Smart refinements to the M10 design, plus a new 60MP sensor
Leica's M11 digital rangefinder camera offers several ergonomic improvements over its predecessor and packs a head-turning 60MP sensor while staying true to its manual focus roots.
For decades, Leica avoided drastic redesigns to its M lineup of rangefinder cameras, instead focusing on subtle refinements from generation to generation. With the M11 ($8,995, body only), Leica stays true to that strategy. The latest M entry retains the classic look of its predecessors but benefits from a few handling and imaging improvements. Although some aspects of the camera still feel slightly anachronistic—it requires manual focus and can't record video—its high-resolution imaging engine is as modern as it gets. Furthermore, the continuity in design and philosophy is welcoming to photographers who have used Leicas for years and offers a window into the past for younger shutterbugs who are scrabbling to buy their first M. The M11 is an aspirational purchase for most budgets, but if you love using a rangefinder and can justify the price, you walk away with a camera that's every bit as stunning as the images it captures.
The Leica M10 made waves by slimming a few millimeters of depth off of previous digital efforts to perfectly match the lines of analog models, including the most recent M-A. The M10 went as far as to include a clever ISO control that matched the position of the film rewind button. But the M10 platform is now five years old, so Leica refreshed the design again.
The M11 keeps the same dimensions as the M10, measuring 3.2 by 5.5 by 1.2 inches (HWD). The exterior matches that of the original M3, which first went on sale in 1954, a form that should appeal to longtime M users. Some earlier digital efforts, such as the M8, M9, and M (Typ 240), are slightly thicker than the film bodies, which was a sticking point for some rangefinder photographers.
The weight varies based on your choice of color. The silver chrome edition has a brass top plate and is as heavy as an M10, about 1.4 pounds. The black edition uses anodized aluminum instead, making it 20% lighter at 1.2 pounds.
I've tried both editions and the weightiness of the chrome version is palpable, especially if you pair it with heavier brass-barreled silver chrome lenses. It may represent a personal change in taste over the years—the two digital Ms I've owned have both been in black—but the silver M11 just has a bit more allure. I can't get over how much I love its look, and the heavier frame makes it feel a bit more like my old M3 (1.3 pounds) in the hand.
The other changes are on the bottom. The M11 (finally) drops the quirky removable baseplate design, a vestigial remnant that carried over from bottom-loading film cameras. It's now easy to swap the battery; simply pop out the metal latch to access it and the UHS-II SD card slot. The M11 includes 64GB of internal storage and has a USB-C port on the bottom for wired transfers and charging. Leica includes an external wall charger in the box, too.
Despite putting the port on the bottom, the M11 retains the same level of dust and splash protection as the M10. The camera isn't IP-certified and you shouldn't use it during a downpour, but it can likely survive moderate precipitation. If you're after a better-protected Leica, the SL2 and SL2-S carry an IP54 rating for dust and water ingress.
The basic design of the M series hasn't changed much over the years. The M11 keeps the top plate clean—a shutter release and an on/off toggle sit alongside discrete dial controls for shutter and ISO. A top function button, last seen on the Typ 240, returns. The button activates a live view focus magnification aid by default, but you can remap its function easily via a long press. The threaded shutter button works with a mechanical release cable or a soft release button.
The shutter speed is a carryover from film bodies. The M11's mechanical shutter is very quiet and can fire as quickly as 1/4,000-second; it syncs with an external flash at speeds of up to 1/180-second. The body also includes a fully electronic shutter function. It fires as quickly as 1/16,000-second, which is good news for Noctilux fans who don't want to deal with neutral density filters for F0.95 imaging.
The electronic shutter is silent, a plus for work in concert halls, on film sets, and for other venues where noise is verboten. The sensor readout isn't blazingly fast, though, so you're likely to encounter some rolling shutter distortion when you snap photos of subjects moving across the frame or for shots in which you pan the camera to follow action during an exposure. The electronic shutter is useful for portraiture and shallow depth of field imaging under very bright lighting, but stick with the mechanical shutter for photos of subjects in motion.
A lower base ISO is also beneficial for working at wider apertures in bright light. The M11 starts at ISO 64. The ISO dial is on the left side of the top plate, in the same position as the film rewind button on analog M bodies. It offers quick settings as high as ISO 6400, has an "M" position to set higher values via the camera menu, as well as an "A" position for Auto ISO imaging. You can set a minimum shutter speed, too. The M11 doesn't feature any sort of sensor stabilization, so Leica programs in a 1/4x focal length minimum to prevent shake-induced blur by default—the default value is adjustable, so you can set it to 1/1, 1/2, or a fixed minimum shutter speed if you prefer.
Leica keeps the same three-button rear layout from the M10 series for the M11. Play, Fn, and Menu buttons sit to the left of the fixed touch LCD. The menu system has changed, however, and now matches that of the SL2 and Q2. A representative from the company says that the change benefits photographers who use more than one type of Leica. The Fn button is customizable—it toggles live view by default, but you can reconfigure it via a long press.
The menu system is split between a single-screen menu and a more verbose multi-page text system. The single-screen menu shows exposure settings and has a fixed, 12-slot control bank for access to the most common options, including color; JPG and Raw capture options; metering and drive modes; and memory card formatting. Curiously, the single screen menu is the only way to format the M11's internal memory or SD card.
The menu is navigable via touch or the four-way controller on the rear. Press the menu button twice or tap the three-bar icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to access the five-page text menu; you need to use the d-pad to move through it.
The rear control dial retains its position, but now supports an additional push-in function. I always set the dial to control EV compensation on a digital M, but appreciate the ability to push the dial in at any time for a quick visual indicator of the set amount of EV compensation. You can change the dial's function via a long press.
Leica's rangefinder focus system is unique in today's digital market. The M11's optical viewfinder shows a fixed view of the world with a wide-angle 0.72x magnification, slightly wider than a 28mm lens. You use a bright patch at the center for focus. Simply line up the two halves of its double image to set the lens to the proper distance. The lines also show the framing for the attached lens. Rangefinder focus may sound daunting on paper, but it's quite intuitive in practice. I'm typically able to manually set focus on a Leica M with more speed and precision than with an SLR focusing screen with split and micro-prism assists.
Proponents of rangefinder photography often cite the viewfinder as the reason for their preference. It's especially appealing for candid and documentary work with a 35mm or 50mm lens because the viewfinder shows more of the world than the lens sees. As such, you can more easily find, frame, and anticipate the dynamic action that makes for compelling images.
The M11 uses an internal LED to illuminate its frame lines, a design choice that dates back to the limited-run M9 Titanium Edition. The camera shows pairs for 28mm and 90mm; 35mm and 135mm; and 50mm and 75mm views. They change automatically along with a lens, and you can quickly preview what a different lens will show via the frame line selector on the front of the body.
Fujifilm has a couple of models with similar optical viewfinders, such as the X100V and X-Pro3, but neither offers the same experience for focus—they have manual focus modes that emulate a rangefinder, but are autofocus-first cameras. The M11 is made for use with manual focus M-mount lenses with rangefinder-coupled focus. It's compatible with M lenses going back to the '50s, as well as '30s and '40s Leica Thread Mount glass.
The lens mount has an optical scanner that reads modern 6-bit coded Leica M lenses. Using a coded lens isn't a requirement, but you get focal length EXIF data in your photos when you use them; that's helpful for reminding you which lens you used to make a photo. You can also input codes manually, a plus if you're using vintage lenses. This method works for most lenses, but Leica has never offered that option for the 1970s-era 40mm Summicron-C. It's one of my favorite antique lenses and I'd love to see it as an option.
I'm a fan of the M11's LED frame lines—they're always visible, even when working in very dim light, a downside when working with older Ms that rely on ambient light to show the lines. The frame lines are always white, though. Leica included an option for red frame lines with the M (Typ 240), but dropped it from more recent entries. That's a shame—I find the red frame lines easier to see and easier on my eyes in dim light. Shutter speed and exposure indicators still display as red in the M11's finder, the same as they do on metered film bodies.
For those times you want to focus through the lens, simply press the rear Fn button to toggle live view. An add-on viewfinder, the Visoflex 2, is also available. The $740 add-on slides into the M11's hot shoe. It's an imposing piece of industrial design, a brutalist black box that sits atop your camera. The viewfinder is reminiscent of the notorious "Frankenfinder(Opens in a new window) " optical add-on, an accessory for the Wide-Angle Tri-Elmar 16-18-21mm step zoom lens, but isn't quite as massive.
Aesthetics aside, the Visoflex 2 is eminently functional. It presents a large view to the eye and features a 3.7-million-dot display. It refreshes fairly smoothly, showing motion without any noticeable stutter, but you can certainly notice the rolling shutter effect when you pan to follow a moving subject. Leica didn't provide a magnification rating or refresh rate for the Visoflex—I didn't find either to be deficient for the types of images you're likely to make with a rangefinder camera, however.
You can also use the Visoflex 2 with the M10, but there it displays only 2.4 million dots of resolution and requires you to upgrade your M10's firmware—the update is forthcoming.
The EVF mirrors the information from the rear display. Focus peaking is available as a full-time manual focus assist and the frame punches in to a magnified view automatically as you adjust focus with most lenses. However, you need to punch in manually for lenses without rangefinder coupling or thread mount lenses that require certain vintage Leitz LTM adapters. The latter is more of an edge case than an issue, and it's easy enough to move to a new adapter(Opens in a new window) that covers the optical code reader.
The viewfinder also addresses one of the M11's ergonomic drawbacks: its fixed rear display. The viewfinder tilts up, clicking in place at 45-degree and 90-degree positions, so you can work from low-to-the-ground angles without laying down on the ground.
Rangefinder traditionalists can certainly get by without the Visoflex—the M11's optical viewfinder sets it apart from the pack after all. But it makes the M11 a more versatile mirrorless package, one that you can use with Leica R and other manual SLR lenses (if you have the right adapter) or to get precise focus with shallow depth of field specialty lenses like the Noctilux-M 75mm F1.25 ASPH.
The rear display is an improvement over the one on the M10, and very capable of showing off images from the M11's 60MP sensor. The 3-inch, 2.3-million-dot display (compared with 1.04 million dots on the M10) is bright enough to use on a sunny day and supports touch input. It uses Gorilla Glass, so it's as rugged as most smartphone displays, but not shatterproof. Leica reserves its best Sapphire Glass screens for its premium P series models like the M10-P.
The M11 uses a new battery, the BP-SCL7, rated for about 700 shots (per CIPA standards). That's comparable with class leaders in longevity like the Sony a7 III (710 shots). The M11 can last as long as 1,700 shots if you use the rangefinder exclusively and take advantage of the power-saving features. Image playback and review; Wi-Fi file transfers; and various other factors take their toll. Even still, you can use the camera for a long day of shooting without having to worry about running out of power.
It's easy to swap the battery. As mentioned, there's no baseplate to remove, so it's just a matter of pulling a lever and giving the battery a slight push to release its safety lock. The lever is fairly close to the tripod socket, however, so most quick-release plates will block access. If you're a regular tripod user, the M11 Handgrip ($430) is an alternative to a release plate. Its dovetail cut slides directly into Arca-Swiss compatible tripod heads.
The single memory card slot supports SDXC cards at the fastest UHS-II speeds. You can set the M11 to write to both card and internal memory (64GB is onboard) simultaneously, or to use the card when the internal storage fills up (or vice versa). And you can use the camera without a memory card at all if you prefer.
A companion app, Leica Fotos, is available for Android and iOS devices. The M11 includes dual-band Wi-Fi to connect wirelessly and can plug in for speedier wired transfer. Leica provides a USB-C-to-Lightning cable for plugging the camera into an iPhone, and you can use any USB-C-to-USB-C cable to connect it to an iPad Pro.
Refinements to the body are welcome, but the big news with the M11 is its new full-frame image sensor. The 60MP BSI CMOS sensor is a significant upgrade over the M10-R's 40MP one and a huge bump for photographers currently working with a 24MP M10 or Typ 240. The sensor also employs thinner cover glass than most mirrorless cameras, a necessary change to get the best performance from M lenses.
The M11 saves photos at 14-bit Raw DNG or 8-bit JPG quality, with up to up to 14 stops of dynamic range for DNGs at 60MP. Lower resolutions are also available—36MP and 18MP—in DNG format. Images at both of those lower resolutions benefit from a bit more dynamic range (15 stops) and lower noise at higher ISO settings, but still cover a full-frame view.
Leica employs a pixel-binning technique to capture lower-resolution Raw images. The camera bundles multiple pixels together into groups for lower effective resolution. The M11 uses this technique to net its 36MP and 18MP output; this step enables the aforementioned improvements to dynamic range and noise.
I put the M11 through the paces in the lab, photographing our ISO test scene from its lowest ISO 64 sensitivity up through ISO 50000 at 18, 36, and 60MP. At full resolution, we see results right in line with the other 60MP BSI sensor cameras on the market, the Sony a7R IV and Sigma fp L. Photos show superb detail and very little noise at settings closer to ISO 64. There's a tight, fine grain pattern at moderate settings, from ISO 400 through ISO 1600, and the grain is a little rougher as you near ISO 12500.
Some detail is lost amongst the noise at ISO 25000, but I wouldn't hesitate to use it, especially for images that call for a bit of moodiness. The highest ISO 50000 comes with more compromises—some color noise escapes Lightroom's suppression attempts and a slight magenta cast detracts from the otherwise strong color fidelity. Results are very much in line with the two most recent M sensors, the 24MP chip in the M10 and the 40MP one from the M10-R, only with a higher pixel count.
The 18MP and 36MP capture modes deliver lower noise, but the cleaner look is more evident at the lower and moderate end of the ISO range, at least with Raw images. If you opt for JPG capture, the pixel-binned modes do a better job curbing splotchy false color at the high end of the ISO range than the full-resolution output. The M11 supports mixing 60MP DNG with any size JPG in its DNG+JPG capture mode, so you can reap the benefits of pixel binned JPGs, without giving up the option to make edits later.
As for dynamic range, I worked with 60MP DNG images in Adobe Lightroom and enjoyed ample room to open up shadows, curb highlights, and adjust color to taste. I had no concerns photographing scenes with tough lighting. Take a look at the JPG (left) and processed Raw version (right) of the same scene above—the Raw image leaves enough room to cut the slightly hot exposure on the sunlit building and recover detail from the shadows.
Leica's default look for JPGs comes into play here. The standard profile leans toward higher contrast and crunched blacks, but it and the other JPG profiles—Vivid, Natural, Monochrome, and Monochrome High Contrast—allow for tunable contrast, sharpness, and saturation.
In addition to the down-sampled 18MP and 36MP modes, the M11 includes an in-camera crop option, exclusive to its 60MP capture mode. The crop works differently than pixel binning; it limits the view of your lenses and is handy for times when you're working with a wider lens but want a narrower view for a photo. You can apply a 1.3x crop for 39MP output or 1.8x for 18MP imaging. The crops allow you to continue to use the optical viewfinder for many lenses—a 28mm prime, for example, matches up with 35mm frame lines in its 1.3x mode and the 50mm set at 1.8x.
The M11 takes a new approach to metering light than its predecessors. Leica dropped the discrete internal light meter from the camera in favor of using the image sensor to meter. You hear the shutter opening when you power the camera on now, but the benefits are clear. Accuracy is one advantage. The sensor can more intelligently analyze an entire scene using multi-field analysis, so you won't need to spend as much time messing with exposure compensation settings in tricky light. Center-weighted and spot evaluation metering modes are also available.
Dropping the dedicated meter also opens up compatibility with a vintage lens that's been previously incompatible with digital M cameras, the 50mm Summicron Dual Range. The 1960s-era prime has an extended focusing helicoid for close-up work, a feature that physically bumped into the light meter housing on earlier digital bodies. I'm happy to report the Summicron DR mounts and works through its full focus range with the M11, with one caveat—you need to unmount the lens from the camera to set it to close focus and attach its close-up goggle accessory. But that's a small inconvenience in exchange for being able to use one of your favorite lenses for film Ms on a digital body.
Burst shooting isn't the way most photographers will use an M, but it's available. The M11 fires at 4.5fps at its highest speed and can keep that pace up for about 15 shots at 60MP or 36MP before noticeably slowing. If you opt for the 18MP mode, the camera can rattle off DNG images at 5fps for as long as you hold the shutter down.
On looks alone, the Leica M11 doesn't move the bar too much far from the M10—it's difficult to tell the two apart at a glance. Leica's engineers worked diligently to shave a few millimeters off of earlier digital efforts with the M10, so it would be odd to see a dramatic shift in design here. The only M to really stray from the paradigm, the 1970s-era M5, was a flop, and all efforts since have tilted toward making new M cameras look and feel just like an M3.
But looks are slightly deceiving. The M11 makes the biggest change to the design in recent memory by dropping the removable baseplate. I won't miss it—taking the bottom off of a camera to grab a memory card or swap a battery is awkward at best. The new mechanism is easier to work with, and a USB-C port for charging and connectivity is a welcome addition, especially for travel. If you buy the camera in black, you get a slightly lighter kit because of its aluminum top plate, but if you must have brass, the silver M11 is also available.
Inside, the new sensor offers substantially more resolution—the M11 packs two-and-a-half times more pixels than 24MP models. Lower-resolution capture at full Raw quality is also available if you don't need to work with 60MP files. Aside from the big files, we didn't find any notable drawback to the extra pixels—the sensor keeps up with the 24MP M10 and the 40MP M10-R for low-light work.
A Leica is undoubtedly a luxury item, and the $8,995 M11, like the M10-R and M10 Monochrom, probably isn't within most people's budgets. Whether it's worth the investment is a personal decision, especially because the M11 simply doesn't do as much as most modern cameras—it doesn't automatically focus, it can't record video, and you won't find many zoom lenses available for rangefinders. Our favorite full-frame cameras are more capable, and, despite retailing for several thousand dollars without a lens, more affordable. But for some of us, the focused photography experience that rangefinder cameras facilitate is what we enjoy most about them. And if you fall within that category, the M11 is just as fulfilling a tool as the M10 and the others that have preceded it.
Leica's M11 digital rangefinder camera offers several ergonomic improvements over its predecessor and packs a head-turning 60MP sensor while staying true to its manual focus roots.
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Images, and the devices that capture them, are my focus. I've covered cameras at PCMag for the past 10 years, which has given me a front row seat for the DSLR to mirrorless transition, the smartphone camera revolution, and the mainstream adoption of drones for aerial imaging. You can find me on Instagram @jamespfisher.
I use all of the major camera systems on a regular basis, swapping between Canon, Fujifilm, L-Mount, Micro Four Thirds, Nikon, and Sony systems regularly, and I still find time to use Leica M rangefinders and Pentax SLRs on occasion. I keep an iPhone 13 in my pocket for the rare occasions I'm not carrying a camera.
I'm not a brand-specific photographer, and swap between a Canon EOS R5, a Nikon Z 7 II, and a Sony a7R IV when taking product photos for reviews. I use Flashpoint and Godox TTL lights, Gitzo and Peak Design tripods, and most often reach for a Think Tank or Peak Design backpack to carry equipment.
When it comes to computers, I'm an unapologetic Mac person and have been for the past 20 years. I write in Pages and use Numbers for spreadsheets. I currently use a 27-inch Retina iMac for photo and video editing, but have a Mac Studio on order, along with a calibrated BenQ display. I rely on a LaCie 6big RAID for media storage.
I split time with a few different software apps depending on the type of editing I'm doing. For Raw image processing, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic is my standard. I pair it with a LoupeDeck CT console to supplement my keyboard and trackpad, and lean on RNI All Films 5 presets when I want to give an image a film look. I reach to Apple Final Cut Pro for video editing.
My first digital camera was a 3.2MP Canon PowerShot Elph, and my first interchangeable lens model a 6MP Pentax *ist DL. I have a soft spot for antique film gear, and still use a 1950 vintage Rolleiflex Automat and a 1947 Leica Summitar lens for personal work.
To relax at home, I spend time reading Marvel Unlimited comics on an iPad Pro, kick back with a good (or bad) movie on a 4K LG television with an Apple TV 4K streaming box, and enjoy story-driven video games on the Xbox Series X.
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