I had the 50 Cron before on the M10-R, but sold it due to the low contrast and subdued color. I've since repurchased it, and it's found new life on the M10M. Not only does it render nicely on the monochrome sensor, but the size, weight and handling is excellent compared to my much heavier 50 Lux Black Chrome.
Here's a few shots I took over the weekend, most all taken at f/2. Ignore the aperture shown in the EXIF, as Leica M cameras only guess at aperture. But I did want to show EXIF so that the ISO for each shot was shown.
No color filters used. I only had a Breakthrough Photography UV filter on it. So far the BP filter is the best I've tried and the most like shooting with no filter on the lens at all – runner up would be the Zeiss T* UV filters, which I have on all my other M lenses. Thumbs down to B+W MRC Nano Clear as well as the Leica brand UVa filters, both of which can induce soft corners at infinity focus on certain M lenses.
Some of these shots have film grain added in LR, but I'm not sure that will be evident on these reduced-size images. I've found that adding grain in post can help recover (not really recover, but patch-over) small areas of blown highlights. Added grain in post is especially good at making specular highlights not look as harsh.
Side note that I've switched from C1 to LR for my Leica images. It feels like LR handles the monochrome file rendering and Leica lens corrections with better finesse.
I should note that the skies were completely filled with smoke from wildfires in neighboring states – otherwise the M10M w/50 Cron renders a much darker blue sky.
Excellent photos hdm, the subjects are varied and interesting, I like that. I recently purchased the M10M and now starting my learning curve. Are you avoiding Y-O-R-G filters or was that just a decision on this photo set?
goodbokeh wrote:
Excellent photos hdm, the subjects are varied and interesting, I like that. I recently purchased the M10M and now starting my learning curve. Are you avoiding Y-O-R-G filters or was that just a decision on this photo set?
Thanks and congrats on the M10M!
Re: color filters – it was half avoiding and half a decision just for this set. I do use them: B+W in Light Red and Orange being my two most-used. They do help increase contrast and darken blue skies, and I do like how they lighten already-light skin tones; but they also seem to block up the shadows. And maybe it's just my perception, but they also seem to increase vignetting. So since I'd been using the color filters since I got the M10M, I decided I need to get to know how my lenses perform without them.
One other thing I've run up against with the color filters is having to remove them so they won't ruin a shot – not through any fault of their own, but because they change the colors in the wrong way for a given scene. For example, I was taking a shot of the New Mexico flag the other day with a light red filter, and that made the red Zia symbol on the flag almost the same tone as the yellow flag background, essentially making the symbol disappear! Oops
I've been starting with a yellow filter just to get a feel and plan to try soon orange and green. That's interesting about the New Mexico flag/red filter. Based upon your photos and observations I'm going to go straight UV also to see how I like that.
I'm using Adobe Camera Raw/Photoshop and Silver Efex Pro as a filter plugin. It's funny the M10M Jpegs on High Contrast and Sharpness with Selenium Strong toning often give me a better look than what I'm able to do myself so far. I'm hoping that is part of my learning curve.
goodbokeh wrote:
I've been starting with a yellow filter just to get a feel and plan to try soon orange and green. That's interesting about the New Mexico flag/red filter. Based upon your photos and observations I'm going to go straight UV also to see how I like that.
I'm using Adobe Camera Raw/Photoshop and Silver Efex Pro as a filter plugin. It's funny the M10M Jpegs on High Contrast and Sharpness with Selenium Strong toning often give me a better look than what I'm able to do myself so far. I'm hoping that is part of my learning curve.
Don't feel bad about not being able to match the JPEGs. On the original Leica Q, when I set contrast to low and saturation to high, I could never perfectly match that in post, either. They have some really sophisticated tone curves that would take a post-processing guru to reverse engineer
Yellow filter is good way to start and probably the most balanced choice in the end anyway.
The great thing about the M10M is the high ISO capability helps negate the loss of light from even the dark red.
I remember you having issues with sensor bifurcation (not sure if that's the correct term) on a previous m10m and so you "settled" on a q2m. Why the switch back to the m10m? Or did you get a replacement that did not exhibit the bifurcation issue?
theHUN wrote:
I remember you having issues with sensor bifurcation (not sure if that's the correct term) on a previous m10m and so you "settled" on a q2m. Why the switch back to the m10m? Or did you get a replacement that did not exhibit the bifurcation issue?
Anyway, very nice results!
Thanks! I returned my first M10M with the sensor issue but recently decided to try again. Thankfully this one does not have the issue.
Just got the M10M myself and the 50mm summilux asph so interesting to see you chose the Summicron here. I was thinking my DR Summicron would make a great match for the low contrast high resolution look as well. I'm also sort of resisting using color filters so far but I'd love to see the use of filters on some people photos since that's what I tend to shoot...
highdesertmesa wrote:
Thanks! I returned my first M10M with the sensor issue but recently decided to try again. Thankfully this one does not have the issue.
I am very happy to hear that as I just could not wrap my head around certain aspects of the q2m.
theHUN wrote:
I am very happy to hear that as I just could not wrap my head around certain aspects of the q2m.
I was really happy, for sure, thanks. It's a tough call between the Q2M and M10M. I think if someone is ok with only having 28mm and a really good 35mm crop, the Q2M is good option.
