I recently walked into a local camera dealer curious about the much maligned Leica M8, but walked out a little while later, with the M9 and a wallet three times lighter than I had originally intended. My previous 35mm experience has been with photographing with a Leica MP, M7, M6, M3, and M2 – all film rangefinders, and a Nikon D700 digital SLR. Prior to purchasing the M9, I was quite aware of the many complaints about it being an unstable product. There are reports all over about SD Card reading issues, focusing issues with lenses, and camera hangs. But the opportunity to shoot with a full-frame 18MP digital Leica rangefinder was too good for me to pass up based on the opinions of others and not my own, especially when emotions take over.

The Leica M9 has now been with me for a couple of weeks now. It’s been by my side almost everyday. It has also been with me to a small town in Malaysia for a friend’s wedding, and to Cambodian slums for a recce trip. So how has the M9 coped and what do I think about it? Tool or Toy?

Here are my personal, and rather unscientific, Leica M9 thoughts, feelings and experience…

It took me a week to get used to the thickness and rather hollow feeling of the M9′s digital body. My previous film bodies were solid, slender slabs of mechanical marvel. But having said that, I now switch between the MP and M9 as if they were one and the same.

One of the first things I did with the M9 was dial down contrast, sharpening, and saturation to the lowest setting. Low, low, low everything – just the way I like it. I now get nice base images that I can enhance ever so slightly on the computer should I decide to. I shoot JPG for ‘snapshot’ pictures you see.

The JPG images from the M9 are very good. I have no qualms shooting JPG if I am confident of correct exposures during capture, and if I don’t intend to do heavy computer post-processing. I use in-camera black and white JPG images regularly – when I’m out shooting black and white photography, that is all I want to see even in review on the M9 LCD. I use and edit the RAW DNG files for portfolio images, no doubt. When importing the RAW files, I have an import preset that converts the color RAW files to black & white with an ‘s’ film curve applied.

The M9 has 3 extra Advance modes which I treasure. Discrete mode delays shutter cocking and its noise making it great for stealth, street photography. Soft mode enhances click sensitivity much like adding a soft release knob – great for low light, slow shutter speed photography. Discrete + Soft mode combines the best of both.

Many others have reported having to send their lenses back to Leica for focus calibration because they all had focusing issues when used on their M9. I’m happy to report that all my lenses work just fine, at least to my non-pixel peeping eyes. My lenses include an Elmarit-M 28mm F/2,8 ASPH, a Summicron-M 35mm F/2 Version 4 (Bokeh King), a Summilux-M 35mm F/1.4 ASPH (my favourite), a Zeiss C Sonnar ZM 50mm F/1.5, and a Summilux-M 75mm F/1.4. If any lense of mine were to have focus issues because of age, it’d be the Summilux 75mm, but mine focused without a blur.

The M9 at base ISO 160 creates absolutely stunning images with fantastic dynamic range. I cap my top ISO speed at 1250 – anything above is use-able but a slight eye itch. I try my best to hover between ISO 160 – 800 if I can help it.

I’ve shot a few hundred images so far, and have only noticed 1 picture with a bad moire problem. The M9 had trouble rendering the fine detail on a suit in a colour photograph. I’ll live with that… for now.

I generally try to shoot with the M9 like i’d shoot with my film MP. I have the LCD image playback switched off, and review my images only after i’ve done capturing the moment at hand. I do review occasionally after a shot to check exposure if lighting conditions are tricky.

My general shooting style is paced, waiting for moments, so I only ever shoot in ‘Single Shot’ Mode on the M9. There was this one time when I fired about 5 -6 consecutive ‘single shots’ (DNG + JPG), and had to wait about 8 seconds for the M9′s buffer to catch up and allow any further shooting.

The M9 has 4 custom user profiles that you can set with various settings. A great feature in my books. The user profiles are easily retrieved via the info button.
In case you were curious, my user profiles are:

1) COLOR Low:
Compression – DNG & JPG Fine
Color Saturation – Low
Contrast – Medium low
Sharpening – Standard
Shutter Advance – Standard
ISO – 160.

2) BW LowCon:
Compression - DNG & JPG Fine
Color Saturation – Black & White
Contrast – Low
Sharpening – Low
Shutter Advance – Standard
ISO – 400.

3) BWLowLight:
Compression - DNG & JPG Fine
Color Saturation – Black & White
Contrast – Low
Sharpening – Low
Shutter Advance – Soft
ISO – Auto ISO 1/8s – 1/1250

4) BW Street:
Compression - DNG & JPG Fine
Color Saturation – Black & White
Contrast – Low
Sharpening – Low
Shutter Advance – Discreet
ISO – Auto ISO 1/30s – 1/1250.

M9 battery life you ask? Well, it sucks. Literally, and figuratively. The M9 sucks up battery power real fast. And an extra M9 battery is very pricey, so that sucks too. And I’m a sucker – I have 3 original M9 batteries that I use, and 2 off-brand batteries that I think I might use.

My other complaint is dust. The Leica M9 seems quite the magnet for dust. I’ve had to blow clean the sensor a few times, and wet clean it once, since I’ve had the camera.

So all in all, is the Leica M9 a tool or toy? Well, I’m happy with mine so far. It’s an eccentric camera in every sense, but I’m in love with the rangefinder way of photography. And unfortunately, or fortunately depending how you view it, there is no other option for a full-frame digital rangefinder camera capable of using glass as beautiful as Leica M lenses. The M9 has given me photographs that I, and others, adore. Hence, the M9 is for me a great photographic tool, and because it’s such a joy to use, a toy too.

Here are some of my photographs taken with the Leica M9.

Photographs & Text:
Kevin WY Lee
www.kevinwylee.com

Leica M9 + Summilux-M 35mm F/1.4 ASPH

Leica M9 + Zeiss C Sonnar ZM 50mm F/1.5

Leica M9 + Summilux-M 35mm F/1.4 ASPH

Leica M9 + Summicron-M 35mm F/2.0 Version 4

Leica M9 + Summicron-M 35mm F/2.0 Version 4

Leica M9 + Summicron-M 35mm F/2.0 Version 4

Leica M9 + Summicron-M 35mm F/2.0 Version 4

Leica M9 + Summicron-M 35mm F/2.0 Version 4

Leica M9 + Summilux-M 75mm F/1.4

Leica M9 + Summicron-M 35mm F/2.0 Version 4

Leica M9 + Summilux-M 35mm F/1.4 ASPH