The Leica M10 ($6,595) isn't as a drastic of an upgrade to the M (Typ 240) as that camera was over the M9. But it gives rangefinder devotees a new flagship, with faster processing, higher ISO capability, and a slightly slimmer design. It does take away one feature included in the Typ 240—video recording—which, according to Leica, was not something that M shooters are particularly interested in. If you're a photographer with a love for rangefinders, the M10 represents the best the market has to offer, and its high price reflects its niche appeal and German engineering. Our Editors' Choice full-frame mirrorless camera is an economical crowd-pleaser, the Sony Alpha 7 II, but if you prefer to stand out from the crowd, the M10 is a solid choice.
Design and Viewfinder
Leica wanted M photographers to think of an M as an M, but owners of the M (Typ 240) ended up referring it to the M240 as shorthand. With later additions of the M-D (Typ 262) and Monochrom (Typ 246), the series became more alphabet soup than camera. With the M10, the return to more straightforward naming is a welcome one.
So, the M10 is just the M10. And it looks a lot like every other M that came before it, dating back to the M3, introduced way back in 1954. The latest digital version is a little slimmer than previous models, bringing its size (3.1 by 5.5 by 1.5 inches, HWD) in line with film bodies. The M10 feels very much like an M3 when you hold it in your hands.
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Its chassis is magnesium alloy and top and bottom plates are made from brass, so it's a bit heavy for its size at 1.5 pounds. Like all other M cameras, the M10 omits a built-in flash. You can buy it in black chrome or silver chrome—there's no black paint option available at this time. There's a red Leica logo on the front, but aside from that the camera is relatively free of adornment. The words "Leica M10" are engraved on the top in small text, as part of the hot shoe, and "Leica Camera Wetzlar / Made in Germany" is engraved on the rear, to the right of the eyepiece.
The camera's viewfinder has been refined compared with previous models. The magnification is now rated at 0.73x—tighter than the 0.68x used on other digital M cameras. It's practically identical to the 0.72x viewfinder you get with a film M in terms of magnification.
The eyepiece is also a bit different from previous versions, with a larger opening that makes it possible to see more of the viewfinder. It's a subtle difference, but I can better see the widest 28mm frame lines on the M10 than I can on my M (Typ 240) when wearing glasses. When using a 28mm with the M10 I'm able to see the top and bottom lines and only need to peek around the finder to check the left and right boundaries of the frame. With the Typ 240 I have to peek in different areas to see any of the 28mm lines. One consequence of the larger opening is that, if you use a diopter with your M viewfinder, you'll need to invest in a new one or get an adapter from Leica to use your current corrective eyepieces.
As with modern digital M cameras, the M10 frame lines are LED rather than projected via ambient light. This means you can see them in a dark room—and because the M10 has an ambient light sensor, LED brightness is automatically adjusted to best suit your working environment. The frame lines in 28/90mm, 35/135mm, and 50/75mm pairs, are shown in white. There's no option to project the frame lines in red as there is with the Typ 240.
What you will see in red is the shutter speed information. When working in manual exposure mode you'll also see a circle when the image is properly exposed with current settings, or a left or right arrow to indicate over or underexposure. When you change the EV compensation value the current setting will display in red in the viewfinder as well.
One of the big advantages to this type of viewfinder is seeing not only what's in frame for a shot, but what's outside of it. When you're working with a lens that's 35mm or tighter, there's a visible area showing what you won't get in a shot. You won't be surprised if a pedestrian enters your shot with a rangefinder. It's a very different experience than the through-the-lens tunnel vision that you get from an SLR.
As with all Leica M rangefinders, focus is available in the viewfinder when the camera is paired with a rangefinder-coupled lens. A bright patch at the center of the finder shows a double image when improperly focused. Turning the focus ring brings the two images closer together. When they overlap perfectly, you know that your shot is focused.
Controls and Menus
Front controls include a frame line preview selector and a multi-function button. On top you'll find a shutter speed dial, shutter release, and power switch, as well as an ISO dial. The dial is all new to the M10. You need to lift it up to turn it, pushing it back down to lock it into place. It has set positions for ISO 100 through 6400, as well as M (manual) and A (automatic) settings. You can set the value of the M position in the menu to suit your taste, and can also set automatic parameters, including minimum and maximum settings and a minimum shutter speed to use when both ISO and shutter are set to A.
The third element of exposure, aperture, is controlled via the lens. M lenses don't have A settings, so you'll always need to set that manually. The three dial system does make it easy to give as much or as little control over exposure to the camera as you'd like. For example, if you're just concerned about eliminating motion blur, you can leave your shutter and ISO dials set to A and set the automatic ISO to always shoot at least 1/125- or 1/250-second. If you want total control you can dial in all three parameters manually, or you can go somewhere in between by setting aperture and shutter speed and letting the camera worry about the proper ISO.
Exposure compensation is also available. By default you'll press the front multi-function button down while turning the rear control dial in order to set the EV level. A red LED shows the adjustment value in the viewfinder. You can also set the wheel to adjust the ISO without having to hold down the button, which is my preference. Aside from the control wheel, there are only three buttons—LV (Live View), Play, and Menu—and a four-way controller on the rear.
Menus have been redesigned and streamlined. Instead of two separate screens (accessed by the Set and Menu buttons on the Typ 240), all menu options are under one umbrella. To speed access to frequently used options, the initial screen is a list of customizable Favorites—you can include as little or as many settings there as you'd like, but you can't change the order in which they appear in the list. The full menu is accessed via the final entry in the Favorites page.
One notable change from the Typ 240 is the power toggle. Instead of a three-stage switch that controls both power and the Drive Mode, the M10 has a simple On/Off switch. You need to change the Drive Mode from the menu. The upside is that there are more options than the single, continuous, or self timer found in previous digital M models. You can now enable automatic exposure bracketing or interval shooting for time-lapse capture. The self timer can be set here as well, with your choice of a 2- or 12-second delay.
LCD, EVF, and Wi-Fi
The rear LCD is a 3-inch panel with a 1,040k-dot display. It's crisper than the 921k-dot LCD used by the Typ 240, and it's protected by Gorilla Glass. It's a fine choice for reviewing images to confirm focus, exposure, and framing. Grid lines are available as an optional framing aid when working in Live View.
An add-on EVF, the Visoflex (Typ 020), is available. It's the same EVF used by the Leica T. It's quite sharp and has built-in GPS—if you opt to use it and enable GPS, the M10 automatically adds location data to images.
The M10 is compatible with almost every rangefinder lens that Leica has produced to date. There are some exceptions—the Dual Range Summicron from the 1960s can only be used in its near-focus range due to a physical incompatibility when it's set to focus at distance, and the Super-Angulon 21mm f/3.4's recessed rear element makes automatic metering an issue, for example.
But you can also use manual SLR lenses, whether they're intended for the Leica R system or for Canon FD, Nikon F, Pentax K, or a multitude of other systems. You just need the appropriate adapter. You'll need to use the rear LCD or EVF to focus via Live View, as a lens without rangefinder coupling can't focus via the optical viewfinder. Focus peaking and magnification are available to help you perfectly nail a shot when focusing via Live View. Unlike the Typ 240, which only magnifies the center area of the frame as a focus aid, you can magnify any portion of the frame when working in Live View with the M10.
The M10 has built-in Wi-Fi. You can use your smartphone as a remote control, or to transfer images from the camera. The M10 can transfer images in JPG or Raw (DNG) format, assuming your phone supports Raw processing. Support is limited to iOS at press time, but will be extended to Android at a future date.
We completed our review of the M10 before its official announcement, so we weren't able to test the Wi-Fi app. But other recent Leica cameras with Wi-Fi, including the full-frame Q, have worked as advertised with regards to Wi-Fi transfer and remote control.
The M10 doesn't have any data ports. It has a single SD/SDHC/SDXC slot, which is accessible by removing the bottom plate. The new battery is located right next to it. It's smaller than the battery used by the M (Typ 240). Leica expects photographers to get about 600 images on a fully charged cell.
Performance
The M10 is powered by Leica's Maestro II image processor. It starts and shoots in about 1.4 seconds, slightly better than the M-P (Typ 240) (1.7 seconds). Continuous shooting is also improved, from 3.2fps for the Typ 240 to 4.8fps for the M10. It kept that pace for 13 Raw+JPG, 30 Raw, or 30 JPG images when tested with a SanDisk 95MBps memory card before slowing down.
Leica sells the M10 as a body only—there's no standard kit lens option. Current lenses from Leica are available in focal lengths from 16 through 135mm, and if you crave something even wider you can look at third-party options from Voigtlander and Zeiss.
See How We Test Digital Cameras
I used Imatest to check the performance of the M10's 24MP image sensor. It's similar to the sensor used in the Leica SL, but its edges are tuned to better handle light coming in at askew angles. And, of course, you don't get the 4K video that you do with the SL—you don't get any video at all.
When shooting JPGs at default settings the M10 keeps noise under 1.5 percent from its base ISO 100 sensitivity through ISO 6400. Additional settings through ISO 50000 are available. Details hold up quite well through ISO 12500. There's some visible smudging at ISO 25000, and more noticeable blur at ISO 50000. The M10 doesn't have the lowest amount of noise we've seen at extreme ISOs, but its JPG output shows more detail than the Sony Alpha 7 II at comparable ISOs. That's because Leica tunes its JPG engine for minimal noise reduction, while Sony tends to be a bit heavy-handed when dealing with noise.
Raw images are captured as DNG files. The format, developed by Adobe, is universal, so most software and hardware with Raw support will read it without issue. We convert Raw files using Adobe Lightroom CC with default develop settings, which does mean that some noise reduction is applied to remove color noise, but none is applied to reduce luminance (grain).
The M10 lags behind the Sony Alpha 7 II in terms of Raw detail by about a stop at high ISOs. The Leica shows about as much information in very fine areas of our ISO test scene at ISO 3200 as the Sony does at ISO 6400. But beyond that the gap closes, with the M10 showing acceptable results at ISO 12500. Again, moving to ISO 25000 and 50000 takes its toll on image quality, but that's to be expected.
If you're primarily a JPG shooter I'd recommend setting the top automatic ISO to 12500 and dialing in more sensitivity only when absolutely needed. For Raw, I had no problem shooting through ISO 25000. Of course, the amount of grain you're willing to live with, and the amount of very fine detail you expect in an image, will vary. We've included crops from each ISO test image, made from both JPG and Raw images, in the slideshow that accompanies this review.
Conclusions
The M10 isn't as drastic of an upgrade as the M (Typ 240) was over the M9. While the camera has a new image sensor with a much greater ISO range, it doesn't offer an increase in overall resolution. The same is true for the rear LCD and Live View capability—the M9 had a rear display that was outdated when it was introduced, but both the Typ 240 and M10 LCDs are of fine quality by today's standards. Wi-Fi is a welcome addition.
It's easy for photographers who don't get rangefinder shooting to point out what the M10 and other Leica M models don't do—they don't support autofocus, many omit video recording, and rangefinders don't play well with long lenses. And while mirrorless cameras are in many ways as good as modern SLRs, with the exception of the APS-C Fujifilm X-Pro2, no current models offer an optical viewfinder.
If the M10 is for you, you probably already know it. The decision to opt for a rangefinder really comes down to whether you appreciate the simplistic, old school design and the mindset that comes when there's little to distract you from capturing images. We're going to leave our Editors' Choice for full-frame mirrorless with the Sony Alpha 7 II, as it's a better choice for the vast majority.
But if you find yourself in the rangefinder niche, know that the M10 is a worthy successor to the M (Typ 240). Individual upgrades may be minor, with the expanded ISO range delivering the real benefit in image quality. But the sum of the improvements—an improved viewfinder, Wi-Fi, a better LCD and a significantly better add-on EVF, and the slimmed down design—come together to make the M10 the best digital rangefinder that Leica has produced to date. It may not be enough to swap out a Typ 240, but owners of older M8 and M9 models should take a close look at the new kid on the block.
The Leica M10 camera improves upon its predecessor, upping performance and slimming down the body. It's a solid, albeit pricey, choice for rangefinder devotees.
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