In an attempt to curb my spending on film (and developing said film), I have explored more digital photography options. Ideally, a digital camera or system I use would allow me to produce jpegs that have my “look” without much (if any) post-processing. Enter: the Leica M9. After hours of research, I decided to give this 10 year old camera a chance. Sporting an 18MP CCD sensor (famously made by Kodak in the spirit of Kodachrome film emulations of decades’ past), the M9 is known for its punchy colors and beautiful black and white jpeg rendering. Its reputation for gorgeous color and tonality, however, is undercut by poor dynamic range (11.7 stops at base ISO of 160, and 7.6 stops at ISO 2500 according to DxO Mark, compared to the M240’s 13.4) and blown highlights, along with a terrible (virtually unusable) LCD screen, small viewfinder, and slow buffer speed.
Ultimately, I will end up giving up this beautiful hunk of brass in exchange for something more fitting for my bespectacled, fast paced shooting style (like an M240 or newfangled Q). In the meantime, I wanted to share some images taken with this setup.
