Thank you for everything you do to support and educate the Leica community! Bottom line is all 3 are excellent cameras. We just need to grab one, get out and shoot.
This video analysis offers a definitive comparison for me. I am on the list to buy the back-ordered M11, but after watching your demonstration, I am convinced that the M10M is a better choice for me. I started shooting b&w film on an M6 in the mid-90s and after switching to color with the M8, then M9, and M10 I felt something is missing. I love my b&w work. So, to be true to myself I'm going to reduce all my color variables and go monochrome. Thank you, and all the best!
Thank you for a fantastic comparison, also perfectly edited to cover a lot of ground in not much time. Like everyone else, I am blown away by the quality of the M10 monochrome. As to M11 vs M10R, you make a good point on higher noise; but as far as I can tell, the overall image quality and color rendition look better to my eyes on the M11 images, crisper, more "modern" and with pop factor. The M10R color looks a little yellowish, and its images overall look a little softer? It would have been great to also have a test in natural light, although I do hear your comments about the fact it comes with inevitable variation. Thank you again!!
Great video as always. It would be interesting to do a video comparing the M10 mono and the Q2 mono to see what Leica improves, if any, on the newer Q2 mono.
Thanks for the comprehensive easy to follow comparison It appears to me that in the real world, the image output between the M11 and the M10R would be indistinguishable unless direct comparisons were made
Spot-on. The M11 and M10-R are really close when it comes to image quality. The M11 has natively more resolution and more features but it preserves nicely the spirit of a true M-Camera.
Thank you for confirming what I have been seeing using my M10M and M11. The M10M remains as a spectacular camera. I believe that deep down all Leica users are black and white photographers. Vielen Dank für das sehr informative und tolle Video!
You've absolutely sold me on the Leica M10 Monochrom here -- not that I needed convincing! Unfortunately that doesn't help me afford one...but at least I know which one I want. :)
Very nice and informative comparison. Your study has helped me decide to keep my M10 Mono and my M10R instead of trading up to M11. I find that many Leica reviewers do not address the poor longevity of Leica upgrades. Between January 2017 and January 2022 (just 5 years), Leica released 5 new M cameras (M10, M10P, M10Mono, M10R and M11), each one touting superiority over the previous version. Reviewers should comment on the very, very poor lifespan of each M upgrade when suggesting that the upgrade is justified by image improvement.
Thanks for the video. I don't agree with 'deep pixels', I am not sure if this was just an expression of yours or something more scientific. I agree that the M Mono sensors are special in terms of the equivalent colour (bayer) resolution they can output. I.e when enlarging, they enlarge a huge amount better than normal bayer sensors, quite like a Foveon in that regard. But I don't agree that the normal Leica M Bayer sensors are special. Do you think instead of the sensor having 'deep pixels' what you are seeing is the amazing APO lens performance, which lends itself again to great quality and a high perceived resolution?
Excellent comparison. Pixel peeping yes, but this does translate to practical benefit for photographers of all disciplines. Intuitively, I 'knew' the 10M was good, but these results are quite extraordinary and give me confidence to explore the camera's capabilities. Who'd have thought - useable (indeed very good) images at ISO 50k! I was also very impressed by the 10R. The 11's light rendition was nice, but I thought the 10R did very well, particularly on the (total matte, I guess) lens focus ring. The matte rendition on the 11 did look comparatively poor.
Excellent comparison. I appreciate the attention to consistency and fixing the variables to make better apples to apples comparisons. I consider this science. I wouldn't have guessed that the M10R would slightly nudge out the M11 at ISO 6400 with respect to noise reduction. Yes, I would like one of each of these cameras. I just can't pull the trigger on a M11 because my M10R goes beyond my skill level. I switch hit with the SL2S and the M10R. The easiest Leica camera to use in my bag is the Q2 Monochrome. My intention was not to drag the discussion away from the topic, I just want to underscore how good Leica camera are.
Thanks for your comment, Jon, all three of these cameras as well as the Q2 you mentioned and the Q2 Mono are excellent cameras. Leica really pushes the envelope. The SL2S is a very good camera too, different "spirit" since it is a fully-fledged DSLM but you can hardly do anything wrong by shooting one of these cameras.
Thank you for another incisive and enlightening video. I’ve had my M10 Monochrom for about one year and just love it. I received my M11 Silver version, grip and thumb rest a few days ago and I’m having fun learning how to control it. I’m glad there is someone like yourself who has the knowledge and patience to create videos that are so helpful to the photography community. BTW, have you tried removing the sd card with the grip in place? I find it a little challenging, so I just take the grip off to remove it.
Many thanks, William. Really appreciate your kind words. I always leave the grip on when taking the SD Card out for transferring images. I never take it off. Works well.
I think this vid shows just how good the M10 monochrom is. Having said that, I’m still not sure I’d personally want to give up the colour info even when shooting for B&W because of the advantages it gives in post, but it certainly made me stop and wonder. In at least one of the comparisons of the M11 vs M10R, I found the colour noise of the M11 objectionable vs the M10R. The general luminance noise also was shown to be a little worse on the M11 vs the ‘R, but I find luminance noise more akin to film grain and less objectionable that the blotchy colour noise. I only have an M10D, and have not been shooting on Leica for that long. This really makes me wonder if I were to get another Leica body, if I’d really want to go for an M11. For me, I think the advantages of 60mp vs 40mp would be relatively minor. It then comes down to the ‘features’, and having used electronic shutters on other cameras, I seldom see this as much of an advantage. I’m not overly bothered about the baseplate change, or the battery change either. The ability to drop the resolution on the M11 raw files may come in handy if you shoot a Timelapse I guess, but I think you have shown it to not be such an advantage so far. I feel a stronger pull of the M10M and M10R I think, which seems some how ‘wrong’. Very interesting, thank you for taking the time and trouble to shoot and share.
Many thanks for you thoughts. I think if you do not care too much about the rich list of new features on the M11, the M10-R is a safe investment, can fully recommend all three cameras
Thanks for this comparison. It is a lot of valuable spade work to give us addicts a fix. It fits with what Sean Reid has demonstrated in his very detailed testing of these three cameras on his review site: the M10M is still in a league of its own when it comes to high ISO performance, the pleasing characteristics of luma noise, and its ability to shoot in low light. His results showed that this remained the case when using the lower res output from the M11 sensor. What I am struggling to see is that the 60MP ticket on the M11 actually out resolves the M10M. The former throws away a lot of information in the the process of making its colour image, the M10M does not. Whether you call it deep pixel or not, I cannot see any appreciable gain in the resolution of the images output by M11 compared to M10M. At ISO 160, for example, I found the details on the lens to be crisper than on the M11. I saw, for example, the very feint and fine texture on the barrel, not so on the M11. It is hard to tell from a YT video. Is it not possible to arrange DNG files which can be downloaded so that these finer aspects of image quality can be looked at ?
You are right, the M10 Mono is so much superior to every other camera when it comes to details, sharpness, low noise, etc. that no camera will be able to beat a modern monochrom sensor like the one in the M10M. But it lacks color, and many people want to have the color option. Thats why the Mono will always be a niche camera, best in class, but not mainstream. I love my Mono and when it really counts in low light the Mono is my preference.
Thanks for the informative video as always math! This video assures me at least i could live with my m10r black paint for at least another generation… dare to say not many others out there who exposed how minimal the performance differ between the M11 and the M10-r
The difference will get bigger when Leica issues improved firmware for the M11 but in general you are right, M10-R shooters can safely continue to enjoy their M10-R :)
Great vid thank you! I currently own both M11 & M10 in hand & have been comparing them for about a week now. (I’ve been shooting with M10 for about 3yrs) But I’m thinking that the difference in improvement is relatively small for a casual shooters like me. I am thinking of selling off one of them. I can sell M10 for about 4000USD & M11 for about USD8500. Maybe it’s a personal thing, but I’m leaning to sell off the M11. In your opinion, what factors make the M11 worth that extra 4500 USD ? Much appreciated!
Thanks Francisco. The M10 and M11 are quite close together in shooting performance. If the M10 made you happy for three years, why should you give up on it? Having said that, the M11 will improve over time with firmware upgrades, we have seen this many times before with new Leica gear. And I think when pixel binning finally has the right firmware implementation, that might be a big difference. I also think that the electronic shutter on a bright sunny day with wide open lens aperture is great to have. Whether the additional features are worth a price delta of $4500 is a truly personal judgment and decision. Cross fingers for you that you make the right choice :)
@@mathphotographer I'd keep the m10. Most of the M11 features are spec sheet features. The biggest benefit is probably the highlight recovery or if you need to crop
Thanks for your video. What I don’t understand is your comment that m11 is more noisy than m10r when photostophotons reports better dynamic range of the m11 at all iso values.
Thanks for the comment and hint, I did not look yet into photostophotons yet (I spend typically significant time at dpreview) and will do so to see what they did differently and what their conclusions are. As a matter of fact, the M11 has fantastic dynamic range as has the M10-R. Why you see a bit more noise on the M11 than on the M10-R when exposing to the left or right and then correcting in post is due to the significantly higher native resolution of the M11 sensor, that's kind of normal and to be expected.
@@mathphotographer Hi thanks for the discussion. I understand clearly that the smaller pixels you get higher noise but I think the signal should go higher if everything else is kept constant. The noise in the pixel is proportional to sqrt(kt/C) and the signal again is 1/C so smaller pixel = smaller C and the SNR should be higher. Unfortunately smaller pixel size fewer electrons and the dynamic range should be reduced but it looks like they have been able to improve the dynamic range by lowering the ISO and using the dual gain pixel design. On top of that, and as proven by Digloyd, when you rescale a 60mpix image to 40mpix you should see still a noise advantage for the higher pixel sensor because you have more data to play with and reduce the noise by averaging. It's kind of oversampling in math terms so to me photontophotos plots make sense. I wonder why the sensor in the M11 doesn't show any advantage with binning in terms of noise...( as you also pointed out )
Grüezi! Thanks for your insights and this well made comparison. Another interesting test would have been to purposely underexpose 3 stops and see how the sensors cope with noise from recovering shadows at higher ISO.Also here to my short experience so far the M11 is performing worse than the M10-R and especially the BSI Sensor of the SL-2S. It’s not a gamechanger but worth mentioning.
Yes - thats one of my standard tests, exposing to the left (ETTL). On each of the three cameras you find a video on my channel where I tested ETTL out. Thanks for the comment and positive feedback
Thanks for the ISO comparison. I tested M10-P and SL2-S high ISO images (iso 6400) and see that with M10-P when pushing exposure up to 2 stops or pushing shadows there are horizontal lines (banding) while no such lines with SL2-S images (probably, as it has BSI sensor). Could you please make such testing with M10, M10-R and M11?
Nice comparison. It would have been nice however to have seen the colour sensor images converted to B&W and treated in post to see how close you could have come to the Monochrom
@@mathphotographer I did a quick comparison between a Q2 Monochrom and my Fujifilm X-E4 after converting the RAF file to B&W and found that, although there was a slight difference in the microcontrast and dynamic range, it didn't really justify the huge disparity in cost. And when you think you're limited to just B&W in the Monochrom I honestly couldn't bring myself to buy the Monochrom. For me you'd need a really good argument to steer me away from the Leica SL (in the Leica range), unless of course you're intending to shoot constantly at very high ISO where the differences will be a lot more obvious. And I love my X-E4 too which punches way above it's weight, and price.
Sehr schönes Video, danke! Klasse auch, dass Sie das Apo-Summicron 35 mm asph. verwenden, da so die hohe Qualität der Kameras zum Tragen kommt. Mich hat vor allem der Unterschied zwischen M 11 und M 10-R interessiert. Die Qualität der Monochrom ist aber wirklich beeindruckend.
Excellent info, thanks so much :) I can hardly think how the M11 monochrome could be better.. maybe more resolution and keeping the same performance with the added bonuses of the M11 design and menu. But will that be worth the price difference? Would love to hear what you think! Regards from Mexico
Thanks Dan. I am pretty sure we will see an M11 Mono this year. And yes, it will have the new features but the image quality of the M10-Mono is hard to beat :) Leica's Mono cameras are all good. I recently shot an older Mono and was again super fascinated from the image quality. Best wishes over to you in Mexico :)
hello and thanks for the video. I see see that lightroom does not have the profiles for M11 and that it behaves a bit strange when you open an m11 photo. could this be a significant factor that needs to be taken into account in the comparison? thanks
I would not use 'deep pixel' hehehehe. Let me explain: A couple of years ago a Sony marketing guy (or maybe it was some sort of director) introduced it (deeper) and made a complete fool of himself. It was picked up by various serious YT channels/photographer and we had quite a laugh about it. Ted (you know who I am talking about) had even made some T-shirts about that subject, just for fun.
Great video - thanks for doing all the hard work. The Mono still rules.... I am interested in your thoughts on the colour performance of the M11 and 10-R. Clearly some difference here, but have you noticed any variation of significance in your shooting?
Thanks for you kind comment, Nick. The M10-R and M11 are really close together when it comes to image quality, color rendering and noise behaviour as well as dynamic range. There are minor differences here and there but nothing that really moves the needle from an image quality perspective. I also think the M11 needs firmware improvements, in particular on pixel binning. With the current firmware it does not provide a big gain in any way. I consider the M11 as a natural next step in the evolution of rangefinder cameras from Leica, more modern and "fresh", aligned in some elements to the SL2 and Q2, great new features like electronic shutter and three different DNG resolutions, etc. And you have a significantly higher native resolution of course.
Im surprised by the color difference between M11 and M10R. the M10R looks warmer side by side. would be interesting to get a color and DR comparison between the 2
There is something interesting going on in automatic white balance on the M11. I also discussed that with my friends from Leica. I think the Leica engineers need to come up with a firmware update, not only on pixel binning as said in the video but also on white balance. The way automatic white balance works on the Leica M11 is a bit off track in my opinion. And in the video I did not correct for that so the difference you see in coloring is very likely due to that and has nothing to do with a general pattern coming from the camera sensors.
Yes - this would have been an option but they decided for higher resolution. I personally believe they will improve noise behavior and dynamic range at lower DNG resolution in a firmware update.
I'm planning to get the M11 since the M10R isn't exactly favorable when you compare prices unless used which is a massive drop since the M10R came out 2 years ago. Only not pleased with the louder shutter of the M11 and to be honest not really need it right now. Just the GAS of owning the newest but M10P isn't that old and still very capable against the M11 at lower ISO. Would love the M11 lineup due to the better battery life but I'll hang tight for the M11D variation or M11P without the logo and hopefully a dampened shutter again.
I am sure the M11 gets close relatives like an M11 Mono and will further evolve. No need to rush in investments, take you time, assess whats best for you and then purchase the best camera for your workflow.
That is a difficult question. My personal guess is that Leica will bring an M11 Mono to market this year, I would be really surprised if not, since the adaption from the M11 to an M11 Mono is technically really simple and also would make sense. Having said that, the M10 Mono is sooo good that even if Leica brings an M11 Mono to market, the difference in performance will be very likely negligible. So if you feel attracted by the M10M, go for it. The camera will make you very happy :)
I bought it. Been shooting for 3 days and am in love with it. It is an amazing tool. Took some getting used to but now am pleased with the results. Thank you
In Some video’s You claim that leica m sensors are more better (details, contrast) than those of other brands with more megapixels. Can You tell why that is, do You have a video about that? I shoot leica m10.
You have understood an important thing: People do not want to look at a middle aged man waving his arms with a camera or without one. A visually oriented person understands this with no explanations. From what I have seen photographers presenting their materials, Are these photographers not visually oriented? Sounds counterintuitive.
For each of your three M-series rangefinder cameras "sharp focus" was achieved by your precisely merging two separate but identical images (of the Hasselblad camera) three times, once for each of your three cameras? You don't show this "precise focusing" step in your video. Is it safe for us to assume that you're really good at accurate "rangefinder," split image focusing?
Ha! I am not sure if I should clap on my own shoulders for being best in class in rangefinder focussing :) What made it easy here to precisely focus in exactly the same way on all three cameras is magnification in live view, focus peaking and range/zone focussing on the lens. This in combo with diligently having all three cameras at the same distance to the subject (Hasselblad camera) assures a fair comparison and no deviation in focus on all three cameras.
@@mathphotographer , I'm sure that many people - like me - watched your RUclips video in the hope that it would convince them once and for all that upgrading to the M11 was worthwhile - or not. You left me wondering whether or not the engraving on that Hasselblad was the right subject for your test. Did you consider using, say, a human face rather than the Hasselblad? I think you should have.
For the time being yes. Leica will improve that over time in firmware, we will get more out of pixel binning in the future. Technically speaking, pixel binning is a technique in computational photography and can be improved with firmware if the hardware is prepared for it - which it is in case of the M11.
My takeaway; If you own an M10r you might not want to upgrade. If you’re buying your first M10, you’d be a fool to not go M11 and pick up 20 megapixels, a better battery, and all the rest. Multiple resolutions is a gimmick, the pixel buckets are pressed into the sensor glass at the foundries and can’t be altered. 60 million pixels can’t pretend to be 37 million, it’s still 60. Gimmick.
Good take-away. Agree on the first half of your comment, spot-on. On the pixel binning: Leica will improve that. Its some better computational photography they need to implement and then the lower resolutions DNG files will become useful.
Unfortunately you do NOT resize pictures of different resolution. The results are not comparable. This is a big issue of this video and it is discussed in the Leica Forum. Fact is that at the end you have 2 prints that have the same dimensions (lets assume that both are 100cm wide and 66cm high) regardless if the pictures are taken with a medium format 200MPix camera or a 24MPix Full Frame camera. You are just ignoring that important point. That devaluates your whole work.
You are right in principal, Alex, and thanks for sharing your thought. But if I did it in the way you describe, the conclusions would not be different when it comes to the lower resolution DNG files. The conclusions I draw in the video are fully in line with observations others made. What the M11 needs is a firmware update to make pixel binning and the lower resolutions really shine. And there are also other improvements still missing on the M11, for instance, maybe you noticed that the "perspective correction" which came to the M10-R and M10 Mono in a firmware update last year is not available in the M11 although it is an important feature and does not make sense to have it in the M10-R and not in the M11. Clearly the Leica engineers had strict timelines to make the M11 market-ready but some important software pieces are still in the making and will come in form of firmware updates in the course of the year. When pixel binning algorithms are improved, I will test them again and will follow the "protocol" on print dimensions :)
You should have converted M11 & M10R images into BW, in order to compare their results against M10M. Let's take your M11 images at high ISOs, we can see the noise on Hasselblad consists of mix of blue & purple pixels, that appear at the same (or maybe very similar) brightness. Once converted into BW, the noise amount is going to be reduced. How much? We don't know, you didn't do that. I don't doubt your best intentions, but at the end your comparison is not fair. It does not compare how much BW noise is produced by M11 (and M10R) against M10M. Instead, you are comparing color vs bw, just like apple vs orange. About high ISO comparison about M11 vs M10R, well, the M11 images appear with higher contrast to me, while M10R ones seem to be slightly softer. Any noise reduction reduce the contrast and sharpness. Looking at your images, I cannot exclude that, after noise reduction, M11 images could be with higher contrast or sharpness, compared to the M10R ones.
For the sake of clarification, I'd say that, in my opinion, high ISO resistance is more related to keep sharpness and contrast, rather than just looking at the pixel noise. Once sharpness is gone, is gone. The noise can be lowered, but details cannot be recovered, once lost (unless using specific AI tools, but this is outside the topic).
That is a fair point, Cristiano. I intend to repeat testing when the M11 got its new firmware and will then in addition do B&W conversion. Some color noise will go away in B&W conversion, that's absolutely correct although the grain will not go away. But your comment is fair and I will take it into account for next testing round.
Absolutely right, Jean. This video is in a sense "clinical" because it creates with constant light and environment a "lab atmosphere" to test cameras side-by-side. Has by purpose nothing to do with art or with enjoyable photography. Its the nature of the topic of the video which leads to clinical images as you rightly so called them.
Thank you for everything you do to support and educate the Leica community! Bottom line is all 3 are excellent cameras. We just need to grab one, get out and shoot.
Ha! Yes going out and shoot! Many thx for your kind comment.
This video analysis offers a definitive comparison for me. I am on the list to buy the back-ordered M11, but after watching your demonstration, I am convinced that the M10M is a better choice for me. I started shooting b&w film on an M6 in the mid-90s and after switching to color with the M8, then M9, and M10 I felt something is missing. I love my b&w work. So, to be true to myself I'm going to reduce all my color variables and go monochrome. Thank you, and all the best!
The best and most comprehensive video comparison between these cameras I have seen so far. Thank you very much for this wonderful effort.
Thank you for a fantastic comparison, also perfectly edited to cover a lot of ground in not much time. Like everyone else, I am blown away by the quality of the M10 monochrome. As to M11 vs M10R, you make a good point on higher noise; but as far as I can tell, the overall image quality and color rendition look better to my eyes on the M11 images, crisper, more "modern" and with pop factor. The M10R color looks a little yellowish, and its images overall look a little softer? It would have been great to also have a test in natural light, although I do hear your comments about the fact it comes with inevitable variation. Thank you again!!
Great video as always. It would be interesting to do a video comparing the M10 mono and the Q2 mono to see what Leica improves, if any, on the newer Q2 mono.
Interesting suggestion, thanks Derrick.
Thanks for the comprehensive easy to follow comparison
It appears to me that in the real world, the image output between the M11 and the M10R would be indistinguishable unless direct comparisons were made
Spot-on. The M11 and M10-R are really close when it comes to image quality. The M11 has natively more resolution and more features but it preserves nicely the spirit of a true M-Camera.
Nice comparo! Sean Reid found that the M10-R outperforms the M11 on the edges (M11 better on center) with wider lenses and has less color cast.
Thank you for confirming what I have been seeing using my M10M and M11. The M10M remains as a spectacular camera. I believe that deep down all Leica users are black and white photographers. Vielen Dank für das sehr informative und tolle Video!
Herzlichen Dank! Yes - somehow we are all more or less monochrom shooters ;)
You've absolutely sold me on the Leica M10 Monochrom here -- not that I needed convincing! Unfortunately that doesn't help me afford one...but at least I know which one I want. :)
Ha! Thanks Matt. I cross fingers that you make it to get your M10 Mono, you will love it and will never regret to have bought one :)
Thanks for a wonderful and enjoyable in-depth test… I must say the subject looked unbelievably fantastic in Black and White.
Agree! The Apo Summicron M 35mm is fantastic, particularly in combination with the M10 Monochrom!
My favorite! Thanks Tom.
Very nice and informative comparison. Your study has helped me decide to keep my M10 Mono and my M10R instead of trading up to M11. I find that many Leica reviewers do not address the poor longevity of Leica upgrades. Between January 2017 and January 2022 (just 5 years), Leica released 5 new M cameras (M10, M10P, M10Mono, M10R and M11), each one touting superiority over the previous version. Reviewers should comment on the very, very poor lifespan of each M upgrade when suggesting that the upgrade is justified by image improvement.
Great if the video made sense to you and helped, thanks for the positive feedback.
A superb comparison and insight on all 3 cameras. Very enlightening and comprehensive. Many thanks Math!
Many thanks Lucy.
Thanks for the video. I don't agree with 'deep pixels', I am not sure if this was just an expression of yours or something more scientific. I agree that the M Mono sensors are special in terms of the equivalent colour (bayer) resolution they can output. I.e when enlarging, they enlarge a huge amount better than normal bayer sensors, quite like a Foveon in that regard. But I don't agree that the normal Leica M Bayer sensors are special.
Do you think instead of the sensor having 'deep pixels' what you are seeing is the amazing APO lens performance, which lends itself again to great quality and a high perceived resolution?
Excellent comparison. Pixel peeping yes, but this does translate to practical benefit for photographers of all disciplines. Intuitively, I 'knew' the 10M was good, but these results are quite extraordinary and give me confidence to explore the camera's capabilities. Who'd have thought - useable (indeed very good) images at ISO 50k! I was also very impressed by the 10R. The 11's light rendition was nice, but I thought the 10R did very well, particularly on the (total matte, I guess) lens focus ring. The matte rendition on the 11 did look comparatively poor.
This is such a lovely review, thanks from the bottom of my heart! The M11 will get better with firmware updates. But a Monochrome is simply delicious.
Perfect and best professional comparison
Excellent comparison. I appreciate the attention to consistency and fixing the variables to make better apples to apples comparisons. I consider this science. I wouldn't have guessed that the M10R would slightly nudge out the M11 at ISO 6400 with respect to noise reduction. Yes, I would like one of each of these cameras. I just can't pull the trigger on a M11 because my M10R goes beyond my skill level. I switch hit with the SL2S and the M10R. The easiest Leica camera to use in my bag is the Q2 Monochrome. My intention was not to drag the discussion away from the topic, I just want to underscore how good Leica camera are.
Thanks for your comment, Jon, all three of these cameras as well as the Q2 you mentioned and the Q2 Mono are excellent cameras. Leica really pushes the envelope. The SL2S is a very good camera too, different "spirit" since it is a fully-fledged DSLM but you can hardly do anything wrong by shooting one of these cameras.
Thank you for another incisive and enlightening video. I’ve had my M10 Monochrom for about one year and just love it. I received my M11 Silver version, grip and thumb rest a few days ago and I’m having fun learning how to control it. I’m glad there is someone like yourself who has the knowledge and patience to create videos that are so helpful to the photography community. BTW, have you tried removing the sd card with the grip in place? I find it a little challenging, so I just take the grip off to remove it.
Many thanks, William. Really appreciate your kind words. I always leave the grip on when taking the SD Card out for transferring images. I never take it off. Works well.
I think this vid shows just how good the M10 monochrom is. Having said that, I’m still not sure I’d personally want to give up the colour info even when shooting for B&W because of the advantages it gives in post, but it certainly made me stop and wonder.
In at least one of the comparisons of the M11 vs M10R, I found the colour noise of the M11 objectionable vs the M10R. The general luminance noise also was shown to be a little worse on the M11 vs the ‘R, but I find luminance noise more akin to film grain and less objectionable that the blotchy colour noise.
I only have an M10D, and have not been shooting on Leica for that long. This really makes me wonder if I were to get another Leica body, if I’d really want to go for an M11. For me, I think the advantages of 60mp vs 40mp would be relatively minor. It then comes down to the ‘features’, and having used electronic shutters on other cameras, I seldom see this as much of an advantage. I’m not overly bothered about the baseplate change, or the battery change either. The ability to drop the resolution on the M11 raw files may come in handy if you shoot a Timelapse I guess, but I think you have shown it to not be such an advantage so far. I feel a stronger pull of the M10M and M10R I think, which seems some how ‘wrong’.
Very interesting, thank you for taking the time and trouble to shoot and share.
Many thanks for you thoughts. I think if you do not care too much about the rich list of new features on the M11, the M10-R is a safe investment, can fully recommend all three cameras
Thanks for this comparison. It is a lot of valuable spade work to give us addicts a fix. It fits with what Sean Reid has demonstrated in his very detailed testing of these three cameras on his review site: the M10M is still in a league of its own when it comes to high ISO performance, the pleasing characteristics of luma noise, and its ability to shoot in low light. His results showed that this remained the case when using the lower res output from the M11 sensor. What I am struggling to see is that the 60MP ticket on the M11 actually out resolves the M10M. The former throws away a lot of information in the the process of making its colour image, the M10M does not. Whether you call it deep pixel or not, I cannot see any appreciable gain in the resolution of the images output by M11 compared to M10M. At ISO 160, for example, I found the details on the lens to be crisper than on the M11. I saw, for example, the very feint and fine texture on the barrel, not so on the M11. It is hard to tell from a YT video. Is it not possible to arrange DNG files which can be downloaded so that these finer aspects of image quality can be looked at ?
You are right, the M10 Mono is so much superior to every other camera when it comes to details, sharpness, low noise, etc. that no camera will be able to beat a modern monochrom sensor like the one in the M10M. But it lacks color, and many people want to have the color option. Thats why the Mono will always be a niche camera, best in class, but not mainstream. I love my Mono and when it really counts in low light the Mono is my preference.
Very happy with the APO lenses on my M10 Monochrom. A good investment for b&w photographers.
Fully agree Wilfried.
Great comparison. Very well done. Thanks!
Many thanks!
Thanks for the informative video as always math! This video assures me at least i could live with my m10r black paint for at least another generation… dare to say not many others out there who exposed how minimal the performance differ between the M11 and the M10-r
The difference will get bigger when Leica issues improved firmware for the M11 but in general you are right, M10-R shooters can safely continue to enjoy their M10-R :)
Great vid thank you! I currently own both M11 & M10 in hand & have been comparing them for about a week now. (I’ve been shooting with M10 for about 3yrs) But I’m thinking that the difference in improvement is relatively small for a casual shooters like me. I am thinking of selling off one of them. I can sell M10 for about 4000USD & M11 for about USD8500. Maybe it’s a personal thing, but I’m leaning to sell off the M11. In your opinion, what factors make the M11 worth that extra 4500 USD ? Much appreciated!
Thanks Francisco. The M10 and M11 are quite close together in shooting performance. If the M10 made you happy for three years, why should you give up on it? Having said that, the M11 will improve over time with firmware upgrades, we have seen this many times before with new Leica gear. And I think when pixel binning finally has the right firmware implementation, that might be a big difference. I also think that the electronic shutter on a bright sunny day with wide open lens aperture is great to have. Whether the additional features are worth a price delta of $4500 is a truly personal judgment and decision. Cross fingers for you that you make the right choice :)
@@mathphotographer I'd keep the m10. Most of the M11 features are spec sheet features. The biggest benefit is probably the highlight recovery or if you need to crop
You’re a casual photographer who can afford a Leica for their hobby? Way to flex, man.
How is the 50000 ISO of M11 vs SL2-S vs M10 Monochrom?
Thanks for your video. What I don’t understand is your comment that m11 is more noisy than m10r when photostophotons reports better dynamic range of the m11 at all iso values.
Thanks for the comment and hint, I did not look yet into photostophotons yet (I spend typically significant time at dpreview) and will do so to see what they did differently and what their conclusions are. As a matter of fact, the M11 has fantastic dynamic range as has the M10-R. Why you see a bit more noise on the M11 than on the M10-R when exposing to the left or right and then correcting in post is due to the significantly higher native resolution of the M11 sensor, that's kind of normal and to be expected.
@@mathphotographer Hi thanks for the discussion. I understand clearly that the smaller pixels you get higher noise but I think the signal should go higher if everything else is kept constant. The noise in the pixel is proportional to sqrt(kt/C) and the signal again is 1/C so smaller pixel = smaller C and the SNR should be higher. Unfortunately smaller pixel size fewer electrons and the dynamic range should be reduced but it looks like they have been able to improve the dynamic range by lowering the ISO and using the dual gain pixel design. On top of that, and as proven by Digloyd, when you rescale a 60mpix image to 40mpix you should see still a noise advantage for the higher pixel sensor because you have more data to play with and reduce the noise by averaging. It's kind of oversampling in math terms so to me photontophotos plots make sense. I wonder why the sensor in the M11 doesn't show any advantage with binning in terms of noise...( as you also pointed out )
This is excellent for all Leica lovers ❤️
Grüezi! Thanks for your insights and this well made comparison. Another interesting test would have been to purposely underexpose 3 stops and see how the sensors cope with noise from recovering shadows at higher ISO.Also here to my short experience so far the M11 is performing worse than the M10-R and especially the BSI Sensor of the SL-2S. It’s not a gamechanger but worth mentioning.
Yes - thats one of my standard tests, exposing to the left (ETTL). On each of the three cameras you find a video on my channel where I tested ETTL out. Thanks for the comment and positive feedback
Thanks for the ISO comparison.
I tested M10-P and SL2-S high ISO images (iso 6400) and see that with M10-P when pushing exposure up to 2 stops or pushing shadows there are horizontal lines (banding) while no such lines with SL2-S images (probably, as it has BSI sensor). Could you please make such testing with M10, M10-R and M11?
Nice comparison, but no mention of dynamic range?
Excellent comparison
Interesting. (love the Mono)
Quite impressive set up that Hassy.
Thanks for sharing !!
Thanks RS!
At 17:00 the photo of M11 seem to have purple cast. Is that because the sensor is more prone to IR pollution?
A program on the capture profiles would be a great help to the M11 & Leica novice.
Nice comparison. It would have been nice however to have seen the colour sensor images converted to B&W and treated in post to see how close you could have come to the Monochrom
Good point for another video, thanks Mike.
@@mathphotographer I did a quick comparison between a Q2 Monochrom and my Fujifilm X-E4 after converting the RAF file to B&W and found that, although there was a slight difference in the microcontrast and dynamic range, it didn't really justify the huge disparity in cost. And when you think you're limited to just B&W in the Monochrom I honestly couldn't bring myself to buy the Monochrom. For me you'd need a really good argument to steer me away from the Leica SL (in the Leica range), unless of course you're intending to shoot constantly at very high ISO where the differences will be a lot more obvious. And I love my X-E4 too which punches way above it's weight, and price.
Great comparison, I am looking to upgrade my M240, very useful information, Thank you!
Many thanks your your kind comment, Ping.
Sehr schönes Video, danke! Klasse auch, dass Sie das Apo-Summicron 35 mm asph. verwenden, da so die hohe Qualität der Kameras zum Tragen kommt. Mich hat vor allem der Unterschied zwischen M 11 und M 10-R interessiert. Die Qualität der Monochrom ist aber wirklich beeindruckend.
Excellent info, thanks so much :) I can hardly think how the M11 monochrome could be better.. maybe more resolution and keeping the same performance with the added bonuses of the M11 design and menu. But will that be worth the price difference? Would love to hear what you think! Regards from Mexico
Thanks Dan. I am pretty sure we will see an M11 Mono this year. And yes, it will have the new features but the image quality of the M10-Mono is hard to beat :) Leica's Mono cameras are all good. I recently shot an older Mono and was again super fascinated from the image quality. Best wishes over to you in Mexico :)
hello and thanks for the video. I see see that lightroom does not have the profiles for M11 and that it behaves a bit strange when you open an m11 photo. could this be a significant factor that needs to be taken into account in the comparison? thanks
Good hint - you can also use Capture One and I actually use Capture One a lot.
Great work!! Thanks for doing this comparison!
Pleasure 😎 Thanks for the positive feedback
I would not use 'deep pixel' hehehehe.
Let me explain:
A couple of years ago a Sony marketing guy (or maybe it was some sort of director) introduced it (deeper) and made a complete fool of himself.
It was picked up by various serious YT channels/photographer and we had quite a laugh about it.
Ted (you know who I am talking about) had even made some T-shirts about that subject, just for fun.
😉😇😎 Could have said crop reserves and potential print dimension - fair point and makes me smile 😉
Great video - thanks for doing all the hard work. The Mono still rules.... I am interested in your thoughts on the colour performance of the M11 and 10-R. Clearly some difference here, but have you noticed any variation of significance in your shooting?
Thanks for you kind comment, Nick. The M10-R and M11 are really close together when it comes to image quality, color rendering and noise behaviour as well as dynamic range. There are minor differences here and there but nothing that really moves the needle from an image quality perspective. I also think the M11 needs firmware improvements, in particular on pixel binning. With the current firmware it does not provide a big gain in any way. I consider the M11 as a natural next step in the evolution of rangefinder cameras from Leica, more modern and "fresh", aligned in some elements to the SL2 and Q2, great new features like electronic shutter and three different DNG resolutions, etc. And you have a significantly higher native resolution of course.
@@mathphotographer has it at all changed since the video was made? I’m deciding between M11 and M10-R.
Can i download the pictures?
Im surprised by the color difference between M11 and M10R. the M10R looks warmer side by side. would be interesting to get a color and DR comparison between the 2
There is something interesting going on in automatic white balance on the M11. I also discussed that with my friends from Leica. I think the Leica engineers need to come up with a firmware update, not only on pixel binning as said in the video but also on white balance. The way automatic white balance works on the Leica M11 is a bit off track in my opinion. And in the video I did not correct for that so the difference you see in coloring is very likely due to that and has nothing to do with a general pattern coming from the camera sensors.
@@mathphotographer yea AWB acts oddly compared to M10 in LV or even SL/Q
👍 thank´s for that informativ tech-video!🙏
I still think Leica should have stuck with 40 MP on the M11 and chosen instead to optimize noise and dynamic range at higher ISO values.
Yes - this would have been an option but they decided for higher resolution. I personally believe they will improve noise behavior and dynamic range at lower DNG resolution in a firmware update.
on the M11 you always use f11 while with other with f4, why?
Cool!
perfekt Video, thanks a lot!
Thank you so much
I'm planning to get the M11 since the M10R isn't exactly favorable when you compare prices unless used which is a massive drop since the M10R came out 2 years ago. Only not pleased with the louder shutter of the M11 and to be honest not really need it right now. Just the GAS of owning the newest but M10P isn't that old and still very capable against the M11 at lower ISO. Would love the M11 lineup due to the better battery life but I'll hang tight for the M11D variation or M11P without the logo and hopefully a dampened shutter again.
I am sure the M11 gets close relatives like an M11 Mono and will further evolve. No need to rush in investments, take you time, assess whats best for you and then purchase the best camera for your workflow.
DO you think it is a bad idea to buy an M10M right now? I have the M11 and M10R but have never had a mono.
That is a difficult question. My personal guess is that Leica will bring an M11 Mono to market this year, I would be really surprised if not, since the adaption from the M11 to an M11 Mono is technically really simple and also would make sense. Having said that, the M10 Mono is sooo good that even if Leica brings an M11 Mono to market, the difference in performance will be very likely negligible. So if you feel attracted by the M10M, go for it. The camera will make you very happy :)
I bought it. Been shooting for 3 days and am in love with it. It is an amazing tool. Took some getting used to but now am pleased with the results. Thank you
I’ll post tomorrow @blakeleica if any one wants to see some shots.
Fantastic, thanks a lot!
Glad you liked it, thx Pablo.
brilliant, thank you.
Thank you Anne.
The M10 has cooler output than the M11, which almost seems to have a magenta cast to it.
interesting :) yeah I love my Q2M :)
The Q2M is as excellent as the M10M, you are right to love it :)
@@mathphotographer your videos gave me the last push to go for the monochrome :) so, thank you
In Some video’s You claim that leica m sensors are more better (details, contrast) than those of other brands with more megapixels. Can You tell why that is, do You have a video about that? I shoot leica m10.
You have understood an important thing: People do not want to look at a middle aged man waving his arms with a camera or without one.
A visually oriented person understands this with no explanations. From what I have seen photographers presenting their materials,
Are these photographers not visually oriented? Sounds counterintuitive.
For each of your three M-series rangefinder cameras "sharp focus" was achieved by your precisely merging two separate but identical images (of the Hasselblad camera) three times, once for each of your three cameras? You don't show this "precise focusing" step in your video. Is it safe for us to assume that you're really good at accurate "rangefinder," split image focusing?
Ha! I am not sure if I should clap on my own shoulders for being best in class in rangefinder focussing :) What made it easy here to precisely focus in exactly the same way on all three cameras is magnification in live view, focus peaking and range/zone focussing on the lens. This in combo with diligently having all three cameras at the same distance to the subject (Hasselblad camera) assures a fair comparison and no deviation in focus on all three cameras.
@@mathphotographer , I'm sure that many people - like me - watched your RUclips video in the hope that it would convince them once and for all that upgrading to the M11 was worthwhile - or not. You left me wondering whether or not the engraving on that Hasselblad was the right subject for your test. Did you consider using, say, a human face rather than the Hasselblad? I think you should have.
Thanks. This pixel binning seems like a gimmick based on everything you have discussed.
For the time being yes. Leica will improve that over time in firmware, we will get more out of pixel binning in the future. Technically speaking, pixel binning is a technique in computational photography and can be improved with firmware if the hardware is prepared for it - which it is in case of the M11.
@@mathphotographer FYI just placed order for Q2 Reporter
@@mathphotographer If pixel binning is beneficial in future releases do you think there is any reason it could not be applied to 10-R or Q2 systems.
very god
My takeaway; If you own an M10r you might not want to upgrade. If you’re buying your first M10, you’d be a fool to not go M11 and pick up 20 megapixels, a better battery, and all the rest. Multiple resolutions is a gimmick, the pixel buckets are pressed into the sensor glass at the foundries and can’t be altered. 60 million pixels can’t pretend to be 37 million, it’s still 60. Gimmick.
Good take-away. Agree on the first half of your comment, spot-on. On the pixel binning: Leica will improve that. Its some better computational photography they need to implement and then the lower resolutions DNG files will become useful.
Unfortunately you do NOT resize pictures of different resolution. The results are not comparable. This is a big issue of this video and it is discussed in the Leica Forum. Fact is that at the end you have 2 prints that have the same dimensions (lets assume that both are 100cm wide and 66cm high) regardless if the pictures are taken with a medium format 200MPix camera or a 24MPix Full Frame camera. You are just ignoring that important point. That devaluates your whole work.
You are right in principal, Alex, and thanks for sharing your thought. But if I did it in the way you describe, the conclusions would not be different when it comes to the lower resolution DNG files. The conclusions I draw in the video are fully in line with observations others made. What the M11 needs is a firmware update to make pixel binning and the lower resolutions really shine. And there are also other improvements still missing on the M11, for instance, maybe you noticed that the "perspective correction" which came to the M10-R and M10 Mono in a firmware update last year is not available in the M11 although it is an important feature and does not make sense to have it in the M10-R and not in the M11. Clearly the Leica engineers had strict timelines to make the M11 market-ready but some important software pieces are still in the making and will come in form of firmware updates in the course of the year. When pixel binning algorithms are improved, I will test them again and will follow the "protocol" on print dimensions :)
The comparison was not so fair, the subject was 95% black.
You should have converted M11 & M10R images into BW, in order to compare their results against M10M. Let's take your M11 images at high ISOs, we can see the noise on Hasselblad consists of mix of blue & purple pixels, that appear at the same (or maybe very similar) brightness. Once converted into BW, the noise amount is going to be reduced. How much? We don't know, you didn't do that. I don't doubt your best intentions, but at the end your comparison is not fair. It does not compare how much BW noise is produced by M11 (and M10R) against M10M. Instead, you are comparing color vs bw, just like apple vs orange. About high ISO comparison about M11 vs M10R, well, the M11 images appear with higher contrast to me, while M10R ones seem to be slightly softer. Any noise reduction reduce the contrast and sharpness. Looking at your images, I cannot exclude that, after noise reduction, M11 images could be with higher contrast or sharpness, compared to the M10R ones.
For the sake of clarification, I'd say that, in my opinion, high ISO resistance is more related to keep sharpness and contrast, rather than just looking at the pixel noise. Once sharpness is gone, is gone. The noise can be lowered, but details cannot be recovered, once lost (unless using specific AI tools, but this is outside the topic).
That is a fair point, Cristiano. I intend to repeat testing when the M11 got its new firmware and will then in addition do B&W conversion. Some color noise will go away in B&W conversion, that's absolutely correct although the grain will not go away. But your comment is fair and I will take it into account for next testing round.
Clinical images in all: none suited for artistic photography!
Absolutely right, Jean. This video is in a sense "clinical" because it creates with constant light and environment a "lab atmosphere" to test cameras side-by-side. Has by purpose nothing to do with art or with enjoyable photography. Its the nature of the topic of the video which leads to clinical images as you rightly so called them.
my biggest dream in this life is to own a Leica M10…I hope I have a very nice camera in the future.. God help me🥹🙏🏼❤️