Since the inception of digital photography, every camera marketed to consumers has had a large LCD screen. Without this screen, it is not possible to set preferences for basic camera operation, nor can you verify that you are capturing images at the correct exposure. Without a rear screen, you can’t confirm that the camera has captured an image when you press the shutter button.
Creating a camera without a rear LCD screen is illogical. The only thing more absurd would be to price this camera at over $9,000. And, yet that is what Leica has done with their new M11-D offering.
Photograph by John Ricard, taken with permission. Leica M11-D with 50mm Summilux f/1.4.
While many photographers don’t see the point of designing and releasing such a camera, it is worth noting that this is the third time Leica has made a screenless option available. The current iteration is based on the M11, first introduced in 2022. Previous screenless rangefinders have been based on the M10 (2017) and M240 (2012) bodies. While casual observers may think otherwise, a screenless rangefinder is not a gimmick. Leica has shown a commitment to the concept, and the cameras have proven popular among their user base.
Leica digital rangefinders hold their value better than most other digital cameras. This is partially because Leica perfected the design and operation of M cameras years ago, and the improvements offered by each new model tend to be negligible. If money is a concern, a Leica shooter can purchase an older model instead of a new one without losing much functionality. Used M bodies are available on eBay at reasonable (for Leica) prices. However, used listings for screenless Leica cameras are uncommon. Clearly, Leica users who buy into this concept understand what they are getting into and don’t regret the purchase.
It is easy to understand why a film shooter might consider buying a digital camera designed like an old-school film camera. But does this camera have any appeal for a shooter like myself, who hasn’t shot a roll of film in over two decades? This is the question I sought to answer when I set about using the M11-D for two weeks.
New iterations of our favorite products are released regularly, but it is often difficult to distinguish the latest model from the previous one. Imagine someone placed a Fuji X100V, X100S, and original X100 in front of you and asked you to take a quick portrait or skyline photograph with each model. Imagine that you couldn’t examine the cameras as they were placed in your hand and you were, in a sense, shooting blind. Would you be able to tell the cameras apart? Would there be any major difference in how you approached photography based on which camera you were holding? When reviewing the images on a computer, would you be able to tell which camera created which image without careful examination? I believe the answer is no for all of these questions, despite the models being released over many years.
For the latest iteration of their digital rangefinder, Leica has released three variants. The M11-P is the state of the art rangefinder. The M11 Monochrom variant shares the same body design but captures photographs in Bblack and white only. The M11-D shoots color but has no rear LCD screen. If we replicated the experiment using the three variants of the Leica M11, you would instantly be aware of which camera you are using. Your shooting process would need to be modified as you transition from a body that has a screen to a body that does not. The images from the Monochrom would be immediately identifiable when placed alongside images from the color cameras. Rather than pondering why Leica makes a camera that shoots only black and white or one that lacks a rear LCD screen, we should be asking why Nikon, Canon, Sony, and Fuji don’t do the same.
In my 20+ years of digital shooting, I have always favored color images and don’t convert photos to black and white. Even in my film days, I only shot color film. And yet, I purchased an M10 Monochrom a few years ago. I knew this camera would force me to create different images than what I had done in the past. When I grab a Leica M off my shelf, there is a noticeable difference in the photos depending on whether I take the standard M10 or the Monochrom version. As a result of buying the Monochrom, I now create black and white photos regularly and have incorporated them into my client work.
Whether I am using my Leica rangefinders, my Nikon DSLR, or Nikon mirrorless cameras, I shoot in Manual mode. My shutter speed is usually set to 1/250, and my aperture tends to be wide open for my Leica shots and anywhere between f/2.8 and f/5.6 for my Nikon images. I ignore the camera’s meter. For every image I take, I first make an educated guess on what ISO might be correct for the scene and take a test image. I review the image on the rear LCD screen and adjust the ISO setting or shutter speed until the image looks correct. I have never once looked at the histogram on any of my cameras. This process has served me well for both my professional and personal work.
When I was offered an opportunity to use the M11-D, my first concern was whether I would miss shots because I did not get the exposure right. In my film shooting days, I was accustomed to using the camera meter as a starting point for acquiring proper exposure and then modifying the aperture or shutter speed based on the light in the scene in front of me. For example, if someone were standing in front of a large, bright window, I would overexpose the image to account for how the camera would read the outside light. If I were photographing a singer on a dark stage lit by a single spotlight, I would underexpose the image to account for how I expected the camera meter to handle the dark stage. I knew my cameras well and consistently nailed exposure in a variety of settings for many years. I haven’t shot this way in decades, and I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to figure out how the camera was likely to meter a scene and for me to make appropriate adjustments.
I had to embrace a new shooting process when using the M11-D. Normally, I obsess over getting the exposure right and check every shot after capture so that I can make adjustments accordingly. Initially, I attempted to use a method similar to my standard approach. I set the shutter speed to 1/250, my 35mm Summilux to f/1.4 and my ISO to whatever number I thought might be correct for the scene in front of me. Then, I used the in-camera meter to adjust the shutter speed or ISO until the meter indicated the exposure was correct. The meter is basic, consisting of only two arrows indicating over- or underexposure and a circle indicating correct exposure. When the meter indicates the image is underexposed, there is no information about how many stops underexposed the scene is. The user must make adjustments until the circle indicates the exposure is correct. The process is a bit time-consuming, and I found myself initially fussing with the settings and operation of the M11-D more than I normally do when using my M10. This goes against the principle of the M11-D, which is for the photographer to pay more attention to their subject than to their camera.
The M11-D connects to the Leica Photos app, which can be used to review images as they are being captured. The app also provides a Live View of what the camera sees. A good way to understand how the camera reads the light in a scene is to set the camera to auto-ISO, point the camera at different scenes, and use the Live View in the app to note how often the camera gets the exposure right. Adjusting exposure compensation on the M11-D is done by rolling a rear control dial with your right thumb. The adjustment is quick and easy. After a couple of days, I determined that if I used center-weighted metering with auto-ISO and dialed in an exposure compensation of -0.7, the M11-D would expose to my liking virtually every time.
For the above image of the Empire State Building in New York City, taken through a window, I expected the camera to read the light of the skyline and expose so that the detail in the sky was visible. This would result in the face of the Empire State Building being too dark, so I did not dial in my standard -0.7 setting exposure compensation for this scene. It was a simple matter to import the file into Lightroom and increase the exposure on the face of the buildings.
I was eager to try the camera for portrait shooting since people are the subject of all my imagery. Once you have manually focused the image, there is no more fussing about the camera, and all attention must be put on the person in front of you. At least, I expect this would be the case in time. Since I only had the camera for a couple of weeks, the M11-D was a novelty for me, and I often found myself talking about the camera with my subjects. I enjoyed showing the back of the camera to people and asking if they noticed what was missing. The M11-D is the best-looking camera I have ever seen. Before using this camera, it had not occurred to me how out of place it is to have a large slab of glass on the back of a camera. The camera feels great in my hand, and I wanted to pick it up and take pictures with it every time I saw it on my shelf.
While using the M11-D, I tried to embrace the mindset of having full attention on my subject. It took over a week to stop looking at the back of the camera after every shot. After a few days, I was confident that I was getting the exposure right and using the camera with confidence. However, using the camera alongside my Nikon wasn’t as smooth of an experience as I expected. Whatever advantage the M11-D offers in mindset while shooting was lost on me when I used it alongside my Nikons, whose screens I check constantly.
The M11-D has 256 GB of internal storage. The camera can be set to write JPEGs or raw files to either the SD card or internal storage. The internal storage can also be used to back up the images on the SD card. For my professional work, this redundancy is valuable. I shoot most of my professional work on the Nikon D6 or Z9, which have dual card slots. For events, I shoot JPEGs on one card, and those are the images that I process and deliver to my clients. In the second card slot, I keep a large card for raw files. These files serve as a backup in case something goes wrong with my normal archiving process for the job. After about a month, I delete the raw files. My Leicas are set to shoot raw files only, and the internal storage of the M11-D is large enough to hold the number of images I take on a single client gig or weeks of personal shooting. I found the smoothest workflow to be removing the SD card to ingest images rather than connecting the camera to a computer to download from the internal storage. Photo Mechanic, the program I use for downloading, captioning, and tagging images, does not recognize the M11-D when I connect it to my MacBook Pro. Both versions of Lightroom recognize the camera, but I prefer ingesting the card through Photo Mechanic. At any time, the camera’s internal storage can be formatted using the app.
Each passing day we hear about an increase in the use of technology in our lives. Let’s take a moment to examine how the new Canon R1 uses artificial intelligence. According to a new Fstoppers article, by Christopher Malcolm, the camera has an advanced version of face tracking that allows a photographer to register specific faces. Malcolm suggests a scenario where the ’97 Chicago Bulls reunite for a pickup game and the photographer registers Michael Jordan’s face as the most important to focus on. In situations where several faces are present, the camera will recognize Jordan’s face and make that face its priority for focus accuracy. This feature would be useful for any sports photographer. Even a casual user might appreciate having a camera that prioritizes focusing on a specific child or grandparent. In essence, the camera is learning which people are important to the photographer, using that knowledge along with its other technological features, such as autofocus tracking and auto exposure, to create technically perfect images of that person.
The Leica M11-D does not incorporate artificial intelligence, which means the user is tasked with learning how the camera “thinks,” if you will. Because the user is shooting blind, they must understand how the camera determines what it believes to be the correct exposure and when to override the camera’s settings. If you take the M11-D out on a snowy day, you must be aware that the camera is likely to misread all the bright light bouncing off the snow and create an underexposed image. You must also be savvy enough to estimate how far off the camera will be so that you can dial in the correct amount of exposure compensation, ensuring the snow appears white in the final image. In other words, you need to be smarter than the camera. Chances are you’ll miss a few photos, but how often would you bring the M11-D as your only camera to a situation where capturing a perfect image is important? Using the M11-D is akin to using an M6, which Leica introduced in 1984. People took great photos with that camera, and I am confident I can take great photographs today with the M11-D, despite Leica not adding all the latest technological innovations to this camera.
Although the M11-D was created to help the photographer keep things simple, you can add the Visoflex 2 external viewfinder to add functionality to the camera. The Visoflex can be used to determine if the exposure has been set correctly. Once correct exposure has been verified, you could remove the EVF and use the rangefinder for composition and focusing. You could also use the EVF for composition and focusing. The EVF also allows the user to shoot with third-party lenses. A standard Leica lens focuses no closer than 0.7 meters. This is a major limitation of the M system, and it severely restricts your ability to capture dramatic, in-your-face style images with a Leica rangefinder. Some recent Leica lenses can focus as close as 0.3 meters but require an EVF (or Live View from a rear screen LCD) for focusing and composition. This makes the EVF valuable for an M11-D user because it allows you to compose photographs that are not possible without the external viewfinder.
The EVF can also be used to review the most recently taken photograph for as long as the shutter button is depressed or in increments of 1–5 seconds. The M240 was the first Leica M to offer a connection for an EVF. Electronic contacts are visible near the hotshoe to accommodate this attachment. The M11-D doesn’t have any visible electronic connections on the body. This exemplifies how Leica continues to refine the M bodies to keep them as minimal as possible. There are fewer buttons, dials, and switches on a modern digital M body than on an older M film body.
On a side note, Leica was the only established photo company to retain the same nomenclature for their cameras when transitioning from film to digital. The M4, M5, M6, and M7 were film cameras. The next M body, the M8, was digital. The change from saving images on film to saving them on an SD card wasn’t drastic enough for the brand to create a new product category. This suggests that Leica viewed their digital bodies as being the same artistic tools as their film bodies.
My problems with the M11-D are the same ones I’ve had with every Leica since the M9. First is the inconsistent white balance. All of my cameras are usually set to auto white balance, and it doesn’t matter to me if the camera gets it right. If I’m shooting for 10 minutes in a setting where the light is consistent, it doesn’t matter if all the images are too blue or too warm. It’s easy to apply a blanket adjustment to the images and get them to my liking. The problem I have had with every Leica M camera I have owned (M9, M240, and M10) is that the white balance varies from shot to shot. It is common to encounter situations where the first shot is too warm, the next even warmer, and the following one is too cool. When the camera produces wildly inconsistent results like this, it is time-consuming to post-process these images so they all have the same color tones. Consistent auto white balance has never been an issue with my Nikon cameras.
My second problem with the M11-D is the overall sluggishness of the camera. While Leica has made significant improvements in this area, an M11-series camera still lags behind a 20-year-old Nikon DSLR in operational speed. When set to high-speed continuous mode, the M11 series can shoot 5 frames per second. This suggests that if the camera were set to single-frame advance mode, the camera would still be able to shoot 5 frames per second, provided the user could press the button 5 times in one second. However, Nikon DSLRs fire the shutter as fast as the user can depress the shutter button.
The M11 series, like all previous Leica M digital bodies, has a mushy shutter button that is not as responsive as it should be. If you press the shutter rapidly in succession, the camera will only fire about one image per second, despite being capable of capturing many more images per second in continuous mode. The camera also takes several seconds to fire the first frame when it is initially powered on.
Is the M11-D for everyone? No. Is it the best choice to use for a client job? Probably not. But I’ve always loved using Leica rangefinders, and maybe never more so than I did while shooting with the M11-D. When you create a strong photo with the M11-D, you know it is the result of your skill. It comes from your ability to visualize what the final image will look like without the benefit of an EVF. You know that the photograph is sharp because you had the skill to focus a rangefinder on a razor-thin plane. The image is properly exposed because you understood how the camera reads light in that specific scene and adjusted the exposure accordingly.
Using the camera for my personal work these past few weeks has been fun, and the M11-D is the most beautiful camera I have ever used. Every time I looked at the camera, I kept thinking that it just looks and feels right. Before using the camera, it never occurred to me how out of place a large sheet of glass looks on a standard digital camera. In my time with the M11-D, I missed a negligible number of shots as a result of the camera not having a rear LCD screen.
The advantages this camera offers over the M10—such as lighter weight, higher resolution, internal storage, and faster continuous shooting mode—make it even more attractive to me. Price is a concern when purchasing any Leica camera, and the M11-D doesn’t make sense when viewed from a strictly logical perspective. A used M11 offers almost everything the M11-D provides but at two-thirds of the price. However, I’ve never been one to approach photography from a strictly logical perspective. As an artist, I’m drawn to tools that inspire me despite their limitations. It is those very limitations that make certain tools, such as the M11-D, attractive to me.
At the time of this writing, I believe I will purchase this camera. I don’t expect to create more great images with the M11-D than I would with the M10. But I’m willing to lose a few shots here and there, knowing that every time I use the M11-D, I am forcing myself to visualize how the final scene will look without the aid of a real-time, through-the-lens view of the scene. The Leica M11-D will require more knowledge of photography than any other digital camera ever made, and I am looking forward to the creative and technological challenges the camera presents.
