THE LEICA M9 REAL WORLD REVIEW

PAGE 1 - THE FULL FRAME BEAUTY ARRIVES

PAGE 2 - The goods. What comes in the box and what’s new?

PAGE 3 - Is FULL FRAME really that much better?

PAGE 4 - High ISO low light photography, and the M9

PAGE 5 - Color - M9 packs a PUNCH!

PAGE 6 - Some M9 Black & White conversions

PAGE 7 - The 35 Summilux and the M9 - A match made in heaven or hell?

PAGE 8 - Full Frame = Vignetting? Not on the M9!

PAGE 9 - Untouched Full Size Sample Downloads

PAGE 10 - My favorite images form my time with the M9

PAGE 11 - More M9 from other Leica photographers

PAGE 12 - My final thoughts and conclusion

PAGE 13 - Why I prefer shooting with a rangefinder camera.

NEW! > - My Ongoing Leica M9 Daily Diary - Updated DAILY!

PAGE 2 - What’s in the box & what’s new with the M9?    next---->

So what comes in the box? Here is my little video showing the “Un-boxing of the Leica M9”

So what about the new features and what do they mean? Basically, what do you get for the extra $1000 over an M8.2?

FULL FRAME SENSOR - What this boils down to is now you will get to use all of those beautiful Leica M lenses to their full potential. Instead of the cropped sensor of the M8/M8.2, which ended up only using a part of the lens, with the M9 you now will be seeing your images in the way they were designed to be used. Your images will be using the ENTIRE lens. This is important because, well, because it is! Your images will have an even more unique look. If you like shooting fast glass, like a 35 Summilux ASPH at 1.4 wide open, then you are in for a treat. You can now achieve an even creamier look with your images. Yes, full frame is a blessing to shallow depth of field shooters. I shoot ALL of my lenses wide open 98.6% of the time, so I am loving the idea of a FF sensor.

Imagine...your 35 Summilux will act like a 35 Summilux! It will not be a crippled lens appearing to be a 50mm. The results can be magical, but simple. Pure, real, and almost spookily tangible.

Here is the very first image I took with the Leica M9. I set the 35 Summilux to 1.4, the camera to auto white balance, and fired away. I added some vignetting here for effect and the color, exposure, and contrast was untouched. I processed the image with ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) and when I saw it on the LCD  I said, “OH YEA! Now this is it!” The Auto White Balance nailed it, the color was spot on, and the magical look of the 35 Lux was there in spades. You can click on the image for a larger version.

IMPROVED LOW & HIGH ISO SHOOTING - With the Full Frame Sensor in the M9, you also get better high ISO performance over the M8/M8.2. What you will not get is the high ISO of a Nikon D700 or Canon 5D. While it has improved greatly over the M8.2 (from my experience), it is not up there with the better DSLR’s. For me and many others, the ISO 2500 of the M9 will be all we ever need. I went out AT NIGHT and shot some images with some street lamps and even without. All at ISO 2500, which is the MAX ISO of the M9. The results were great and I was a happy man. I will NEVER shoot in complete blackness, nor will anyone else for that matter! If you think you need to then you need a flashlight, not a camera. When you see my ISO test page, you will see that the M9 is much improved over the M8.2 and that is due to this Full Frame Sensor and some software tweaks by Leica. We also get a “pulled” ISO 80 now, meaning it will be easier to shoot your fast glass in the daylight.

NEW SHUTTER MODE “SOFT” - The M9 continues with the M8.2 shutter upgrades and adds a new feature called “SOFT”. When I saw this, I was like, “COOL!!! A new shutter mode!” - BUT, after shooting with it for 2 days, I still prefer the STANDARD mode. With SOFT release, the shutter is ultra-sensitive and the slightest touch fires off the image. You also lose the exposure lock with the half press. I can see using this when speed is an issue. If you want to get the shot off as fast as possible, then use soft. Leica says it helps reduce vibration for slower shutter speeds. If this is true, then I would use it in that situation as well. It is definitely sensitive and I will need more than three days to really know if I prefer it to the Standard mode.

RESOLUTION BABY!! - The M8 and M8.2 were both 10MP cameras. The M9 ups the ante to 18MP and when shooting as uncompressed RAW your file sizes are quite large (18-36MB). My Macbook Pro was not used to these larger files and started to sweat. Honestly, the 10MP of the M8 was really all I ever needed as those were some DAMN good megapixels. The M9 and its 18MP gives you more of that and some cropping freedom. Want to crop out more of the image? Now you can with the M9 and it’s increased resolution. But is the 18MP of the M9 = in quality to the M8 10MP?

NO MORE TOP LCD, HELLO “INFO” SCREEN - Many are complaining about this one. Leica took away that nifty little circle display on the top of the M8/M8.2. On the M9, it is GONE. That little display showed us the battery life as well as the number of images left. I am one of the guys who applaud Leica for removing it. Why? Well, the battery indicator on that top LCD was usually not very accurate. The new way is to press “INFO” on the back of the camera and you will get an instant readout on the back LCD with the exact battery life left and EXACT number of shots remaining on your SD card. I find this better, as its so quick and easy to check the stats. The cameras looks are a bit cleaner with the top LCD removed. More in the line of film M cameras.

YES!!!! NO MORE UV/IR FILTERS REQUIRED!  - THIS IS A BIG ONE! With the M8 and M8.2, you had to buy and use special UV/IR filters as the M8 would shoot blacks as purple without it. The M9 does not require the filters and this is a godsend. It’s as it should have been from the beginning. Some say the M9 still has some IR sensitivity, but I say BOOOOOOO to you because it sure as hell does not affect the images in any way that normal people will see. I appreciate those who test these things, but you see what you see, and what I see is that the M9 produces wonderful, VIBRANT color (sometimes too vibrant), without turning blacks to purple like the M8. Bravo Leica.

NEW EV COMPENSATION - With the M8.2, Leica introduced a new way to choose your EV compensation. Lightly pressing the shutter activated the EV comp wheel. Spin the wheel on the back and you could adjust it in the viewfinder. With the M9, they take it to a new level and it works great. You can set the camera to where all you have to do is spin the wheel and you will see the EV compensation change in the viewfinder. You no longer need to do that light press of the shutter and this feature ROCKS.

BRACKETING - Yes, the M9 gets bracketing! Just turn on bracketing in the main menu, set the number of frames (3, 5 or 7) and EV steps and you are set! I never use bracketing, but I know many welcome this new addition.

Some things change, some things stay the same...and some things are downgraded!

So, while $7,000 USD buys you a full frame digital M, you also get a downgrade from the M8.2, and it is one of the things that irritate me a little about the M9.

THE NOT-SO-NEW PLASTIC LCD SCREEN - Yep, we lose the Superman-like, unscratchable, Sapphire glass of the M8.2 for the super-scratchable M8 plastic screen. Now, I thought for sure that the M9 would have the better glass. It would’ve been a statement like, “Don’t mess with me, I am the all-mighty Leica M9! The Ultimate Digital M!” or “Look, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s SUPER-M9! Able to be dragged across a bed of rocks without a scratch on its LCD!”  Instead, it is back to the original M8 plastic and it can scratch... so I suggest one of those handy dandy screen protectors.

SD CARD FORMATTING - When I used to format my SD cards in the M8, it was fast and easy. When I formatted my 8Gb Extreme II SD card in the M9, it seemed like it took 5 years! In reality, it takes maybe 30-45 seconds. I talked with Leica about this and they told me it will be fixed in a future firmware update. They are aware of the issue, so no worries on this one!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO PAGE 3 - IS FULL FRAME REALLY THAT MUCH BETTER?

“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” – Lewis Hine