The K3 III (APS-C, 26 MP BSI sensor, max shutter speed 1/8000 s) is well priced, but it is not in the same league as the M11 Monochrom. It is also less expensive than Leica’s Q2 Monochrom (47 MP full-frame non-BSI sensor). Has anyone critically compared the dynamic range and EVFs (optional for M11) of these three cameras?
Man, I truly appreciate that brother. Thank you. I think you definitely gotta get hands-on with this one for a couple weeks. Curious to see what you think.
Can’t believe this is where we are. Had the typ246, then traded “up” to the Q2M. It’s fine, but quirky and I miss the rangefinder experience. It’s not even an experience; it’s an entirely different flow. Now with a long exposure setting of up to 60 minutes …. There’s just a lot. The things I thought I’d do with the Q2M (Macro, video snippets) I simply haven’t really done. I kept my 35mm Summilux for a reason. I knew I’d eventually go back to an M Monochrom. I almost pulled the trigger on the M10M, but by the time I got serious it was discontinued. I’m glad I waited. This looks so good. I’ll be trading the Q for this. Thanks for the great video.
Video with the Q2M can be fun. I've only done a few video clips but they turned out exceptional. It may be a coincidence that I happened to capture interesting scenes but one clip in particular would have been difficult with another camera as it was in very low light.
I would LOVE a B&W camera, for the added clarity and contrast, given the lack of RGB sensor. However, not for the price of a used car, sadly for me. Fujifilm, PLEASE give us a B&W camera - take my money! 💸
It still blows my mind that the m11 has 15 stops of dynamic range. I know as time goes on, cameras are just more and more actually computers with a lens on it, but Leica is still the closest thing you can get to the real deal. I'm still on the fence between an m10 or m11, waiting on a rental to arrive so I can try an M camera to see if it's for me. I pulled out my old film rangefinder yesterday and forgot how natural it is to look through the VF. That feeling of when you keep both eyes open and one eye "looks" blurry, then when the object is in focus it seems like you're just having normal vision. It's difficult to explain to anyone who has never used an RF before, but it's a fantastic feeling. If the M cameras are anything like that, I'm positive that I'll love the experience. I currently have an Xpro3 and Leica TL2, the M could possibly replace them both for me. Thanks for an awesome video here and showing this camera off! I used to think about Leica and how crazy expensive they are and then I gave it real thought. I always see people with Canikonyuji equipment and they seem to be selling it off every year or two. That's A LOT of money. Leica owners tend to keep the cameras for years. In the end of it all, is the price difference really all that different? Again, thanks for the awesome video and keep up the great content
The 15 stops is all in the shadows while anything with white in it clips. Useless!! Canon’s highlight priority and fuji’s dr400 mode fixes this poorly weight distribution of exposure across the sensor, at the expense of some shadow detail. In english that means you expose for the bride’s face and her dress isn’t clipped. Bride looks great on the back of the camera when you show her instead of dark image because you had to underexpose the shot to preserve the highlights! 🤦 …on a $9000 camera!
@@TheVFXbyArt you don't understand photography my brother... you can massively underexpose with the M11M, 7 stops even, and get full detail from the shadows....Highlights are just white paper, but if shadows are just black ink, then you lost the capture... 15 stops is 15 stops of dynamic range man.
@@annenominous7220 thats not knowing photography. Theres a reason why canon has highlight priority and fuji has its dr400. 15 stops of dynamic range where 14 is in shadow and 1 is in highlight is barely “dynamic” Shadow recovery? Yes thats tremendous, but at the expense of bright skys, front lit clouds, front lit wedding dresses, specular highlights in everything from metal to sweaty faces, backlit shots, high key shots. Barely dynamic. Yes, you can underexpose and, well, have dark images until you hit lightroom. Plenty of people and clients that want a peak at the back of your camera. All underexposed images. By contrast, fuji’s punny 11.2 stops of DR, in their dr400 mode, puts about 3-5 stops for highlights alone, and the remaining 6.2-8.2 stops in shadow detail. What does that mean in english? Especially with fuji’s tone curves? (Leica introduced this with the m11) Bright skies and clouds with highlight detail and depth. Wedding dresses that aren’t clipped, specular highlights with a filmic rolloff. All with a normal exposure, no “expose for the right” underexposing. No dark images that you have to make excuses for while your client’s iphone photo “looks better”. So I’ll take fuji’s balanced 11.2 DR over leica’s shadows centric 15 DR with clipped highlights any day. And I love Leica, hence why I comment at every new leica release about this issue. Thanks for reading!!!
Can't wait to see what leica q3 monochrom brings to the table... Regarding internal memory I think that the latest hasselblad(x2d) has 1TB internal memory. One interesting feature though would be to record data directly to a usb c solid state drive.
As always G, a great video, really enjoying your content especially lately, you’ve been “enfuego”… On Fire…. 🔥. I have the M11, M10M and Q2, but I’m really seeking to sell off all to end up with an M11M and SL2s. I’m primarily (95%) B&W shooter, professional B&W fine art photographer and the SL2s with the 35MM SL lens combo package which has a great rebate right now replaces the Q2 and the M11M is enough of an upgrade over the M10M to finish off a perfect kit for my needs. Everyone has a different need or task that we focus on and I love how you constantly mention that in all your videos. We each have different styles and we need to pick the tools that best serve our needs. I love how you always go back to that as you are showing the work samples and discussing the pro’s / con’s. Also greatly enjoy your delivery and presentation and how you throw in the passionate “bleeped out words” once in a while for humor effect. Well done brother, keep moving forward and upward, I’m enjoying following your journey. Bravo. 👏📷🖤📷
8:43 Leica really needs to implement fuji’s dr400 mode that sacrifices some if tge shadow dr (usually 15 stops) for some extra highlight dr (usually 1) Metering for highlights only means dark images on the back of the camera. Fuji got this right by effectively weighing the dr range more evenly along the sensor, resulting in OOC images WITHOUT clipped highlights. The monochrom needs this even more!!
Yea, that’s one way. Instead of a preview, Leica gives a truer way to get more dynamic range by changing the sensor resolution. Doesn’t solve the preview problem, but maybe they can add shadow/highlight in JPEG recipes as a stop-gap.
@@GajanBalan hey man. Great video. Rented the m11, shot with it at the same event with my fuji. Shot at the Lower 18mp range. Saw zero difference in DR from full Raw size. The system that canon and fuji use is NOT a preview. The image in underexposed in camera, corrected in camera, so that the image you see both in LR and in the back of your camera are the same: an “underexposed image” with mids and blacks boosted to bring the image back to normal. Your day photo shot at f8, 1/1000 sec (because the iso was at 640) looks normal, but with detail in the highlights. On the Leica, I’D have to UNDEREXPOSE my image by two stops, wait to get to LR. Do the same operations above to get the same results. Like I said, this is all software, dunno why Leica doesn’t implement this. It would make their cameras perfect!
Is it possible some of the differences in the comparison are related to the sensor improvements of a newer camera, rather than just a result of the monochrom nature of the sensor?
Looking good doesn't automatically mean being good! Being extremely expensive does not automatically mean it is practical! For hipsters, amateurs and wannabe photographers, this is the best choice.
I really wish some of the other camera OEMs would come out with monochrome cameras. As much as I love the Leica cameras, I just can’t justify that price (right now anyways 😅)
@@GajanBalan only downside that I can see is it’s an APS-C sensor….and the body doesn’t look near as good as the Leica hahaha. Good to know either way.
I don't think the Monochrome is for me as I rarely do B&W, but I DO wonder if Leica is going to import those slight updates (larger internal storage and Sapphire Crystal) over to the "regular" M11. It seems from a durability standpoint, that would make sense. I've been beating down the path to snag an M11 for myself, and now I wonder if I should wait just a little longer. lol.
I would rather capture a moment with artistic composition than be worried about dynamic range, accuracy or precision. The best photographs are from the film sniper days.
beautiful video.. a question in what position do you set the iso and the speeds and aperture of doafragma, for street photos...? Finally... what iso do you feel more like to avoid noise in the photos?
Wonderful video and very informative. I recently bought the m11 2 weeks back. But I only do black and white (fyi I'm not a pro). I still have the option of returning but then I do away with the option of color (even its 0.1% of the time). Would you recommend returning the m11 and going for the m11 M instead? Or are the differences not noticeable between the m11 and m11 M in post processing?
I switched from Lightroom years ago for several reasons but you’ve inspired me to turn this into a post on my foto club. I’ll look to drop a proper answer there in the coming weeks www.churchxstreet.com/
It’s not officially supported, so some results (esp. high ISO) might render differently right now. There’s a good amount of latitude to work with but I think the official support will fix the quirks.
if you can adjust the color channels of the M11 , then doesn't that in effect give your BW image even more tonality than the M11 Mono after you process it? Also, underexposing the shot with the M11 Mono to make sure the highlights are not clipped - also negates some of the high iso advantage over an normal M11. I think the M11 Mono would be for that person who wants to be forced to think in BW or who want the best BW Jpeg image they can get (assuming they can get their highlights right 100% of the time)
Adjusting the channels on the M11 aren’t giving you more tonality, they’re altering the existing data. And not entirely, since you have quite a bit of dynamic range to pull back for an underexposed shot.
Vs M11. Can’t you fix the difference in tonality in post? Vs M10M which you don’t mention. How does the light metering in practice compare? (I did not like the reflective light metering of the latter and its susceptibility to blowing out the highlights without appropriate compensation). It would be good to hear YOUR M10M VS M11M view. Look- I love the colour, texture and feel. Don’t like the top imbalance - one top side is curved. The other end is straight with the circular ISO button. Never liked this. Separate Q: Very curious how you compare your SL (whatever one you use) to your GFX1OOs.
OMG LOL, that's all I have to say. I spend $3K for a camera, any camera and take the $6K difference to travel and take some awesome Black and White photos.
@@GajanBalan agreed, I'm just talking about that screw on the face plate, it's an ugly one and it seems like it's the only detail Leica doesn't pay attention to (it's also on many other cameras).
@@REMY.C. you can actually turn it with a screwdriver for vertical focus adjustment. It is so troublesome when there is a red button logo cover because you have to take off the glue and risk chipping the paint off the camera.
Join my foto club at www.churchxstreet.com ✌🏾
Pentax announcing their monochrome camera with a great price the day before the 9,000 dollar Leica is amazing.
Market stays winning 😂
The K3 III (APS-C, 26 MP BSI sensor, max shutter speed 1/8000 s) is well priced, but it is not in the same league as the M11 Monochrom. It is also less expensive than Leica’s Q2 Monochrom (47 MP full-frame non-BSI sensor). Has anyone critically compared the dynamic range and EVFs (optional for M11) of these three cameras?
But the Pentax is APS C sensor not full frame
I have an old pentax zx-5 with a f1.9 43mm ….. im now pentax-curious!
@@TheVFXbyArt you have the Pentax 43mm f1.9 Limited? Nice lens. I’ve also got it’s siblings 31mm f1.8 and 77mm f1.8. They are a lovely trio
Wow so many videos out for this camera and Gajan has the best one for sure. I'm pretty committed to bnw film but gotta play with this thing.
Man, I truly appreciate that brother. Thank you. I think you definitely gotta get hands-on with this one for a couple weeks. Curious to see what you think.
Best coverage of the M11M and love the cheeky start to the video.
Can’t believe this is where we are. Had the typ246, then traded “up” to the Q2M. It’s fine, but quirky and I miss the rangefinder experience. It’s not even an experience; it’s an entirely different flow. Now with a long exposure setting of up to 60 minutes …. There’s just a lot. The things I thought I’d do with the Q2M (Macro, video snippets) I simply haven’t really done. I kept my 35mm Summilux for a reason. I knew I’d eventually go back to an M Monochrom. I almost pulled the trigger on the M10M, but by the time I got serious it was discontinued. I’m glad I waited. This looks so good. I’ll be trading the Q for this. Thanks for the great video.
Video with the Q2M can be fun. I've only done a few video clips but they turned out exceptional. It may be a coincidence that I happened to capture interesting scenes but one clip in particular would have been difficult with another camera as it was in very low light.
I would LOVE a B&W camera, for the added clarity and contrast, given the lack of RGB sensor. However, not for the price of a used car, sadly for me. Fujifilm, PLEASE give us a B&W camera - take my money! 💸
If fuji gave us a monochrome xpro or x100….. you think we have an x100v supply chain issue now?!?!? 🤣😱
It still blows my mind that the m11 has 15 stops of dynamic range. I know as time goes on, cameras are just more and more actually computers with a lens on it, but Leica is still the closest thing you can get to the real deal. I'm still on the fence between an m10 or m11, waiting on a rental to arrive so I can try an M camera to see if it's for me. I pulled out my old film rangefinder yesterday and forgot how natural it is to look through the VF. That feeling of when you keep both eyes open and one eye "looks" blurry, then when the object is in focus it seems like you're just having normal vision. It's difficult to explain to anyone who has never used an RF before, but it's a fantastic feeling. If the M cameras are anything like that, I'm positive that I'll love the experience. I currently have an Xpro3 and Leica TL2, the M could possibly replace them both for me. Thanks for an awesome video here and showing this camera off! I used to think about Leica and how crazy expensive they are and then I gave it real thought. I always see people with Canikonyuji equipment and they seem to be selling it off every year or two. That's A LOT of money. Leica owners tend to keep the cameras for years. In the end of it all, is the price difference really all that different? Again, thanks for the awesome video and keep up the great content
The 15 stops is all in the shadows while anything with white in it clips.
Useless!!
Canon’s highlight priority and fuji’s dr400 mode fixes this poorly weight distribution of exposure across the sensor, at the expense of some shadow detail.
In english that means you expose for the bride’s face and her dress isn’t clipped. Bride looks great on the back of the camera when you show her instead of dark image because you had to underexpose the shot to preserve the highlights! 🤦
…on a $9000 camera!
@@TheVFXbyArt you don't understand photography my brother... you can massively underexpose with the M11M, 7 stops even, and get full detail from the shadows....Highlights are just white paper, but if shadows are just black ink, then you lost the capture... 15 stops is 15 stops of dynamic range man.
@@annenominous7220 thats not knowing photography. Theres a reason why canon has highlight priority and fuji has its dr400.
15 stops of dynamic range where 14 is in shadow and 1 is in highlight is barely “dynamic”
Shadow recovery? Yes thats tremendous, but at the expense of bright skys, front lit clouds, front lit wedding dresses, specular highlights in everything from metal to sweaty faces, backlit shots, high key shots.
Barely dynamic.
Yes, you can underexpose and, well, have dark images until you hit lightroom. Plenty of people and clients that want a peak at the back of your camera. All underexposed images.
By contrast, fuji’s punny 11.2 stops of DR, in their dr400 mode, puts about 3-5 stops for highlights alone, and the remaining 6.2-8.2 stops in shadow detail.
What does that mean in english? Especially with fuji’s tone curves? (Leica introduced this with the m11) Bright skies and clouds with highlight detail and depth. Wedding dresses that aren’t clipped, specular highlights with a filmic rolloff.
All with a normal exposure, no “expose for the right” underexposing.
No dark images that you have to make excuses for while your client’s iphone photo “looks better”.
So I’ll take fuji’s balanced 11.2 DR over leica’s shadows centric 15 DR with clipped highlights any day. And I love Leica, hence why I comment at every new leica release about this issue.
Thanks for reading!!!
Can't wait to see what leica q3 monochrom brings to the table... Regarding internal memory I think that the latest hasselblad(x2d) has 1TB internal memory. One interesting feature though would be to record data directly to a usb c solid state drive.
As always G, a great video, really enjoying your content especially lately, you’ve been “enfuego”… On Fire…. 🔥. I have the M11, M10M and Q2, but I’m really seeking to sell off all to end up with an M11M and SL2s. I’m primarily (95%) B&W shooter, professional B&W fine art photographer and the SL2s with the 35MM SL lens combo package which has a great rebate right now replaces the Q2 and the M11M is enough of an upgrade over the M10M to finish off a perfect kit for my needs. Everyone has a different need or task that we focus on and I love how you constantly mention that in all your videos. We each have different styles and we need to pick the tools that best serve our needs. I love how you always go back to that as you are showing the work samples and discussing the pro’s / con’s. Also greatly enjoy your delivery and presentation and how you throw in the passionate “bleeped out words” once in a while for humor effect. Well done brother, keep moving forward and upward, I’m enjoying following your journey. Bravo. 👏📷🖤📷
Thank you ✊🏾
Great video, this was way more engaging than someone reading off the spec sheet
1:32 Perfectly summed up
Not for me due to not shooting in B&W often, BUT I do appreciate this for B&W shooters.
Enjoyable as always, although I wonder if it's worth upgrading from the M10M.
It’s really gonna come down to that resolution and dynamic range; whether or not it’s worth it for the work someone does.
8:43
Leica really needs to implement fuji’s dr400 mode that sacrifices some if tge shadow dr (usually 15 stops) for some extra highlight dr (usually 1)
Metering for highlights only means dark images on the back of the camera.
Fuji got this right by effectively weighing the dr range more evenly along the sensor, resulting in OOC images WITHOUT clipped highlights.
The monochrom needs this even more!!
Yea, that’s one way. Instead of a preview, Leica gives a truer way to get more dynamic range by changing the sensor resolution. Doesn’t solve the preview problem, but maybe they can add shadow/highlight in JPEG recipes as a stop-gap.
@@GajanBalan hey man. Great video. Rented the m11, shot with it at the same event with my fuji. Shot at the Lower 18mp range. Saw zero difference in DR from full Raw size.
The system that canon and fuji use is NOT a preview. The image in underexposed in camera, corrected in camera, so that the image you see both in LR and in the back of your camera are the same: an “underexposed image” with mids and blacks boosted to bring the image back to normal. Your day photo shot at f8, 1/1000 sec (because the iso was at 640) looks normal, but with detail in the highlights.
On the Leica, I’D have to UNDEREXPOSE my image by two stops, wait to get to LR. Do the same operations above to get the same results.
Like I said, this is all software, dunno why Leica doesn’t implement this. It would make their cameras perfect!
Terrific video. I am thinking the M11 Monochrom and my Q2 would be the perfect kit. I think you talked me out of a planned SL-2S purchase.
Nice! Enjoy the journey ✌🏾
I already love my Q2 Monochrom. I'm looking forward to trying this beast.
Definitely worth a test drive 👌🏾
Great review, thanks for sharing your thoughts on that camera!
Is it possible some of the differences in the comparison are related to the sensor improvements of a newer camera, rather than just a result of the monochrom nature of the sensor?
I might be blind but can’t say I can see a significant difference between the comparison shots, good review all the same.
It’s may even be trickier to see through TH-cam.
Looking good doesn't automatically mean being good!
Being extremely expensive does not automatically mean it is practical!
For hipsters, amateurs and wannabe photographers, this is the best choice.
lol k
I really wish some of the other camera OEMs would come out with monochrome cameras. As much as I love the Leica cameras, I just can’t justify that price (right now anyways 😅)
Pentax dropped one. RED technically offers one (albeit, cinema). I’m hoping we might see more options in the future.
@@GajanBalan only downside that I can see is it’s an APS-C sensor….and the body doesn’t look near as good as the Leica hahaha.
Good to know either way.
I don't think the Monochrome is for me as I rarely do B&W, but I DO wonder if Leica is going to import those slight updates (larger internal storage and Sapphire Crystal) over to the "regular" M11. It seems from a durability standpoint, that would make sense. I've been beating down the path to snag an M11 for myself, and now I wonder if I should wait just a little longer. lol.
The M11P would have these.
I hope there’s an M11-P with these updates in the future.
Those 3d parabolic transitions? Siick.
Wow, the differences are so subtle, I hardly can see anything. It is too expensive for me anyway, but I guess my eyes are not good enough :-)
Haha, it’s all a matter or perspective. Thanks for watching ✌🏾
I would rather capture a moment with artistic composition than be worried about dynamic range, accuracy or precision. The best photographs are from the film sniper days.
What about the problem with noise showing up in a textured pattern?
beautiful video.. a question in what position do you set the iso and the speeds and aperture of doafragma, for street photos...?
Finally... what iso do you feel more like to avoid noise in the photos?
It depends, but I’m not as picky with noise. I’ll likely make a video in the future around my street settings. Thanks for watching!
Great review with some really useful insights. Congrats on getting it 1st out of the gate.
Wonderful video and very informative. I recently bought the m11 2 weeks back. But I only do black and white (fyi I'm not a pro). I still have the option of returning but then I do away with the option of color (even its 0.1% of the time). Would you recommend returning the m11 and going for the m11 M instead? Or are the differences not noticeable between the m11 and m11 M in post processing?
That’s a tough decision that only you can make. If you can live without colour, the experience is simply better on M11 Monochrom.
The black screw. I just don’t understand why that’s better than a cosmetic cover. I would have preferred a black and white Leica logo.
No branding. There’s a sizeable contingent of users that just prefer a clean camera where a black/white logo would be reserved for a special edition.
that black screw is not just for design. You can actually turn it to calibrate the range finder vertical focusing.
Oh really?! I had no idea. I’m new. Just got the m11 and 50apo. Thanks for replying.
gotta have it!
Is there a reason why you use Capture One over Lightroom?
I switched from Lightroom years ago for several reasons but you’ve inspired me to turn this into a post on my foto club. I’ll look to drop a proper answer there in the coming weeks www.churchxstreet.com/
@gajan I got mine today and the files seemed super weird in capture one. Did you notice that there isn’t a profile yet?
It’s not officially supported, so some results (esp. high ISO) might render differently right now. There’s a good amount of latitude to work with but I think the official support will fix the quirks.
Better dynamic range than a m8 with TMax? Bold
Haha, I mean… depends on the photographer in that case 😅
Gajan, how do I get to know about your church and street photography club?
www.churchxstreet.com
if you can adjust the color channels of the M11 , then doesn't that in effect give your BW image even more tonality than the M11 Mono after you process it? Also, underexposing the shot with the M11 Mono to make sure the highlights are not clipped - also negates some of the high iso advantage over an normal M11. I think the M11 Mono would be for that person who wants to be forced to think in BW or who want the best BW Jpeg image they can get (assuming they can get their highlights right 100% of the time)
Adjusting the channels on the M11 aren’t giving you more tonality, they’re altering the existing data. And not entirely, since you have quite a bit of dynamic range to pull back for an underexposed shot.
When is the M11-P coming out?
No idea. I hope it’s when I’ve actually saved enough to get one though 😅
Vs M11. Can’t you fix the difference in tonality in post?
Vs M10M which you don’t mention. How does the light metering in practice compare? (I did not like the reflective light metering of the latter and its susceptibility to blowing out the highlights without appropriate compensation). It would be good to hear YOUR M10M VS M11M view.
Look- I love the colour, texture and feel. Don’t like the top imbalance - one top side is curved. The other end is straight with the circular ISO button. Never liked this.
Separate Q: Very curious how you compare your SL (whatever one you use) to your GFX1OOs.
Hello , Kindly share link to download original raw and jpeg file if possible , Thanks .
Nice review and input! Your work is beautiful also 😊
Thank you 🙏🏾
First rule of photography don't share who you snuffed out with plastic bags
🤣🤣🤣
Excellent review
Is there a function to simulate color filters or do I have to attach one just like with b+w film?
You can, there’s a toning option to create JPEGS in three different tones at varying strengths.
@@GajanBalan but not for DNGs? That sounds odd
@@FlosBlog makes sense that you wouldn't be able to bake it in the raw files since you can do that in your editing software
@@andrewcphan no, because the file has no color information and (at least lightroom) cannot change the tones - as the video has shown
@@FlosBlog there's no tones to change since there's not colour being captures. It pure luminance.
Hands down the best looking camera on the market…
OMG LOL, that's all I have to say. I spend $3K for a camera, any camera and take the $6K difference to travel and take some awesome Black and White photos.
No one cares
use this to take the original photos and then AI to colourize it
😂 I like it
A black screw on the face of a multi thousands dollars camera?
At least Leica, make it level or prettier.
It’s not gonna be for everyone, I genuinely love it though.
@@GajanBalan agreed, I'm just talking about that screw on the face plate, it's an ugly one and it seems like it's the only detail Leica doesn't pay attention to (it's also on many other cameras).
@@REMY.C. you can actually turn it with a screwdriver for vertical focus adjustment. It is so troublesome when there is a red button logo cover because you have to take off the glue and risk chipping the paint off the camera.
@@j5daniel182 oh! Thanks a lot for that information Daniel. I didn't know it was a focus screw. Yet I'd prefer a prettier and more symmetrical one :-D
wat makes it interesting is paying $10k usd for a garbage camera
username checks out
@@GajanBalan imagine paying $10k for a camera that's worse than a $2k sony, bUt iT loOks So oLd scHoOL brO