Member Mark Gowin

Can you please explain the technical differences between the S and the S-E, or is it only the guarantee?

David,
I am one of the people who have an M9 with corrosion sitting in NJ and just got off the phone with Leia.
I was told it could take up to 3 months to have my CCD replaced and it will not be with the newly announced CCD, I would have to ship my M9 back to them again when they start receiving the new sensors and they have no ETA on availability. He also mentioned that the current CCD replacement comes with a 3 year warranty.

Oh well looks like I may must bite the bullet and go for there M240 /M-P upgrade program. I was really hoping on getting back my M9 sooner, selling it and then purchase a Leica “QM2” M240 / M-P at a reduced cost.

The Q sure feels like a game changer to me. It was too easy for me to place my order as this checks all of the boxes for me. I will always own an M and I cannot see anything taking it's place but this will be such a nice addition to my setup.

Great review David!

Thanks for the thorough (and enjoyable: great images!) review David. The Q seems to begin to address many of the shortcomings of the current M246 (low pixel EVF, not-so-great high ISO performance, shutter lag when using the EVF to name a few of my nits).

I am wondering if the Q has the ability, when you magnify the EVF view 3x or 6x, to choose where in the frame the magnified view is. This would be pre-exposure. Another one of my nits with the current M240.

Thanks very much again!

Panasonic makes some great cameras in collaboration with Leica (ex: the D-Lux), but the Leica Q does not seem like a tie-in with Panasonic, for the M-type body if nothing else.

I had the Monochrom and new Noctilux for about 6 months, and while it's a great combo, the primary reason to carry such a heavy and expensive piece of glass is the f0.95 aperture. But that aperture has an extremely small DOF, and unless you dedicate yourself to working with that constraint, you'd be disappointed. My Q doesn't arrive until 3 days from now, but already I have in mind that it will be much like the X Vario I had, at the low end of its zoom range, and somewhat like the Nikon ‘A' but with much better sensor, lens, and processing engine. For someone accustomed to shooting at the 28 mm effective focal length (ex: Nikon ‘A' or X Vario un-zoomed), the Q should be a dream come true.

Thanks for an awesome review, it indeed looks like what I was waiting for all these year, and I placed my preorder today at Leica Philippines, to my surprise the first they had received, the official launch here is next week on Friday 21st

Image quality on both M240/28 Lux and the Q will be quite good and fairly comparable. I haven't done any head to head testing yet, but I did just wrap up a workshop in Berlin where I shot with both cameras side-by-side. The results in LR are mixed together and match up very nicely.

The real advantage of the M is the flexibility to use other focal lengths, like the 50 APO that you have. On the other hand, the Q offers fast AF and macro capability.

I am not one for pre-post quality evaluations. In my mind, every file requires at least some basic post processing, just as even the finest quality food ingredients require some seasoning by the chef.

No, this is a pure Leica product. My understanding is that Panasonic's involvement was limited to specific components, such as AF and OIS.

Interesting idea on the electronic shutter. The leaf shutter is so quiet and introduces so little vibration, I'm not sure if there would be any advantage here.

As far as the ad-hoc connection, this is already available. A QR code on the camera's LCD is generated when using “Host” mode WLAN setup. Scan the QR code with the Q App on your phone or iPad and it sets up its own connection. Very simple.

I had the M9 + Noct combo for three years. Setting aside the price aspect, the Noct is a great lens at f5.6 and an amazing lens at f.95. However, at f.95, the Noct is very hard to focus and even more difficult in low light… the depth of field is so shallow (focus on the bridge of someones nose and their lips are out of focus) that for me focus success was very hit and miss.

But if you use the Noct with the M240 and the not-so-great EVF (too low resolution, in my opinion, a better EVF is the one for the T), then you will greatly increase your odds of low-light focus success with the Noct.

I also once bought into the CCD in the M9 being better than the CMOS in the M240. After using both and the M240 for 18 months, I think overall the M240 files have a little more “play” in them… less susceptible to banding, particularly in well saturated skies.

I did use the lens profile for the 28mm Summicron-M ASPH in Lightroom, since the Q hasn't been added to the lens database yet.

Thank you for the nice feedback. I do basic edits to taste in Lightroom after applying a preset to my images upon import. I probably spend a minute or two per image.

I'm not quite sure what you mean “change from right to left”. Could you elaborate?

I am worry about sales of 28mm f1.4 asph, f2 asph or f2.8 asph.

While there are likely several compact cameras available with fixed 28 mm (effective focal length) lenses, the one I remember best was the Nikon Coolpix A, which I used for some time. It did a good job for me, although I thought the images were slightly sterile or ‘technical'-looking. This new Q (which is on the way to me now) should improve greatly on that other 28 mm experience, having a full-frame sensor, a Leica lens, and a processing engine that produces a better overall look.

While controlled ISO testing like this doesn't directly impact “taking pictures” per se, it does let users or potential users understand the performance envelope of this camera vs. other cameras. I suppose the same argument could be made as to why car reviewers measure 0-60 times and lateral acceleration, among other benchmarks. They are a good measure of relative performance. Personally, I do prefer going out and shooting actual pictures. If you read my Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246) Review, you'll see I have no shortage of real-life pictures taken in a variety of situations.

OS X Yosemite definitely has the issue. Older version probably have it as well, but this hasn't been confirmed to my knowledge.

While there are certainly other programs that can open Leica DNG files, I've found the best results from Adobe Lightroom. Leica has been working closely with Adobe since 2008 and all Leica cameras come bundled with Lightroom.

Thanks, Mike.

Yes, this was fixed a while back.

Excellent review David! I am looking forward putting my hands on El Jefe in the very near future!

Wow, what a complete and wonderfully timely review.
Looking forward to your S (007) review should you ever get one ahead of time.
Get some sleep now.
Jack

Great review David.

As a two-year owner of the original M Monochrom I've been eager to see how the new CMOS version would compare, and your review shows us that exactly.

Impressive as it is, I will sit out this generation of M cameras and go forward for the next three years (or maybe six?) with the original M Monochrom and M-E, which both still do just about everything I want them too with the singular exception of clean high ISO in color, which isn't worth the cost of a dual upgrade or of dealing with two hardware systems and their respective batteries and chargers.

For me the world is the same as it was last week, M-E (M9) for beautiful color on good to moderate light, and M Monochrom for incredible black and white no matter the conditions. ISO 10,000 is high enough for anything I want to do except deep depth of field in low light, which just isn't a priority.

Great images by the way.

All of the images were processed in Adobe Lightroom CC (v6).

Sure. Here is a screen grab from my basic settings in LR for an M246 file:

My biggest change is to pull down the blacks and bring up the exposure to compensate a little. I like rich shadow contrast. Really, though, these changes are fairly minor. Sometimes, I'll bring up the shadows or tone down the highlights more. It really depends on the image and my intended interpretation.

On the sharpening and noise reduction settings I use:

And that's about it. I don't change the sharpening settings, except at very high ISO, I will bump up Masking a little. And with NR, I will bring the amount up to 20-30 for shots above ISO 8000.

Hope this helps.

Did you try to turn off lens profile corrections in LR?

We first discovered a strange behavior in LR when processing M9M files a couple years ago when using lens profile corrections. Seems that there is sometimes some pattern noise introduced in B&W images with pulled up shadows. What was even stranger was that the artifacts were only visible once exported. In LR, at any magnification, the files were clean.

Some shots were manually set, but most were shot with Auto ISO, using Aperture priority.

Color filters work the same way on B&W digital as they do on film. The effect is much easier to accomplish in camera than in post processing.

Hi.

I am considering to Purchase a M 246 after reading your review.

I am a DSLR usar and I am kind of worried about the rangefinder and focus.

Do you have any recomendations about this transition?

Thank you!

You can't go wrong with the 50 APO. I switched from the 50 Lux to the 50 APO and never once regretted it. The bokeh of the 50 APO is still very nice and pleasing. The Lux will be a little softer, but will not be as sharp as the APO wide open. And on the Monochrom M246, the added sharpness really shows. Hope this helps.

I would welcome insight from others on processing software other than Adobe CC, PS, or LR with the MM246. Capture One appears to be not compatible and when I called their tech people they said they had no plans to do so, even though the M9 Monochrom is supported. Has anyone tried Luminar?

The raw version is the shinier silver one. The price is $59.

Komaru Titanium Soft Release – Raw