A test shot from 2010 of Will. For an article for Studio Photography Magazine about the Leica M9 and the Leica 35mm f1.4 Aspheric lens.

Will van Overbeek at the old Trianon Coffee location. 

He is not a "Leica Believer...." 

But he is a famous and widely collected photographer...

 I'm having an interesting week delving into sensor technology as it relates to Leica. The Leica M9 is a bit of a cult camera which is actually rising in price on the used markets in spite of it being discontinued in 2012, having well documented sensor corrosion issues, and a now fleeting supply of usable batteries available to replace dying varieties. The reason usually given for its popularity is that the camera used an 18 megapixel,  Kodak CCD sensor designed specifically for this particular camera. On one hand there are a lot of people who seem to prefer the color and tonality of CCD sensors and on the other hand it was not an "off the shelf" sensor but one that used a thin AA filter and various physical modifications to yield a really good performance with M series lenses; especially of the wide angle variety. 

As the only M on the market at the time it was only to be expected that those who wanted a Leica rangefinder camera learned to love it completely. Flaws and all. After all, in the digital space, no other camera maker had stepped in to compete in that particular camera niche. 

Studio Photography Magazine had Leica send me the M9 and the lens in order to write a review of the two products and I certainly had fun doing it. There were things I didn't like about the camera but they mostly were about how loud I found the shutter and only a little bit about how messy the high ISO files got; noise-wise. There was a definite look to the files that was different than those from Nikon and Canon in those days. The blacks were a bit crushed which I think was a way of hiding shadow noise. The files had a harder contrast curve than the competitors but at the same time it was good with the tonality and roll off of the highlights. All assuming that one was working in raw. The Jpegs of the day ---- not so much. 

Coming from the very quiet cameras like the M3, M4 and even the M6s, the shutter in the M9 suffered by my ability to directly compare it to those stand out legends of quiet. Subsequent digital Ms have had progressively better sounding shutters. It's a little thing to most people but a big thing to others...

There seems to be a groupthink fallacy that the next generation of Leica sensors, those in the M240 series and the original SL are just re-badged Sony 24 megapixel, CMOS sensors but in reality the sensors were designed and made by two different companies and neither of them is Sony. Here's what the Wiki sez: 

"The M uses a CMOS 24-megapixel (6,000 × 4,000 pixels) image sensor designed for Leica by the Belgian company CMOSIS, and made by STMicroelectronics in Grenoble. The pixels are on a 6 x 6 μm² grid."

Interesting to me is that Leica used the same underlying sensor technology also in the original SL (601) that was launched in 2015. The emphasis was on making "film like" files with emphasis on eliminating the AA filters, keeping the rest of the filter stack as thin as possible and using micro lens technologies to keep light rays workable all the way to the corners and edges of the sensor when using wide angle, close back focus lenses. Those who could "see" a difference in color and tonal rendering have always had to deal with the "great unwashed" legion of "experts" who are now sure that only Sony makes sensors for full frame cameras. The reality is that the sensors used in Leica models up to but NOT including the SL2 were not Sony sensors. While they may have lagged behind on noise performance at higher ISOs many feel the look of the files is different enough to make it worthwhile to squirrel away those older Leica models. If that's the look you like.

Even though Sony "may" have produced the sensor in the SL2-S I think that sensor inherited much of the R&D on the design side from the 24 Megapixel cameras with BSI being a feature that Sony may have brought to the table with the SL2-S sensors. The SL2 is pretty much acknowledged to have its sensor come from the Sony catalog with with some filter tweaks to help out with the lens demands of rangefinder lenses. Which goes a long way towards explaining why I like the look of files from the SL and SL2-S better, across several parameters, than I do the SL2. And why I tend to hoard cameras that I like a lot. 

There are many myths rumbling around the camera world and the most persistent is probably the one about Sony making all the great sensors. I think they make the most cost effective sensors because they've gained the advantage of scale but there is still room for other players. At least there was up until the current rev. of Leica cameras. 

The old, 18 megapixel M9 was fun to play with and the bigger size of each pixel has a positive effect on the appearance of sharpness in the resulting files. Personally? I'm happy Leica moved on to the CMOS sensors in 2012. We gained a couple stops of better high ISO noise performance, probably a stop and a half more dynamic range, better battery life and faster throughput. Did we lose something? Only the choice of having a different style of color and tonal rendering which were in part compensations for the perceived shortcomings of the CCD tech. 

Takeaway? I wish I'd kept that 35mm lens. It was great!!! But the whole package had to be dutifully returned after the review was written. Leica offered to sell the package to me at a discount but I still had a house to pay off and a kid to put through college....so you know how that goes....