Leica’s New M11-P

By David Butow –

Leica has just updated their flagship digital rangefinder, the M11, with a new chip that encodes the original image file with CP2A technology. This new “M11-P” is the first camera that can add encrypted metadata to the images files, creating a reasonably secure imprint that allows viewers of the images, – even multiple file generations later – to see what the original JPEG looked like, and see what camera it came from. This is a part of the effort to combat deceptive manipulation of images after the fact as well as help differentiate pictures created by a camera versus those created by Artificial Intelligence.

Although still in its infancy, the technology aims to become a global standard that will help media organizations, other publishers and general viewers maintain some faith in the images they see. We have a post focusing on Adobe’s Content Authority Initiate here on the site.

You can read more about the camera here and see a brief video of me discussing why I think this is a significant step in the battle to hold onto traditional photography.