Returning to Leica - Emotion vs Logic
Intro
There are two competing thought processes that drive decisions, logic, and emotion. Knowing whether your choices are being made by logic or emotions can be an important part of ensuring that you’re making the best decisions for yourself
Looking at the titles of videos I've made over my 3 years of making youtube videos my relationship with Leica M’s, especially the digital ones have been a little… complicated. My most recent digital Leica video was this… Selling my Leica M240 after 5 years. And at the time of writing that was about 6 months ago and if you listen to that video it's all very logical. So why then do I sit here now with a new to me, Leica M10 on my desk?
This post isn't going to be a review, It's going to be more about why I keep on coming back to Leica when it feels logical that there is no good reason to. There will be an M10 review very soon! I just want to wait a couple more weeks to ensure that I’ve passed the honeymoon stage. So if you’re interested in that then make sure to follow along.
Why Did I Miss The Leica M240?
So let's kick off with why I missed my Leica M240, what changed, or ultimately what did I get wrong when I sold it 6 months ago. My reasons for ditching the M240 came down to a handful of things.
Slow boot-up times
Dodgy white balance
Blown highlights
Lack of photos of myself as it's hard to hand to other people.
And I discussed how the X100v fixed all of that for me and is a camera that's far better at fulfilling the role of documenting my life. And in the new world, I still can't see the M10 replacing the X100V they will sit alongside each other rather than in competition
This all makes sense so then why not long after I sold my M240 did I start to miss it? I held off acting on that feeling for 6 months but the feeling didn't pass... if anything it got worse.
The bit that I think I missed, maybe didn't realize and it links back to that first statement is that I’d been thinking far too logically the whole time. The M240 didn't just fill the role of documenting my life, it also filled the emotional side of photography for me. The Leica M is the camera that fulfills for me not just the result, but importantly the enjoyment aspect of photography.
Leica M10 - Preset Edit
It's the simple times when I don't care about the result, I just want to have a bit of fun, maybe photo walks to forget life's worries. The last few weeks its been on pub walks, coffee trips, and taking random snaps of the dog, and the flowers in the garden. Do I have any great outputs to show you? Well no.. nothing here is going to sell.
But I did enjoy myself, messing around with the camera, honing my craft, and trying out somewhat random compositions. There's something weirdly rewarding about shooting an M as often it is a little tough on the user. Like this shot of the dog running straight at me. Yeah, my Fujifilm X-H2s would have taken 40 frames per second all in tack sharp eye animal focus. But I doubt I would have kept any of them. The 10 attempts I took with the M10 at least resulted in at least a little dopamine hit and involved a tangible level of skill.
Maybe that's it, shooting with the M feels like you are genuinely honing a skill, every single member of my family could shoot the X-H2s and get good results. I’m the only one that could do it with the M10.
The Cost and Difficulty of Film
It's hard to put a value on the enjoyment and it's not easy to rationalize having a £3k camera that provides nothing other than that. But I am going to try and have a little go at rationalizing it. My other fun outlet when it comes to photography is shooting film and importantly with film, it's not just the results that suck me in, it's the process too.
Many film cameras have a level of enjoyment in use that digital struggles to match. But the price of film and how hard it is to get at times is genuinely starting to put me off. Right now Kodak Portra is £20 a roll, development is £5, decent scans up to £10, that's £30 a roll, The M10 is then the equivalent of about 100 rolls of film. Last year I easily shot over 50 rolls of film and arguably that that money has gone whilst the value of the Leica M10 hasn't moved.
Moving away from the money side the other frustration I have is the scarcity of film, it can be a genuine pain to find the stocks you’d like. Last year I reduced my costs by developing and scanning myself, but I wasn't alone. Colour film chemicals can often be just as hard to get hold of as the film itself.
So 6 months ago I wasn't finding all this so much of an issue. However today the M10 is replacing my film shooting to some extent as both film and the M10 fulfill the same enjoyment niche.
Why Leica then?
I'm not going to wax lyrically about Leica colors and try and convince you it's the closest color science to film because I don't believe a word of it. If I had to choose I honestly think new Fujifilm cameras come closer in terms of JPEGs. But to some extent, if you are a results-focused photographer then the Leica M likely isn't for you, and you're probably wondering what on earth I'm going on about, output wise just about any other camera will come close if not be better, far easier to use and considerably cheaper.
So then why what makes the Leica M different from cameras like the X-Pro3 a camera that I thought I’d get on with but ultimately I didn't, a camera that goes to the extremes of hiding a screen to hark back to the days of film. I think it comes down to a couple of things
The Leica M10 is a rangefinder, whilst the X-Pro3 is styled like a rangefinder. Now don't get me wrong I love the styling of the X-Pro3 but ultimately it isn't a rangefinder and I find that this leads to the X-Pro3 providing a manual focus experience that disappoints.
I found naturally I sway to using AF, which drops one requirement from me and one aspect of the M10 that in most situations I enjoy doing. If I do want to manually focus with the X-Pro3 then it leads to me using focus peak and the EVF. I spend 10+ hours a day looking at screens at work and now I'm looking at the EVF, I’ll end up using all the other information that is displayed here too. And all this info in many cases might lead to me taking better photos, but importantly reduces my feelings of enjoyment and satisfaction.
The other more obvious point is that the Leica M6 and Leica M10 are essentially the same in operation minus winding onto the next shot. Operate the same manual lens via the rangefinder, reach for the familiar feeling shutter speed dial and take the photo.
Build Quality and Craftmanship
If you have never held a Leica M camera in person then it can be hard to explain just how good these cameras feel in the hand. If you do ever find yourself walking past a Leica store or used camera shop walk in and ask to have a look.
Other modern cameras just aren't the same, it's not the literal build quality, a Canon R5 likely uses more complex materials, with tighter tolerances but there's just something about them. You don't need to know anything about cameras to understand it, if you give someone a Leica to hold they can't help but appreciate it. It feels engineered, it's like a good watch. You don't need to know anything about watches to tell the difference between a Casio, and an automatic steel watch. Even if the Casio is better in every single way. It's ultimately to most people the less interesting watch.
It's hard to be logical and explain any of this, the build and experience of a camera is a very emotional experience and very subjective! But the enjoyment and experience that I get out of them are there. I can feel it.
But You Keep Selling Them?
So all this sounds great but my bank statements show that these cameras leave my ownership way too frequently. So let's recap.
First up I'm shooting way less film now, and that alone has opened up a bit of a hole that didn't exist for me in the past! There's more space for an experience-driven camera, and a Leica M is the closest digital experience that I have had.
The other part is that I completely missed that in the past the M240 was fulfilling some of this experience-driven shooting fun, I was seeing it only as a camera that documented my life, and in that aspect, it has been fully replaced and I think rightfully by the X100V and I can't see the M10 clawing that back.
Another aspect assuming you have the budget in the first place is that these cameras are easily sold, and repurchased with a level of ease that other cameras aren't, I swapped my Leica M240 for a Leica Q, which I then sold for more than I bought the M240 for 5 years ago. There isn't any other brand of digital camera that you can easily do that with. Then lastly, the feeling of there being a tangible skill involved, that it was me that created the image, and by taking more images I will be improving a skill
In short. I am a logical seller of cameras. I sell them when they fail to make sense. However, I am an emotional buyer of cameras. I buy them based on the illogical feelings they give me. This combination has resulted in the frequent buying and selling of them. And I am by no means suggesting that emotion is worth more than logic. The Fujifilm X-H2s is a camera that I have picked up recently and that was a very logical decision! I can see very tangible improvements to my youtube videos and I love it because of this. However, I shouldn't in the future sell this camera based on emotion.
So my relationship with Leica has been somewhat complicated, but right now, I'm really enjoying the M10! and importantly it sits alongside the X100V not in competition with it like I used to view it. I’d love to know your thoughts if you’ve gone through similar or if you think I’m just rambling on a little!
Leica M10 Raw Edit