Leica M11-P: A Brief Review
Recently, I got the chance to shoot with a Leica M11-P for a few days around New York City. I needed to calibrate a lens that TTArtisan sent me (50mm F1.4 ASPH) and the easiest way to do that is with a digital rangefinder. Since I don’t have one, I asked my friend Faizal if I could quickly use his M11-P to do so, but since he was going away for a bit, he let me borrow the camera for that time.
In the week that I had it, I was able to use it for parts of three days in the city. However, it wasn’t exactly the first time I got to use it. When we were in Tokyo back in May, I shot with it for a few hours one night, but I didn’t really have much time to get familiarized with it. But now, after a few days and about 900 photos taken, here are some of my thoughts about this camera and the digital rangefinder system as a whole.
An overview.
So this is the most expensive camera I’ve had the chance to use in my years of doing photography. It retails for $9,840, and after taxes, you’re looking at a price tag that’s over $10,000.
But what exactly are you paying for?
Well let’s be honest, you’re partially paying for the name, and it’d be ignorant to think otherwise. Leica doesn’t exactly make cheap cameras, and that’s a pretty well-known thing.
On the other hand though, you’re paying for the experience, and spoiler alert — it’s a good one. There aren’t really a ton of camera brands making digital rangefinders today, and Leica does it well with their M system.
The M11-P boasts a 60mp full-frame sensor, 256GB of internal storage, triple-resolution technology (shoot at 60MP/36MP/18MP) that uses the entirety of the sensor, and Leica content credentials to help with photo authentication. The differences between the M11-P and the M11 include slightly different designs (M11-P does not have the red dot) and the M11 has less internal storage and does not include the Leica content credentials. However, they retail for the same price.
The shooting experience.
I’ve been very spoiled to fast cameras since I’ve mainly shot on Sony my entire career, so using the M11P was a significant change of pace — but I honestly really enjoyed it.
From the shutter sound, to the operation, and of course, the design of this camera, I was a bit surprised because I didn’t really think I’d gel with it as quickly as I did. I was always a bit biased towards Leica cameras because of their price tags, and I will say that there are a lot of more affordable cameras that have the same/better specs and features, but the shooting experience you get from using a digital rangefinder is pretty cool.
I’ve noticed that I feel a lot more connected with the process of taking photos when I’m manually focusing, and obviously that’s the only option you have with the M system. Now of course, I can still manually focus on my Sony, but the feeling is very different and it’s also a bit hard not to use autofocus when you have an AF system as good as Sony’s. Manually focusing also forces you to look through the viewfinder a lot more as opposed to relying on the LCD screen and autofocus, and I found that it helped me compose my images better instead of resorting to the screen.
The whole process and operation of using this camera slowed me down but I feel that it kind of suits my style of photography more, which is a more deliberate way of shooting. I’d consider my work to lean closer to the fine art side of street photography rather than the documentary side, and because of this, I find myself fishing for photos at pre-composed frames I find instead of being on the go and needing to be very quick to capture short, fleeting moments. Therefore, having a slightly slower camera system wasn’t necessarily a hindrance on most occasions.
The M11-P also has the highest resolution sensor from cameras I’ve been able to use, and this isn’t specific to the M11-P, but having 60MP gives you a lot more flexibility to crop and re-compose your images. Now if I was going to buy a camera this expensive, you better believe I’m going to use the sensor to its fullest capability, but if you need smaller file sizes for some reason, having the triple resolution technology on this camera is great. The important thing is that you can shoot in lower resolutions, but you’re still using the entirety of the sensor because it doesn’t achieve this through cropping, but pixel-binning instead.
Lastly, the files are nice. I can’t say I noticed too much of a difference from my Sony RAW files, but I think both require a good amount of editing to get them to a place I like (which I’m used to).
A few downsides.
This camera is prone to freezing and becoming unresponsive. Now this can often happen due to the type of SD card you’re using as well as the frame rate you’re shooting in, but it can be a bit frustrating. I used a Lexar 1667x SD card, and when I shot at a faster frame rate like 5fps, the camera would sometimes lag and take a while to store the files. Of course, if you get a faster card, this might be a non-issue, but it’s just something to be aware of.
You might already know this, and it’s not a weakness exactly, but this camera does not have any video capabilities — it’s strictly a stills camera. If you’re someone who needs video, this will not be the camera for you.I have to say, I did enjoy just being able to focus on taking photos without thinking that certain scenes might be worth filming. It removed an internal debate in my head, which was nice.
It also doesn’t have IBIS. That’s not really a big concern for me considering I don’t shoot at night or other low-light scenarios too often, but if you do, shooting at slower shutter speeds might result in some shaky images.
Would I buy one?
Honestly, I wouldn’t rule it out.
BUT…
By the time I was ready to drop the money on it, Leica might be on the M14 by then. Of course, you can always get an older model for cheaper, which is probably what I would do if I decided I wanted to invest in a digital M body later in the future.
At the end of the day though, it’s just another tool. If you want the experience of shooting on a digital rangefinder but you don’t want to spend $10,000+ on the M11-P, consider buying a used older model that’ll basically give you the same experience. The M system is really interesting, and there aren’t really a lot of other alternatives, so I think if you do decide to pull the trigger on one of these, you’ll be pretty happy.
It also helps if you already own M-mount glass, because you can use those on these cameras.
At this current moment, I’m pretty happy with my A7IV since it basically does everything I need it to, but I can definitely see myself wanting a stills-only camera later down the road for a different experience.
