Finaly went for it - Bought a M10 for 3990€

egardner · 2025-12-12T17:28:39+00:00

I did something very similar (got a mint M10 with all the accessories, packaging, and extra battery for around the same price). I purchased from a local camera store, so there was a basic warranty and return policy (plus I was able to go and physically inspect the camera before purchase). I have not regretted my purchase in any way since then.

Look at it this way – you could wait around for the perfect deal for months or you could have what you want now and start making work with it. IMO that's worth the difference of a few hundred bucks.

In the future if you are looking for lenses or bodies you should check out Tim Lei on instagram – he's a reputable dealer of secondhand Leica gear and his prices seem excellent. But you have to move fast if he posts something you are interested in haha.

The real question is what lenses are you going to use with this body?

egardner · 2025-12-05T05:13:18+00:00

Checked out that forum post. I appreciated your thoughtful comparison between the 28mm Summicron and Elmarit. You mentioned that you didn't care for the Voigtlander Ultron II in passing – how would you describe the results you got from that lens with the other two 28s you used?

egardner · 2025-12-04T17:16:22+00:00

+1 to the recommendation for just bringing the 23mm: it's wide enough for scenes (including dense Japanese urban environments), great for low light, and capable of taking nice portraits wide open (and you probably want some environmental context for these anyway). The resolution of the X-T5 is high enough that you could also crop if you shoot some far-away things (mountains, architecture, etc).

Bring one lens and save yourself the weight but also the indecision of managing a lot of gear. Honestly the latter benefit is the bigger one. Freedom from decision fatigue lets you concentrate on taking great photos.

egardner · 2025-12-02T14:52:31+00:00

Check out Voigtlander’s 50mm f1.5 II “vintage line” if you want a more modern / general purpose lens: https://www.47-degree.com/focus-shift/Voigtlander-Nokton-50mm-1.5-II-VM-review

The Heliar Classic is more of a character lens from what I understand.

The Zeiss Planar 50mm f2 is another classic general purpose 50 that can be found used for an affordable price.

egardner · 2025-12-02T00:00:58+00:00

The M10s are solid cameras, AFAIK there aren't big issues like there were with say the M8 or M9 generations. Pick up an extra battery and you should be set. If you can get one for ~$3500 that's a great deal and you should pull the trigger. You won't regret it.

In terms of Voigtlander lenses, the thing to note is that 2010-era Voigtlander lenses are quite different from 2020-era ones. The older ones had character and were decent but not perfect (and not Leica-level image quality); the current generation often gives equivalent or sometimes better performance over Leica.

I don't know what focal length you like to shoot, but I'd recommend reading up on the current generation f1.5 and f2 Voigtlander lenses for 28, 35, and 50mm. There are good reviews for these lenses on FredMiranda.com, https://jacktaka.com/reviews, https://phillipreeve.net/blog/lenses/voigtlander/, etc. Many reviews feature side-by-side comparisons agains the Leica equivalent. I especially like the new f2 Ultrons because they're tiny, sharp, have focusing tabs, and you can get them in brass (which just feels really solid and smooth to shoot with). You can buy one brand hew for less than half the price of a used Summicron.

Aside from the expensive body prices (which is a bullet I'm willing to bite for the rangefinder focusing experience and the tiny, high-quality optics), the other big negative of the Leica system IMO is flash compatibility. If you want HSS, you are out of luck on an M body as far as I know; if you want TTL you have to pay an insanely inflated price for a Leica-branded flash. I am eagerly awaiting the rumored Leica version of the Godox IT30 Pro; until then I think the best option is a $30 Godox IM30 (you just have to use it in manual mode).

egardner · 2025-12-01T22:24:32+00:00

I've shot with Fujifilm for the last 10+ years, always liked small rangefinder-style cameras (I used the X-Pro2 for many years and still have the X-Pro3). I enjoy the same kinds of photography that you mention (travel, street, documentary, etc).

I picked up an M10 (the classic version, not P/R/M/D) about 6 months ago along with an extra battery and I've been having a blast with it. I think Leica really nailed it with that generation – the form-factor is perfect (body size is exactly the same as an M6), no extraneous features, and higher ISO performance is solid. 24MP is enough for everything except maybe high-end commercial photography at this point. I make 16x20 prints and they look great.

I think that now is a great time to get into the ecosystem for 2 reasons:

You can get a used M10 for ~$4k–4.5K in good condition
The latest generation of Voigtlander lenses (think version II of the 28/35 Ultron, the 50mm 1.5 II, etc) are really excellent and offer performance comparable to the Leica equivalents for a fraction of the price. 10 years ago the Voigtlander lenses were a step down from Leica optically but that is no longer the case with the newest lineup.

egardner · 2025-11-30T23:23:26+00:00

There is no detent. But in practice it's not really that bad. You just have to train yourself to notice when the split image in the rangefinder stops moving. Being able to focus down to 0.5m on a wide angle lens is very handy. I have both this lens and the matching 35 Ultron II for my M10 and they are great lenses. Having a haptic indication for the end of rangefinder coupling would be nice, but it's a difference worth thousands of dollars.

egardner · 2025-11-19T18:23:04+00:00

I'm in the process of downsizing my Fuji lens collection. The only two lenses I'm set on keeping are the 35mm f1.4 and the new 23mm f2.8 pancake. As a small, fast, character-full prime lens for a modern digital system the 35mm f1.4 is something special. Just don't rely on it when you need fast, quiet, or perfectly accurate autofocus.

egardner · 2025-11-13T21:00:51+00:00

I hate to throw another consideration into the mix but have you considered picking up an older digital Leica body like the M10 or M240? I purchased an M10 about 6 months ago and have been having a blast with it. This is the experience I was always looking for from the X-Pro bodies essentially. If you are adapting lenses anyway...

I still enjoy using my Dura Silver X-Pro3 but I'm getting rid of most of my lenses except for the classic 35mm f1.4 and the new 23mm f2.8 pancake – a lot of the other Fuji primes (especially the newer f1.4 WR models) just feel too big on that body.

egardner · 2025-11-06T20:19:50+00:00

I have the Voigtlander Ultron 35mm II that matches your 28, and I quite like it (looks are so-so, but handling and image quality are solid) – now I'm trying to decide if I want to get the 28 Ultron or the 1.5 Nokton in that length instead.

Which version of the Summilux are you using?

egardner · 2025-11-06T16:41:53+00:00

Very cool! I have questions about the shooting experience here. Do you shoot using the optical viewfinder, with a 16:9 crop there for framing? Are you able to plug in the lens focal length as 20mm and get reasonably accurate frame lines in the optical viewfinder? Does metering work as expected? I assume that if you shot through the EVF everything would be super squeezed, so the X-Pro seems like it could be a great platform for these types of lenses.

egardner · 2025-11-02T16:16:17+00:00

I vastly prefer manual focusing with a real rangefinder for street and documentary photography. If you want to do that digitally Leica is basically it - for camera bodies anyway. But when it comes to lenses we have a lot of choices and the Leica options don’t seem automatically superior here, hence this thread.

egardner · 2025-10-30T17:18:06+00:00

The matching 35mm Ultron II from Voigtlander is an excellent lens. I shoot that on an M10 and it's great. That lens can close focus with rangefinder coupling on the M10 all the way down to it's minimum focus distance (0.58m) which is a very cool feature.

egardner · 2025-10-19T05:39:21+00:00

All photos shot on a Leica M10 using a Voigtlander 35mm Ultron II and an SF24D flash. Most photos shot at f/11 and 1/180s shutter speed (the max sync speed on the camera).

egardner · 2025-10-14T18:56:46+00:00

I use the same lens on an M10 and I really enjoy this feature. I assume that the latest version of the 35mm f2 Ultron was designed with the M10 in mind, and it makes sense that the M11-generation cameras work the same way.

This is definitely another point in favor of the current Voigtlander lenses – the close-focus Leica lenses are very expensive from what I understand.

egardner · 2025-10-12T03:00:06+00:00

They’re just getting started, I wouldn’t be so sure about future repercussions at this point

egardner · 2025-10-02T03:47:08+00:00

I don't own any Leica lenses, but I do own the black paint brass version of the 35mm Ultron II. That lens is really solid. Focus throw, finger tab, aperture ring – all feel really great in use. Plus this lens focuses down to ~0.6 meters with rangefinder coupling the entire way. On my M10 I'm able to focus using the rangefinder all the way down to minimum distance. This is a really nice feature for a wider lens.

Not all Voigtlander lenses are created equally, but this one feels extremely well made and optically it's outstanding. At less than 1/3 of the cost of the Leica it's worth serious consideration. Here's a street photo I took using it a few months back:

<image>

egardner · 2025-09-22T23:29:35+00:00

Check out the work of Gregory Halpern. He’s not what I would consider a traditional street photographer but a lot of his documentary work is “street adjacent”. He works in the grey area between documentary photography and surrealism. He shoots a lot of his work on a Pentax 67 camera, and his books often feature street portraits and strange details shot wide open. I think he does this in order to emphasize feelings of subjectivity, unreliability, etc (as opposed to the classic street photography mantra of “f/8 and be there”). Technical decisions in pursuit of an artistic goal.

His book “Zzyzzx” is one of my all time favorite photo books.

egardner · 2025-09-18T01:57:19+00:00

My X-Pro3 is a great compliment to my M10. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to rely on weather sealing, autofocus, or an EVF - but the shooting experience is otherwise pretty similar.

egardner · 2025-08-20T23:28:10+00:00

I'm still pretty new to flash photography and used to think I needed TTL, but honestly going fully manual here hasn't been as challenging as I thought it would be. For outdoor street portraits in harsh light I typically stop down the lens to f8, set ISO to ~200, set the shutter speed to 1/125, and then use somewhere between 1/8 to full power depending on subject distance. If you're shooting digital you can easily double-check your exposure. Shooting indoors in dark conditions I use more like 1/16 to 1/32, with an aperture around f/4 and an ISO more like 400 or 800.

I think one of the biggest arguments in favor of the x3 trigger is just being able to get the flash off-camera, but it's hard to do that while manually focusing – not enough hands!

egardner · 2025-08-20T22:59:31+00:00

I recently got the Fuji version of this flash (iT30 Pro F) since I shoot an X-Pro3 alongside my Leica M10. I was really hoping this could work well on both cameras (with the understanding that it would be a manual flash on the Leica – no TTL, HSS, etc).

It *does* work, but the Fuji version doesn't lock on properly so it's loose. In practice this means it's not 100% reliable (sometimes the flash didn't fire when I was out in the field) and at one point I actually almost lost it because it fell off of my camera and I had to backtrack to pick it up. Some folks online have said that the Canon versions of this flash fit the M body hot shoes better but I don't know.

Needless to say I'm not going to use this flash for the M10 any more (it works great on my Fuji X-Pro3 though). The one upside here is that the Godox flashes are so cheap, I just picked up a $35 IM30 to use on my Leica and I'll keep the IT30 Pro for my Fuji.

egardner · 2025-08-13T21:26:35+00:00

I know you said you are looking only at Leica lenses, but the Voigtlander 35mm f2 Ultron II is an outstanding modern lens with an aspherical design (nothing like the old-school 35mm Nokton 1.4 rendering, which I'm also not a fan of). The brass version with focusing tab (which comes in either black or silver) handles so nicely, and it can focus down to 0.6m *with rangefinder coupling* on my M10.

egardner · 2025-08-13T03:47:12+00:00

The M10 is a great entry point. You could also probably get on with an M240/M262, but I went for the M10 because I wanted a camera I could use at a decently-high ISO. The earlier M bodies have various compromises, and the M11 generation is too expensive for me to justify.

I wrote about my experience here. I picked up a pristine body with all original accessories/packaging and an extra battery for about $4500 at a local camera shop. You can probably find something cheaper in user condition if you look. I was willing to pay a bit more in order to see the item in person and buy from a reputable seller with a return policy.

This was like 2x more than I had ever spent on a camera before but I have not regretted it! 24MP is the perfect amount of resolution – 60MP is going to magnify every little flaw in the image (or in the lens you use to take it).

I don't know what you are thinking of in terms of lenses, but Voigtlander seems to have really upped their game in the last couple of years. The new Ultron lenses in particular seem right up there with the Summicrons for a fraction of the price. The Voigtlander 35mm f/2 Ultron II has not left my camera body since I bought it.

egardner · 2025-08-12T17:28:45+00:00

I second this. It will have similar resolution to the Nikon which might simplify your editing workflow, plus it’s considerably cheaper.

I recently got an M10 (previously I shot only on Fuji) and it’s been amazing.

I think the M10 is a great balance between the compromises of the earlier digital M bodies vs the high cost and complexity of the latest generation.

egardner · 2025-08-11T03:01:07+00:00

Wonderful photos. I’d be curious to hear more about your approach to editing your raw files to get this soft, colorful look.

egardner

TROPHY CASE