I didn’t read the rumors of the Leica M11 purposely before I went into the meeting with Leica. To that end, I was genuinely surprised as to what I saw and experienced. For one week, I had personal play-time with the Leica M11. And overall, this has to be the best Leica M digital camera yet. The company gave us a ton of versatility while also giving us the Leica M9’s colors back. It’s almost the perfect M-camera. But even better, you’ll be very happy staring at the colors.

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Editor’s Note: This statement is from Leica: “All images were shot using a pre-production camera, so may not fully represent final image quality.” We were told that pretty much everything else is final.

Table of Contents

Too Long, Didn’t Read

Pros and Cons

Pros

Cons

Gear Used

Innovations

Tech Specs

Ergonomics

Build Quality

Ease of Use

Focusing

Metering

Image Quality

JPEG Quality

RAW File Versatility

High ISO Output

Extra Image Samples

Edited

Unedited

Conclusions

Likes

Dislikes

Too Long, Didn’t Read

The Leica M11 is a fantastic camera that’s basically three cameras in one. Shooting at 60MP gets you tons of details. At 36MP you’ll get a balance of details and high dynamic range. At 18MP, you’ll get a small RAW file and lots of dynamic range. It also feels great in the hand. But it’s also time for Leica to think about true weather sealing, building in an EVF, and a new style of viewfinder.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Leica M9’s colors have returned!

Extended dynamic range as the megapixels go down– Aluminum version and Brass version.– Brass version has some nice heft to it– Maybe it’s just that my unit isn’t busted but the viewfinder is wonderful– New Leica Fotos update– Integrated USB port for charging and all other applications like tethering– I’m assuming this is the Sony a7r IV’s sensor, which is fine because the autofocus on that camera annoyed me. And Leica is giving this the M9’s color, so I honestly can’t complain. – If you have a lens that won’t resolve this sensor then you can use the lower megapixel options. This is also the best camera I’ve used with the 7Artisans 50mm f1.1. At the highest resolution, this lens can resolve the sensor.– Editing the files even feels like Slide film!– Capture One does a slightly better job of editing the RAW files for dynamic range while Lightroom gets better colors; at least that’s the case for the pre-production firmware version we’ve tested.

Cons

$8,999

I don’t know how I feel about the removal of the traditional bottom plate.

In Adobe Lightroom, the dynamic range isn’t all that great at high ISOs. If you shoot like you’re shooting slide film, this is just fine. But I can see how folks will think this is traditionally a “con” vs a “pro.”

You lose a lot of dynamic range at high ISOs and 60MP settings. All of it comes back in droves at the lower megapixel settings

Sunny 16 metering is a tad wonky.

Gear Used

We tested the Leica M11 with the:

7Artistans 50mm f1.1

Funleader Contax 35mm f2

Leica 35mm f2 Summicron-M

Innovations

This is the first camera with an internal 64GB storage that acts as a second SD card. But more than that, this is a camera that gets more dynamic range the lower the megapixels go. Otherwise, this is just a Leica M through and through. We’re not sure if this is the Sony a7r IV’s sensor, and Leica won’t say where the sensor came from. But we can attest that they’ve actually done something to make it stand out.

Tech Specs

60MP BSI CMOS Full Frame Sensor

Maestro II processor

4.5 fps shooting

Aluminum (530 grams with battery) or brass body (640 grams with battery) option

ISO 64 to 6400 on the ISO dial

Silver or Black

Special IR + UV filter cut and placed onto the sensor, it’s incredibly thin

2.3MP LCD screen on the back

64GB of internal storage memory

Single SD card slot

USB-C charging

3GB of buffer memory

At lower resolutions, the dynamic range increases from 14 stop to 15 stops

Multi-field metering

Erg...