a pretty good upgrade.
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So thank you guys for watching. If you guys want me to check out another camera
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that we've never featured on this channel, let me know in the comment down below and please subscribe.