Leica M10 P Long Exposure Turns Passersby Into Trails

A Leica M10 P long exposure by the photographer kyohnam turns passersby into translucent trails, figures that Leica describes as traces of time. The camera that made it was announced in August 2018, which makes it eight years old this year, and nothing in the picture depends on anything Leica has added to the M line since.

That is the argument here. Slow shutter work is a property of a shutter dial and a steady camera, and the M10 P has both.

The Dial Stops at 8 Seconds, Then Bulb Takes Over

The M10 P's shutter speed dial runs from 1/4000 of a second to 8 seconds and adds a Bulb setting, according to the PhotographyBlog review. Anything longer than 8 seconds is a Bulb exposure, which holds the shutter open for as long as the photographer allows.

The ceiling on that depends on settings. Owners on the L Camera Forum report that maximum exposure time on M bodies falls as ISO rises, and that the later M10 R and M10 Monochrom extend it to 16 minutes at base ISO. Owners of earlier M cameras also describe a dark frame of equal length after a long exposure, so one 60 second frame at ISO 200 costs another 60 seconds of waiting. Those are anecdotal reports, and none of the sources reviewed give a confirmed Bulb ceiling for the M10 P itself.

One forum owner says the camera handles moving subjects at 1/30 of a second and night scenes with clean, printable files. For a picture built from moving people, that is the working range: a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on how much movement the photographer wants to dissolve.

A Shutter Built to Disappear in a Crowd

Discretion was the M10 P's reason to exist. Leica called its shutter almost inaudible and said it was the first digital M quieter than its film ancestors, and it removed the red dot logo from the front of the body to draw less attention on the street. PhotographyBlog's review and a Photobite hands on both land on the same two points, the dampened shutter and the missing logo. Photobite adds a caveat, that quick focus on the M10 P takes a seasoned hand at manual focusing, which suits a photographer who sets the frame and waits for the street to pass through it.

That suits this kind of picture. In a long exposure, anyone who holds still stays sharp and anyone who keeps moving smears into a trail, which is how figures become translucent. The photographer needs the camera to stay quiet and unnoticed while the street keeps its normal pace, because a crowd that stops to look at the camera does not turn into trails.

The M10 P also carried the first touchscreen on an M camera, a 3 inch Gorilla Glass panel at 1.04 megapixels, plus a built in level gauge. It shares the 24 megapixel full frame sensor of the M10 released in January 2017.

Eight Years Old Beside a Carbon Fibre Q3

Leica's M line has moved on since 2018. The M11 P was in stock in metal gray as of late August 2026, according to PhotoRumors, and the M EV1 added an electronic viewfinder to the family in October 2025.

Leica's own product news this autumn has gone to finish and handling instead. The Leica Q3 43 Formula 1 Edition went on sale October 21, 2026 with carbon fibre on the handgrip, thumb rest and shutter button, a Microvelour covering and an F1 Leica Look, while the lens and 60 megapixel sensor match the standard Q3 43. A month earlier, the LUX Grip in silver gave the iPhone a MagSafe accessory with a two stage shutter release, a control wheel and two function buttons, alongside an Artist Look by Magnum photographer Steve McCurry.

Both releases work on the shutter control: a carbon fibre button on one, a two stage release on the other. Neither changes what a long exposure can do. A trail of passersby still needs a held shutter and a camera that does not move, and the M10 P does that with a dial that has been the same since the day it was announced.

kyohnam's frame is the proof of how little the toolset has to change. A camera announced in August 2018, a dial that reaches 8 seconds before Bulb, and a street full of people who never stood still long enough to be sharp.