ISSUE 126
46 / GEAR
The ISO range runs from 125 up to 200,000 and, when armed with the superfast 35mm Noctilux lens, you have a dream combo for low light and night scenes
NIGHT CLUB Low-light scenes are a joy thanks to the fast lens and impressive files from the Leica duo. Noise is low and can be reduced in editing, too
The camera has three buttons to the left of the LCD for Play, Menu and Fn options. The Fn key defaults to turning Live View on and off, but can also be configured to any other function. And a button on the top-plate can be made to default to any particular menu option. A third function button is accessed by pressing the rear thumbwheel. A short press of either of the Fn buttons will bring up the last selected menu option. A long press makes the menu of available menu options appear. The thumbwheel can be set to either Focus Assist or Exposure Compensation. And there is a four-way rocker switch for navigation and confirmation. To change ISO, there’s a small knob on the top left of the camera that offers Auto ISO options. This locks but can be awkward to change in a hurry. You can always set ISO via the menus, which are logical and easy to scroll through. Mono quality is what it’s about The headline feature is Leica’s monochrome BSI CMOS sensor with Triple Resolution capture options. It means you can shoot DNG and JPEG files at 60, 36 or 18 megapixels depending on your specific workflow and storage needs. It would be hard to justify spending this much on a camera-and-lens set-up to use any other setting than the largest, though. Especially to save a few quid on hard drives or memory cards. As there’s no colour filter array, the camera doesn’t need to debayer data into luminance detail. In practice, that delivers the two things Monochrom cameras are loved for: crisp micro- detail and exceptionally smooth tonal transitions. Fine texture – skin, stone, fabric, weathered wood, hair – has a tactile realism that’s hard to replicate by converting a colour file to black & white. Leica claims the design helps push monochrome image quality to another level, aided by the omission of colour filters and the use of high- quality filter glass. Dynamic range is another strength, but the M11 Monochrom does reward highlight protection. Clipped highlights can arrive sooner than expected if you expose too brightly, so be warned. It pays to get your exposure right.
The upside is shadows can be lifted aggressively thanks to deep tonal information in the Raw files. High ISO performance and tonality are the camera’s biggest real-world advantages. The ISO range runs from 125 up to 200,000 and, when armed with the superfast 35mm Noctilux lens too, you have a dream combo for low light and nighttime scenes. Without the colour filter array, the images offer improved sensitivity and noise performance compared to the standard colour M11, with base ISO rising from 64 on the conventional M11 to 125 on the Monochrom. In practice, the camera produces clean midtones and pleasing grain-like noise at higher ISO settings, maintaining a filmic look rather than collapsing into mushy detail reduction. It makes you want to go out in low light and create images that ooze character. If you shoot indoors, in the evening or on winter streets, the Leica camera is liberating. You can work with available light and yet retain crisp edges and rich midtone separation, even when shutter speed and aperture choices would be limiting on many high-resolution colour cameras. And with great control of flare, you’re not going to get nasty, distracting sunbursts off light sources. Storage surprise One of the most practical upgrades in Leica’s M11 generation is storage. Alongside a UHS-II SD card slot that supports SDXC cards up to 2TB, the M11 Monochrom includes 256GB of internal memory. That’s enormous by camera standards and genuinely useful if you want to keep shooting without constantly managing cards. You can also treat it like a pseudo dual-slot set-up for overflow or file separation. Connectivity is also more up-to- date than older M cameras because USB-C is included, and Leica promotes mobile workflows via the Leica Fotos app, supporting image transfer and remote control. Of course, you can just use a memory card and put it in a reader. Transferring images from the internal drive via USB-C is a little more fiddly; the computer doesn’t see the camera’s memory as an external card or flash
PURITY OF USE The controls are basic but functional, although the ISO dial can be a bit fiddly. Plus, the all-black top- plate has subtle engravings
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