I’m trying to figure out if this is actually good news or what….?
As the title says, this is the new LEICA M10 Monochrome. It’s a B&W only, rangefinder camera made out of black (yes, just black), costing 8200€. Body only – the lens will cost 2350€. As they only make 8 or 9, I suppose this justifies the price…
As with most things LEICA, this shoots « taking the piss » to new, almost stratospheric, heights. I mean, LEICA were the people who produced, a couple of years ago, a similar digital rangefinder WITHOUT A REAR SCREEN. I’ve often wondered why they bothered putting on a lens mount…or a shutter button…
I’m sure it’s very nice – I mean, it has to be at that price, doesn’t it?
In the same way that ANY camera owner will swear blind that their camera is the best, LEICA owners will extol the virtus till the cows come home – but it’s still a B&W digital camera, with no video, a 40 MP sensor and no autofocus.
And why is autofocus SO important? It’s all down to what you want to use the camera for. If you’re happy setting the lens at it’s hyper-focal distance and just pointing, why not? Or, spend time focusing through the minuscule viewfinder and match the two rangefinder images…again, why not?
But for the sort of work I do, autofocus is vital – I would never be able to change scene and adjust a rangefinder sufficiently quickly – I would probably be able to use the camera for one in every 50 shots. In addition, I can let my camera worry about this while I concentrate on the scene or movement I’m looking for.
But it does look nice in black.
Just to introduce an equivalent which, sort of, brings things into focus, for almost exactly the same price, you can have a brand spanking new HASSELBLAD X1D ll 50c and the 35-75 lens – with autofocus
And this one makes images with a larger sensor, both physically and by number of pixels, and in color or B&W…oh and it’s made from dark grey – much more class….