Leica M11 Monochrom

Leica’s iconic black and white camera is back and better than ever, but Gareth Bevan wonders whether its feature set is worth over £8,000

- Gareth Bevan

Price: £8,300/$9,195

Sometimes, reviewing cameras for a living isn’t easy. For example, how do you objectively compare a highly specialised camera aimed at the upper echelons of photography connoisseurs with the all-bells-and-whistles best mirrorless cameras? While cameras such as the Sony A7R V or Canon EOS R3 are technical marvels, the Leica M11 Monochrom is almost the exact opposite. It’s a rangefinder design, manual focus only, black and white sensor camera, that doesn’t shoot video and costs nearly the same as those two aforementioned cameras combined.

On paper, it should be laughed out of the room. But this is Leica, a company renowned for its prestige design and build that attract only the most well-heeled photography enthusiasts, who aren’t seeking groundbreaking technology, but instead the image quality and the sheer joy of photography that Leica cameras provide.

The Monochrom line was introduced by Leica in 2012 and the M11 Monochrom is the fourth full version in the line. This time, the camera returns with the same 60MP sensor seen in the Leica M11, but with the colour and low pass filters removed for added image clarity and reduced colour noise.

The M11 Monochrom is equipped with a fullframe, monochrome, multi-resolution sensor, the colour version of which was exclusively developed for Leica’s new M generation of cameras. With its multi-resolution technology, the M11 Monochrom can create DNG format and JPEG files with resolutions of 60MP, 36MP or 18MP. Additionally, it has an impressive ISO range of 125 to 200,000, providing photographers with greater creative freedom in low-light situations.