Had the opportunity, yada, yada. The first and third images are ISO 800. The others, ISO 200. No noise reduction. But, sorry pixel peepers, I’ve adjusted anything else I wanted to adjust and I hereby pronounce the camera fantastic. Handling. Speed. I love the pictures. No problems here. All images were made with the 50’lux.

I have not seen my 50’lux, meaning seen the results of taking pictures with it, in quite this way prior to the five minutes or so that I shot it on the new M yesterday afternoon. That is the look I’ve wanted and dreamed of, and it’s been there to some degree with both film and my M-E. But that lusted-after wide-open Summilux-look just gob smacks you when you look at the files from this new M 240.

It was also very important to me that I process the images into what I want them to be. As opposed to just doing a straight JPEG conversion as so many people seem to of done when showing the results from this new camera. I understand why people would want to do that and why people would want to see those images. And they have done and seen it, ad nauseum. But someone, for balance, I felt, needed to do what they would normally do with their images from a camera. And that is process them to their own liking.

I did these in 10 minutes tops. Once I processed the first image, I copied the settings (in Lightroom) and just applied them to the other images. I like to do that with any set of images from a particular situation so that there is consistency throughout a group of shots from any one lighting environment or moment in time.

So from the time I walked in the front door till the time I posted these images to my blog was no more than 25 minutes, and that included grabbing and eating a salad. The reason I was in a hurry was that I wanted to get back to the camera store and take more pictures before the Leica representative closed up shop and put away Leica’s new baby. I was easily able to do that and I do have more shots though I’m not sure there’s anything worth showing but I will see.

This new camera is a unique creative tool. That is something I’m very confident in saying. I think that it presents the product of your lenses, these great Leica lenses, in their best light.

But also I think it will allow photographers who want to shoot Leica to do many of the things that fall, or have fallen, only within the realm of what Canon and Nikon pro gear users can do and that is indoor work, inside churches and reception halls, press situations, etc., and come away with the raw material to very quickly produce a professional standard product.

Leica seems to have added that layer of capability to their M system now, in my opinion, topping off what their gear can be used for and by whom.