Get your financier on the horn and start counting those doubloons, because there’s a new Leica camera on the scene. The Leica M10 rangefinder, which boasts a new 24-megapixel full-frame sensor, is a stills-only camera. It’s a bit slimmer than its venerable predecessor, the Leica M.
If you were hoping this was the first full-frame Leica rangefinder to cost less than $50, no dice. Like all the other Leicas in history, it’s really expensive: $6,595, and that’s just for the body. You’re gonna need a lens, so factor in another $3,000 to $10,000 for glass.
Like most Leicas, and like the many other cameras from the M-series before it, the M10 is designed to be a precision machine for taking pictures and eschews most whistles and bells. It doesn’t shoot video, for example, and the classic rangefinder design means there’s no autofocus system.
Instead, you’ll need patience and practice to focus your photos: You look through the optical peephole, line up two offset images in the viewfinder by futzing with a lens-mounted lever, and then you’re ready to pop the shutter. Not the ideal setup for action shots, but Leica’s excellent image quality makes portraits and street scenes look outstanding.
But Leica hasn’t just removed features here. Compared to the M, the M10 adds a physical ISO dial on the top of the camera. The physical shutter-speed dial is still there, too, so you can adjust all your ISO, shutter, and aperture parameters without even turning the camera on.
The M10’s classic looks are sculpted from magnesium alloy, and there’s a 3-inch LCD screen around the back to line up your focus on a bigger screen. The interchangeable-lens camera tops out at 5fps in its continuous-shooting mode, and ISO ramps up to 50,000. It’s not all the way old-school either, as the M10 has built-in Wi-Fi for offloading images to your phone and for controlling the camera remotely.
If you’ve got seven grand burning a hole in your pocket, it’s available today at your local Leica dealership.
