The newly released Leica M11 looks familiar to anyone who has seen Leica’s famous lineup of rangefinder cameras before, and it still uses Leica’s M mount for lenses, but the company has added new features.

First is a new 60-megapixel full-frame sensor, making this camera a huge upgrade for anyone who might have purchased the original M10 back in 2017. The so-called “triple resolution” sensor can shoot at either 60, 36 or 18 megapixels in DNG RAW or JPG. Notably, Leica says it’ll shoot using the full sensor area when shooting at a lower resolution, rather than cropping the image down. But these images might loose some sharpness because of pixel binning or line skipping that occurs when using the full sensor to shoot at a lower resolution. .

Shooting at lower resolution, though, will naturally save storage space and also offer extended burst shooting. The ISO on this camera ranges from 64 all the way to 50,000, a stop more than the 100-50,000 range offered on the M10 series.

Speaking of storage, the M11 has 64GB of onboard storage, which lets photographers store images both on the internal memory as well as an SD memory card. Leica also redesigned the bottom plate of the camera to provide quicker access to the SD cart slot and battery. There’s also a USB-C port right in the bottom of the camera, which makes charging the battery and transferring pictures to a computer a bit easier. That’s a fairly common feature these days, but it’s still a welcome addition to the M11. Leica also says that the M11’s 1,800mAh battery stores 64 percent more power than the battery on older models.

As with the M10 series, the M11 uses Leica’s optical rangefinder and manual focus only. But the 3-inch back screen, which you can also use as a viewfinder, has 2 million pixels, more than double the 1 million pixels on the M10. In another concession to modern technology, the M11 has both a mechanical and an electronic shutter.

Leica is offering two models: an all-black M11 and a black and silver option. The latter uses a brass top plate and as such weighs in at 640 grams, 100 grams more than the all-black models. To save weight, that camera has an aluminum top with a scratch-resistant coating.

The M11 costs US$8,995 without a lens. (SD-Agencies)