Manual Focus, No Autofocus, No Regrets: A Leica M10-R Story

Limits can do more for your photography than any spec sheet, and a manual-focus rangefinder forces those limits on you in a way autofocus never will. That tension sits at the heart of one photographer's decision to bring a Leica to a job it had no business being at.

Working out of Ontario, Canada, Chris Tellez shoots portraits, events, and weddings, and he's the first to admit he made a financially reckless choice buying a Leica M10-R. He took it to a wedding, forgot to charge the battery, forgot the spare, and walked away with 106 frames, many of them soft or badly lit. He fell for the camera anyway. Tellez is upfront that he's biased, that he's an emotional artist who doesn't make sensible decisions, and that he spent a lot of money on something that pushes back against him constantly. He'd been eyeing an old BMW E36 and even test-drove a 1994 Mercedes C220 before deciding the camera would scratch the same itch without the maintenance.

The appeal comes down to constraint. Tellez points out that some of his favorite cameras have always been the ones that slow him down, that make him think through a shot differently, and a manual-focus rangefinder does exactly that. He compares it to shooting film and to older bodies like the Canon 6D and 5D, where the process itself matters as much as the result. Turning off live view, looking through the glass, and lining up focus by hand puts you in the moment in a way that reviewing images on a screen doesn't. That day, with the battery nearly dead, he couldn't chimp his shots even if he wanted to, which left the outcome partly to chance. He describes the satisfaction of nailing focus and seeing a sharp frame later as feeling like a real photographer again.

He's honest about the tradeoffs, too. As his second and third bodies, he carried a Nikon Z6 III and a Nikon Zf, and he flatly calls them better cameras in nearly every measurable way. The files edit more easily, autofocus does the work, battery life holds up, and video and burst functions exist at all. Tellez even says the rangefinder files need more processing than his other work. His argument is that he'd rather have the experience than win on paper, and that a wedding shot on the Leica means 500 careful frames instead of 5,000, with a higher percentage making the final gallery. He also flags a key point for anyone tempted: this is not the right camera for most people.

The wider shift here is worth connecting to. A growing number of working photographers have started reaching for deliberately limited tools, whether that's film, fixed-lens compacts, or manual glass on a mirrorless body, as a reaction to cameras that do everything automatically. The principle transfers no matter what you shoot. A rangefinder patch gives a tactile, decisive focus experience that focus peaking on a mirrorless camera tries to approximate and, for many, doesn't match. If you want to test the idea cheaply, an old SLR or DSLR with a manual lens delivers a version of the same discipline for a fraction of the price, which is precisely why Tellez still shoots those bodies alongside the Leica. The value is in shooting fewer, more considered frames.

He's building his kit as he goes, currently running a Voigtländer 50mm f/1.2 while he waits on a Mandler 35mm f/2. Press play on the video above to hear Tellez make his full case for a camera he says is worse and more fun than anything else in his bag.