Leica M10 Monochrom
Leica’s monochrome-only camera is all about the experience.
A camera that costs $13,500, only shoots in black-and-white, and doesn’t shoot video is always going to divide opinion.
The Leica M10 Monochrom is the successor to the Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246) that was launched back in 2015. The new M10 version sees a host of upgrades that make the camera a much more enticing proposition than its predecessor.
Of course, the price will prove the greatest hurdle for most photographers, but the real question is – does a camera that only shoots black-and-white and uses manual focus lenses have a place in the modern photographic world?
The M10 Monchrom is, at its most fundamental level, a monochrome-only version of the Leica M10-Pm, but with a higher resolution.
The camera features a newly developed 40MP full-frame sensor with no color filter array or low pass filter, which can reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor and cause deflections.
This means it can gather more light, produce sharper images and finer detail at higher ISO settings. This is a significant upgrade on the 24MP M Monochrom (Typ 246) and makes the M10 Monochrom the highest resolution M series camera to date.
The dynamic range of the sensor is just under 15 stops, and the ISO range extends from 160-100,000 natively, meaning that you can confidently shoot in even the lowest light conditions handheld with usable results.
In the days of film, rangefinders were a smaller, lighter and more discreet option than SLRs. Plus, they often used fast optics that were ideal for shooting handheld in low light conditions.
The Leica M10 Monchrom certainly follows in this tradition and the minimalist design we’ve already discussed is perfect in shooting situations where discretion is paramount. The near-silent shutter adds another dimension here in that it allows you to shoot in situations where a shutter click may disturb an event, or you simply don’t want people to know that you’re taking photographs of them.
With ISO handling this eyewateringly good, you can confidently shoot at up to ISO 100,000 and still get great results. The absence of chroma noise means there are no colored flecks in high ISO images.
Even at ISO 100,000 grain is surprisingly smooth. If you were splitting hairs you might say grain starts to become noticeable at ISO 25,000, but it’s still clean with images exhibiting fine detail.
Leica cameras are often considered excessively expensive, but they are premium cameras unlike any other. As a rangefinder that only shoots black-and-white photos, the Leica M10 Monochrom is about as niche as photography gets. James Abbott