One thing is most likely answered with the M11-V - the "EVF-M" comes with M-mount and not L-mount which is - at least for me - a relief. As I said in other threads about EVF-M before, Leica wants to avoid in-house EVF-based competition with AF/video in SL camera models where L-mount is needed.
Wonder what the V stands for in the name. Hopefully not for "V = Versuch" which in German means attempt....
retrofocus wrote:
One thing is most likely answered with the M11-V - the "EVF-M" comes with M-mount and not L-mount which is - at least for me - a relief. As I said in other threads about EVF-M before, Leica wants to avoid in-house EVF-based competition with AF/video in SL camera models where L-mount is needed.
Wonder what the V stands for in the name. Hopefully not for "V = Versuch" which in German means attempt....
retrofocus wrote:
One thing is most likely answered with the M11-V - the "EVF-M" comes with M-mount and not L-mount which is - at least for me - a relief. As I said in other threads about EVF-M before, Leica wants to avoid in-house EVF-based competition with AF/video in SL camera models where L-mount is needed.
Wonder what the V stands for in the name. Hopefully not for "V = Versuch" which in German means attempt....
Like in those rockets V-1, a flying bomb...that never really took off, but gave a true engineering base and good start to further developments
ps.no offense to you, all rf users/fanatics...but for me...if I want to play hide and seek with my eyes, I pull out my 1963 Kiev (ruski Contax knock off) and play with it. Q series/SL series this is the proper direction...yes, I know, Leica wants to sell those mf M lenses which have superb % markup...but they work just fine on SL bodies. If I were Leica, I would concentrate on evolving those lenses to say, include electronic contacts, like zeiss mf lenses...and then offer them as light alternative to AF L-mount lenses for SL bodies..
Steve Spencer wrote:
A lot of wishful thinking here, IMO. My own take is almost no chance of PDAF based focus aids. If they do PDAF focus aids like Nikon and Canon, then they need to add contacts to the lens. Could they do it another way? Perhaps, but that is a big endeavor and a lot to work out. I don't see them doing that.
I can't see this being cheaper than a standard M11 either. Leica just doesn't do that with variants. Remove the LCD screen, still the same price. Yeah they could lower the price, but Leica has always taken higher profits rather than lowered prices when production costs drop with a variant.
I could see more use of the touchscreen. If the leaked images are correct then they got rid of the ISO dial and that would be presumably be available through the touchscreen. The touchscreen might also be used for selecting the magnification spot and activating magnification. Maybe it already does that in the M11 and maybe even the M10P. I have only had a vanilla M10 and it didn't have a touchscreen.
It will be interesting what this camera has and does not have. Especially how good the EVF is. Will it be a better EVF than the external Visoflex 2? Will it be higher resolution? Will it have better optics? I think that is the crucial question really. If the EVF is better than the Visoflex 2, then I can see quite a few Leica M shoots buying one....Show more →
Let's get the technical thing right first: you do *not* need electric contacts for PDAF focus aids. It is just an artificial software limitation imposed by Canon & Nikon because they want to restrict it to first-party lenses as much as possible. We know this because Nikon cameras can be tricked to do MF assist with "dumb" lenses on third-party adapters which just communicate any random focal length to the body. I mean it literally works with 6bit coded Leica lenses on Nikon, so the "problem" of communicating focal length is already solved in the M system.
Not really wishful thinking on my side because a) 95% chance I won't be buying it anyway and b) I wouldn't like it if they went all touchscreen / no physical buttons. I was rather trying to see the product strategy from their perspective.
There has always been a lot of resistance from Leica's side to diluting the M system with a product like this. If they've come around on the topic then they must see more in the product than a quick cash grab or "our customer base keeps getting older and their eyes getting poorer" (btw not sure if that's even true, Leica also seems to be quite popular among younger demographics). And that's what leads me to believe they'll put some effort into it.
Of course, another question is whether it has diopter correction, which Leica strangely stopped adding to the M line and Fuji didn’t include on the X-pro 1.
retrofocus wrote:
One thing is most likely answered with the M11-V - the "EVF-M" comes with M-mount and not L-mount which is - at least for me - a relief. As I said in other threads about EVF-M before, Leica wants to avoid in-house EVF-based competition with AF/video in SL camera models where L-mount is needed.
Wonder what the V stands for in the name. Hopefully not for "V = Versuch" which in German means attempt....
VolksLeica. Like Volkswagen, it is a Leica built for the masses. It will cost $500 and will, as they like to say nowadays, democratise Leica for the masses. Or some other marketing BS.
Mar 23, 2025 at 11:36 AM
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fjablo wrote:
Let's get the technical thing right first: you do *not* need electric contacts for PDAF focus aids. It is just an artificial software limitation imposed by Canon & Nikon because they want to restrict it to first-party lenses as much as possible. We know this because Nikon cameras can be tricked to do MF assist with "dumb" lenses on third-party adapters which just communicate any random focal length to the body. I mean it literally works with 6bit coded Leica lenses on Nikon, so the "problem" of communicating focal length is already solved in the M system.
Not really wishful thinking on my side because a) 95% chance I won't be buying it anyway and b) I wouldn't like it if they went all touchscreen / no physical buttons. I was rather trying to see the product strategy from their perspective.
There has always been a lot of resistance from Leica's side to diluting the M system with a product like this. If they've come around on the topic then they must see more in the product than a quick cash grab or "our customer base keeps getting older and their eyes getting poorer" (btw not sure if that's even true, Leica also seems to be quite popular among younger demographics). And that's what leads me to believe they'll put some effort into it. ...Show more →
I never said that you need contacts for it to work, but contacts can provide information that helps and might be part of any such system. What you do need for PDAF focus aids is an AF system and that is a substantial addition to any Leica M system and even on the SL cameras with PDAF and an AF system Leica has not introduce PDAF focus aids for Leica M lenses. Leica would have to develop that. If they had introduced PDAF type aids for the latest SL cameras with PDAF, then I think we could hope to see it in this camera, but I don't think they are going to develop that for this camera. I guess we will see.
I think the product strategy given that it is a variant of an M11 is simply to provide an EVF option that is better than the Visoflex 2, but not a totally different camera with a totally different sensor and a new AF system with new AF focus aids. To me that isn't a variant. That is a whole new line of camera and that is what I thought Leica wasn't going to do and I don't think they will do with this camera.
TTL with an electronic viewfinder in the traditional location of a rangefinder, with an M mount suitable for M mount, rangefinder lenses, and with the appropriate adapter, R, S and non-Leica manual focus lenses.
Kinda makes me think that the M11 was the "warm-up" to this ... by necessitating the removal of the blades, and reading off the sensor for matrix metering, sets up the same TTL for the EVF viewfinder.
At this point, the only real aspect to "associate" to rangefinder is the corner location of the EVF, and the native M lens mount is a "rangefinder" mount.
In essence, it seems that it would NOT be a rangefinder, by pure definition of what a rangefinder is vs. isn't. At best, it is mirrorless TTL in a "rangefinder-like" form factor of the classic Leica M.
Something about Shakespeare and Roses comes to mind. That, and if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck ... it's a TTL mirrorless camera.
Unless, they have something up their sleeve to harness / utilize the rangefinder coupling (e.g. a distance scale in the EVF, that correlates to the RF coupling), the rangefinder coupling is DOA, by most basic considerations / expectations.
We'll see if they've got something to salvage the functionality of RF coupling in the engineering bag-o-tricks.
Otherwise ... yup, it looks to be a mirrorless / TTL.
I mean, the Fuji GFX 50R or 100 RF or 100 VI or X-Pro 3 ... how is that any different, in terms of it being (or not) a rangefinder vs. a mirrorless in the form factor of a traditional rangefinder, compared to the M11-V? Sounds kinda blasphemous, but functionally (wrt rangefinder vs. TTL) ... what's the diff (other than the obvious fixed lens vs. ILC) between the Fuji bodies and the M11-V? For that matter, the Sony A7CR has a similar EVF in the RF position ... and, even back to the fixed lens Leica Q, as having the EVF in the RF position, but actually, being TTL mirrorless.
It can still be an M, but I'm not sure how it can still be a rangefinder. I guess we'll just be waiting to be shown otherwise.
Yup. And if this indeed is just another camera with an EVF...uhm the only thing it has going for it is a small reduction in size/weight vs the Hasselblad X2D. Plus, the X2D is actually cheaper.
panos.v wrote:
VolksLeica. Like Volkswagen, it is a Leica built for the masses. It will cost $500 and will, as they like to say nowadays, democratise Leica for the masses. Or some other marketing BS.
Leica has already sells it. And for only $400. Put that in your pipe and blow bubbles with it.
panos.v wrote:
Yup. And if this indeed is just another camera with an EVF...uhm the only thing it has going for it is a small reduction in size/weight vs the Hasselblad X2D. Plus, the X2D is actually cheaper.
If the M11-V isn’t competitive with the X2D, it’ll be dead on arrival. I’m hoping for the best!
raizans wrote:
If the M11-V isn’t competitive with the X2D, it’ll be dead on arrival. I’m hoping for the best!
These remarks confuse me. The X2D is a higher resolution autofocus camera with seven stops of IBIS. If these specifications are compared to other cameras, they would not compete. Now, in the real world, the X2D is much larger, but very comfortable in hand and the autofocus falls far short of many, if not all modern full frame cameras, but it does outdo the M11 series, which is a manual focus series of cameras. These are apples/oranges systems. They don’t compete.
Your logic should also apply when comparing APS-C to full-frame cameras. I think it makes more sense to compare cameras based on sensor size and capabilities rather than price.
You're essentially saying that if the M11-V doesn't match the features of a medium-format camera, it will be dead on arrival, simply because their prices will be similar...
Soon we’ll be seeing threads by people comparing the Fujifilm GFX100RF and the Leica Q3, just as we see threads comparing the GFX cameras with FF mirrorless. We already see threads comparing Hasselblad X and Leica M. Gearheads consider all of their options and obsess about everything.
This was one option I also was thinking of. Could be true since we know that the Visoflex fits exactly into the viewfinder housing part of the M11. Then the "V" might stand for integrated Visoflex. I think this is likely.
Fred Miranda wrote:
You're essentially saying that if the M11-V doesn't match the features of a medium-format camera, it will be dead on arrival, simply because their prices will be similar...
This would be the case if we wouldn't discuss Leica. Leica is kind of a special community of photographers - many of them don't shine away of spending > $6K for a camera. Most are Leica enthusiasts and therefore they wouldn't compare which is priced similarly with even larger sensor size - it simply doesn't play a role for them.
I personally don't compare any Leica camera to a higher end medium-format digital camera because I prefer the compact M-lens environment. This is where I settled and likely be in years to come. I don't even look at Leica L-lenses for this reason. This said, I am not spending $8K for any kind of camera. So far I stayed with every camera purchase below the $3.5K mark for used M cameras which is kind of a max threshold for me for what it is worth to me.
