REWARD FOR EFFORT

With every development of Leica’s digital M series rangefinder cameras, the traditional and the contemporary seem to co-exist more harmoniously with each other. We say “co-exist” because the two elements aren’t really integrated like they are in the Fujifilm X-Pro3, which is really the only other digital camera that’s anything similar in concept (although it’s not a rangefinder design). The Leica M10-R has its traditional identity, which is where it works pretty much like a film camera, and its digital identity which surfaces when it’s switched to live view. In fact, in live view, the M10-R is basically a contemporary mirrorless camera, albeit a very bespoke one.

The first digital M, the M8, was a pretty idiosyncratic machine, although ironically it now has a growing number of fans for just this reason. That was back in 2006 and, since then, Leica has been steadily refining the challenge of making a 35mm film camera design that’s now 65+ years old work effectively in the digital era. Why bother? Well, the M is Leica. Sure, it also made 35mm SLRs and, today, it’s in a number of other camera categories (including mirrorless), but the M is such a huge part of Leica’s heritage and, accordingly, its identity. The 35mm Ms are camera royalty so, whatever else Leica does, a digital M is a given in its camera line-up… just like there will always be a Porsche 911, no matter what.

The M10 generation – first introduced in early 2017 – is the best interpretation of the ‘digital M’ brief thus far. If we’re going to be pedantic (which we are), it’s technically the fifth-generation model since there was a little deviation in model numbering after the M9, which nobody quite understood, but we’ll call them