M9 - firsthand experience.

[biggambi]

The Leica M9 seems to be a crowning achievement. If you simply take the moment to reflect on what Leica M owners where asking for prior to any digital M. It seems that Leica has given us close to what we wanted. I do not know how many people have had much time to actually use one, but I would love to hear from those who have shot with it.

Pictures would be great. Why, because that is what this is suppose to be about. Even shots that the camera has not performed to your expectations. Also, how has it performed compared to your film experience or experience with the M8 & M8.2.

If you are looking to tell me, DSL is better or there should be the M10 etc. Go to another thread. I am really tired of all of this bickering.

I own an M8 & M6ttl; and, I am really excited about acquiring the M9. So, in advance, thank you to those who will take the time to post.

 

[finguanzo]

Look up "scottwallick" in the gallery, he shoots with an M9..

 

[Roger Hicks]

Well, you know where to find my opinion...

Of course, it's completely worthless because it doesn't have autofocus, live view, ISO 100,000, and batteries that last for 1000 shots. Also, it should only be $2000.

Apart from that, it's pretty good, though I don't like the strange colours in the clouds in the Breton beach picture in the review. I assume they're JPEG or monitor artifacts because I cant see them in the original on my imaging monitor. But wait! I'm wrong! THE M9 IS WORTHLESS!

(Ask anyone who's never used one).

(Or better still, read my review at http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/m9 review.html where you'll see my real opinion).

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Well, you know where to find my opinion...

Of course, it's completely worthless because it doesn't have autofocus, live view, ISO 100,000, and batteries that last for 1000 shots. Also, it should only be $2000.

Apart from that, it's pretty good, though I don't like the strange colours in the clouds in the Breton beach picture in the review. I assume they're JPEG or monitor artifacts because I cant see them in the orignal on my imaging monitor. But wait! I'm wrong! THE M9 IS WORTHLESS!

(Ask anyone who's never used one).

Cheers,

R.

Roger- you need a vacation from RFF. It's supposed to be fun here. And I would hate for anyone to read your comments out of context with your actual review.

and to the OP- hope you get an M9 and experience it first hand.

 

[SteveM_NJ]

no vacation for Roger, he makes me laugh every day I read his posts...

thanks again.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Roger- you need a vacation from RFF. It's supposed to be fun here. And I would hate for anyone to read your comments out of contect with your actual review.

and to the OP- hope you get an M9 and experience it first hand.

Dear Brian,

You're right, of course. Previous post modified to reflect this.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Ronald M]

Wonderful review Roger. Thank you.

I just ordered 200 feet of T Max 100 and 400 though

 

[scottwallick]

Two mentions! Fruit born from my excellent badgering of Popflash to deliver the goods.

First of all, to form a Hicks quote to fit the occasion, the M9 is a better camera than I am a photographer. But then again, so was my Ikon, FM3a, et cetera. There, said it. Full disclosure.

As Finguanzo and Double Negative pointed out, you can see some my M9 photos here and there.

But best not to bother with my foolishnesses, you can browse a wider pool of M9 photographs on the Leica M9, Leica M9 Users, and Leica M9 Rangefinder pools on Flickr.

My experiences using the M9 have been good. The actual photo-making process is not terribly different than with an M7 or Ikon. Metering, though, is a bit broader than the M7 and narrower than the Ikon.

But the M9 on manual mode, with Auto ISO set and capped at 1600, using the M9 to make photographs just comes. Like riding a bike, I suppose.

The cold bucket of water on my head, though, was sitting down at my computer and dealing with DNG files post-photo making. Work flow, I believe it is called. That is still something I was not used to and am still learning.

Does that help? Probably not. If you need anything else, I'll be in the corner with the conical hat.

 

[dogberryjr]

I just had a look at scottwallick's Flickr stuff, and they pretty well answer my questions about the M9 and low light. Those shots are absolutely fine, even at 1250 ISO and f4.5. Now, if I can just scrape up the funds.

 

[250swb]

Pictures would be great. Why, because that is what this is suppose to be about. Even shots that the camera has not performed to your expectations. Also, how has it performed compared to your film experience or experience with the M8 & M8.2.

quote]

The first couple of pages on my Flickr site (linked below) are all M9. I think it works pretty well.

Steve

 

[_mark__]

I have spent the last 2 weeks in this digital quagmire. Go out, shoot, go home, download, adjust sliders, print, calibrate, print, bang head against brick wall adjust more sliders. I dearly miss my darkroom days, but digital is the way forward and the Frankenstein's monster that is the M9 is a rangefinder lovers only option. What made the M great is lost.

 

[jaapv]

I see - the M experience is breathing noxious fumes.....😛

 

[biggambi]

Roger you old cuss, don't you see, it's all but a bad dream. Of course, I have always found that a little Scotch never hurt to get through collisions with the myopic ether.

Scott & Steve: thanks for the pics. It looks quite nice over the internet. Any situations where you have been less then pleased? I have heard that it handles light sources better, and it appears that it does. But, more first hand info would be appreciated. Also, the detail seems to be quite impressive. Are either of you printing your pictures? If yes, what do you think in comparison to film and the M8x? Print size? Have you shot with the auto bracket feature?

Thanks again.

 

[Steve Bellayr]

If any camera is going to steal away some film users it is the M9...small light weight uses all the old lenses and no loss in optical quality.

 

[scottwallick]

Scott & Steve: Any situations where you have been less then pleased?

Not with the photographs. Learning how to process photos in Lightroom has been as much fun as it is a pain. It's fun, and it's a pain.

I have heard that it handles light sources better, and it appears that it does.

You mean with white balance? It does OK with white balance in general, and not OK with mixed light sources. Using the Adobe profile for the M9 in Lightroom helps, though.

Also, the detail seems to be quite impressive.

The amount of detail that can be squeezed from an M9 DNG file is impressive, frankly. It's only a matter of time before I have a little experiment and make some 16x20 prints.

Are [you] printing your pictures? If yes, what do you think in comparison to film and the M8x? Print size?

I have printed a number of 5x7s. To be honest, the first batch came out over-sharpened. I did a little investigating, and apparently when I exported the files from Lightroom to upload and be printed, it applied too much sharpening automatically per a setting I hadn't noticed. So close up, they weren't smooth like they should have been. I was disappointed, printed a second batch without any 'sharpening', and those came out much better, much more even and smooth. Lesson learned. (I don't do any printing at home.)

Have you shot with the auto bracket feature?

The short answer is no, I have never used auto bracketing. The long answer is that the M9 has a nifty feature that lets you decide how to set exposure compensation. For example, I have mine to just let me turn the dial on the back to set EC, so it's super fast, I can 'bracket' arbitrarily as the situation arises, etc. Melikes.

I have spoken.

 

[biggambi]

Scott: I love that quick bracket feature you have set up. I think it is a clever way to quickly attain the degree of bracketing that would appeal to me also. thanks for the post.

 

[250swb]

Quality at 12x16 is fantastic in prints but I haven't gone bigger than that. But I think it could do double that without breaking sweat.

Auto WB is fine 99% of the time then it throws a wobbly for no apparent reason, but most other cameras do.

I do use Auto bracket because I do a lot of landscape photography with the camera on a tripod. It is easy to set up and easy to use.

It hasn't disappointed me in any way so far, and I haven't experienced any of the minority problems reported, like short battery life, or inability to read certain SD cards. Formatting a card does take 45 seconds when my Olympus EP-1 does it in half a second, but I format my cards before I go out shooting anyway, so it hardly matters.

Steve

 

[urban_alchemist]

I would like to completely echo Scott's opinions of the M9 - it is a fantastic camera, whose weaknesses seem to be (almost) completely limited to the stuff that happens after you take the photo. I'm using Aperture, and devoid of a profile, the colours and white-balance can be quite problematic - especially in difficult/mixed light. That and, coming from film, the hours spent infront of the computer are incredibly frustrating.

I have very fast lenses (only a CV15 is slower than f2.8), so ultra-high ISOs are no problem for me, but even then I'm impressed with the camera's 1600...

(just wanted to add that I tend to leave the auto-detect for lenses off, or don't select the lense from the available menus - I really like the vignetting of the Noti/35 'lux ASPH - reminds me of my old film emulsions!)

 

[myM8yogi]

I've had an M9 for two days now. My M8 and lenses were cut off me in Quito, Ecuador by three guys a few months ago, so I used the insurance payout to get an M9.

Since I've used up all of the insurance money, my only lenses are the CV35/1.2 and CV75/2.5. I wanted a wide-normal fast lens for little money that did not exhibit focus shift - hence the CV 35. The 75 was a cheap complement that will be replaced with Lecia when I get the chance in a year or two.

1st impression of M9 was - ahhh, now I have my M8 back. Natural handling. Same feel and operation as my old rangefinder. Goody... Hmmm, both of my lenses seem much wider too. Wow! Framing is actually really natural with the 35mm and the 75mm. Turns out that they are a great two-focal-length combination on full frame. That's a relief!......Then I started to notice a few new features on the camera as I used it more. Just a few little ergonomic mods that are actually really really nice and add to the camera in a subtle but important way ... THEN I opened up some jpg files on my computer. Files look really really nice. High ISO noise performance is just fine for me - I like to shoot indoors in b+w anyway because I think those kind of shots often look great in b+w. I came from an M8, and I can say that the higher ISOs are certainly more usable by at least 1 stop, maybe more. This came as something of a shock to me. The low ISO files still have the same beauty that the M8 delivers, which is a very good thing.

Colour files look nice too, but I've only shot these up to ISO 500 so far, and the CV nokton does not have the same natural (super-natural?!) saturation as my old 35'cron ASPH.

I haven't been able to look at the DNG (RAW) files yet, but I know they will be even better than the in-camera jpgs. The resolution is amazing. I now have sooo much freedom to crop if I need to. I'm already familiar with Lightroom2, and very much looking forward to using it on M9 files. For those of you who haven't used it yet, I really can recommend it. Lots of free development pre-sets available online, and some of them are actually very good.

My old M8 had a much louder shutter than the M9. I also really appreciate the "soft" shutter release option on the M9. I think that may even be contributing to the improved low-light performance I'm seeing with slow shutter speeds. It certainly feels more responsive and less jerky. It's a small thing, but does contribute to the experience of having a camera you can be confident with. Again, a nice understated improvement that came as a bit of a suprise as to how much difference it makes to the camera.

Flash photography with the SF24D seems to be exactly the same as with the M8. No problems.

Overall then - a thoughtful and response refinement by Leica on their already excellent M8. The biggest improvements for me are:
- (of course) full frame coverage enabling truely fast wide angle lenses. 35/1.2 is nice to have. One day I will have a ZM 21/2.8 too.
- significantly improved high ISO performance.
- soft shutter release .
- lots of freedom to crop images if you are not printing huge.

(DISCLAIMER: There may be other factors like improved dynamic range, etc, that I haven't really paid much attention to. Remember I've only had this for two days so far!)

 

[biggambi]

Steve: It is great to hear that you are seeing high quality results at that paper size. This is consistent with Roger's review and statements. Everyone shoots different subject matter, and in different circumstances. So, agreement is a very good thing. I print up to 16 x 20 prints which are ~50% larger surface area, and it sounds like I will be quite pleased with the results.

Urban Alchemist: I also use Aperture with Nik software plug-ins. I don't like their lack of a profile. I will try to build a profile my self, and I will compare it to LR. This could mean a less fluid work flow. Have you downloaded the LR for the camera to try it?

myM8yogi: First, thank you for all the detail. The shutter intrigues me, have you tried any comparison shots made in each shutter mode? I know that the mode you speak of, delays the reset of the shutter, and I it could make a difference. It could prove very educational if you or anyone else did a comparison at various shutter speeds.