Leica M EV1 First Review - It's Bad

[shawn]

By using a slightly larger sensor (and shutter), it would be easily possible to retain this extremely advantageous feature of the previous optical rangefinder for the Leica's internal EVF.

You can also do the exact same thing by applying a slight crop.

Or shoot with two eyes open.

 

[raydm6]

Did anyone suggest throwing a SBOOI on there yet? 🫣

 

[Glenn2]

Actually that’s not a bad idea, or even better have a Kontur mode using the digital display the eyepiece sees.

This may help explain what a Kontur finder is…..
Kontur viewfinder

If you want to try this type of finder and have a camera that has an optical viewfinder and frame lines it’s easy to simulate the effect. Unfortunately the frames generated will be off because of the finder magnification. The SBOOI is 1:1 while most Leicas are .72.
What you do is cut a small rectangle of opaque tape (black electrical works well) to completely block out the viewfinder. Also block the rangefinder window for now. Leave the window for the frame lines uncovered.
Now look into the blocked viewfinder with your right eye while keeping the other eye open. You will see the frameless floating in your field of vision with no problem seeing outside them. Why not generate digital frame lines with the display in the new EV1 , perhaps have a way to bring up a magnified patch in the middle for focusing.
I’m surprised some company hasn’t implemented a digital Kontur finder yet.

A few years ago I obtained a small digital screen and used a fabric magnifier for viewing. Was able to get an idea if a digital Kontur would work and results were very promising. At the time my thought was to use it on a Nikon DSLR with long lenses for bird in flight photography. Just trying to find the bird looking through a long lens isn’t easy, there’s a reason they don’t put telescopic sights on shotguns.

I personally wouldn’t even consider an EV1 the way it presently works,

 

[Godfrey]

I just use my Voigtlander Kontur finder. 😉

 

[trix4ever]

Whenever I use my M with it's evf I only use it for framing and use the rangefinder for focussing. Having tested it several times, when focus seems right in the magnified evf it never matches the rangefinder, and the rangefinder is always right when it's adjusted correctly.
So these days I only use the evf for my 15mm and any others I don't have an optical finder for, and purely for framing. This new M-EV1 is not for me. YMMV.

 

[boojum]

Whenever I use my M with it's evf I only use it for framing and use the rangefinder for focussing. Having tested it several times, when focus seems right in the magnified evf it never matches the rangefinder, and the rangefinder is always right when it's adjusted correctly.
So these days I only use the evf for my 15mm and any others I don't have an optical finder for, and purely for framing. This new M-EV1 is not for me. YMMV.

This caught my attention. The EVF is not as accurate as the RF? But the EVF is telling you exactly what the lens is seeing. I know a fellow who uses an EVF on an M body to dial in lenses because the RF is not accurate enough. Your experience puzzles me. But it is your experience.

 

[trix4ever]

This caught my attention. The EVF is not as accurate as the RF? But the EVF is telling you exactly what the lens is seeing. I know a fellow who uses an EVF on an M body to dial in lenses because the RF is not accurate enough. Your experience puzzles me. But it is your experience.

Well when focussing a correctly adjusted rangefinder only involves lining up two images or two lines I cannot get it wrong even with my ageing eyesight.
With the evf you have two choices. I will not use peaking, personally I feel it's the invention of the devil and if it was the only way to focus digital I would go back to film full time, I hate it that much.
The other is by magnification which takes me back to my large format work where you rack the focussing back and forth until you feel the image is at it's sharpest, at best an approximate guess, and again only really working at wider apertures, try it at f8 on a 21mm lens, you're better off guessing.again YMMV.

 

[boojum]

Well when focussing a correctly adjusted rangefinder only involves lining up two images or two lines I cannot get it wrong even with my ageing eyesight.
With the evf you have two choices. I will not use peaking, personally I feel it's the invention of the devil and if it was the only way to focus digital I would go back to film full time, I hate it that much.
The other is by magnification which takes me back to my are large format work where you rack the focussing back and forth until you feel the image is at it's sharpest, at best an approximate guess, and again only really working at wider apertures, try it at f8 on a 21mm lens, you're better off guessing.again YMMV.

The assumptions you have made are that the RF is adjusted correctly and that the lens is correctly adjusted for the body to be compliant with the RF. This is quite often true. The EVF image is always true. For the record, I know how rangefinders work. ;o)

Cheers

 

[pvdhaar]

Whenever I use my M with it's evf I only use it for framing and use the rangefinder for focussing. Having tested it several times, when focus seems right in the magnified evf it never matches the rangefinder, and the rangefinder is always right when it's adjusted correctly.
So these days I only use the evf for my 15mm and any others I don't have an optical finder for, and purely for framing. This new M-EV1 is not for me. YMMV.

I fully believe that. I've also found that focus peeking is not as accurate as it is made out to be. Although not on an M, but on various Sony's, I do see that when comparing focus peeking against image magnification, there's often a difference in favor of image magnification. Neither match what the AF seems to pull off, probably because that combines maximum contrast with phase detect.

 

[olakiril]

The other is by magnification which takes me back to my large format work where you rack the focussing back and forth until you feel the image is at it's sharpest, at best an approximate guess, and again only really working at wider apertures, try it at f8 on a 21mm lens, you're better off guessing.again YMMV.

I agree, coming from SLR's focusing with wide apertures works great, but trying to focus with small apertures is a pain. Honestly, it is probably the achilles heel of this camera. There are ways to compensate for it such as using phase-sensitive pixels even with MF, or at the least a modern larger and higher resolution EVF. Maybe in the next iteration who knows.

 

[pvdhaar]

I agree, coming from SLR's focusing with wide apertures works great, but trying to focus with small apertures is a pain. Honestly, it is probably the achilles heel of this camera. There are ways to compensate for it such as using phase-sensitive pixels even with MF, or at the least a modern larger and higher resolution EVF. Maybe in the next iteration who knows.

Unfortunately the M lenses have no auto aperture, so there's no easy way to focus wide open and shoot stopped down..

 

[Dogman]

I can't believe I'm defending EVFs after years of railing against them and claiming OVF are superior. They (OVFs) are superior but....

Small aperture lenses vs large aperture lenses. Makes no difference to the EVFs. They boost the signal to show you exactly how the image will look. You focus normally. Focusing a 5.6 lens is about as easy as an ƒ/1.4 lens. You can see the DOF or lack thereof. You can choose your plane of focus. M lenses don't need auto aperture because the boosted signal works at the shooting aperture. You get a bright, clear view. And focus peaking works great (for me). It's pretty cool watching the red lights move with focus. Or turn off the red lights and magnify the image for focusing. Or, if you have good eyes, focus with no focusing aids. One of the main things about using EVFs is the same as a DSLR--be sure the diopter adjustment is correct for your eyes. I use progressive lenses and non-adjustable diopter viewfinders are awful for me. I still occasionally use a Fuji X-Pro1 and I have to move my head around to find the area of my eyeglasses that can see clearly. The X-Pro2 and virtually everything else has diopter adjustments to help us blind photographers.

When I used Leicas (M4-P and M6) my eyes were younger, better and more responsive. I still had trouble focusing using the rangefinder vs my Nikon SLRs. With the SLRs I was also able to use the groundglass as well as the center microprism. The rangefinder spot is kinda small compared to the whole 35mm area in the viewfinder. EVFs are like SLR screens when you're using focus peaking--you can focus any area of the scene. I've found I can get satisfactory focus relatively fast and easily with EVFs as long as I have a bit of DOF to carry me through. Since I'm not a stickler for dead-on, pinpoint, razor edge sharpness, this works pretty good for me. Rangefinders? Forget it. Can't do it. Couldn't do it when I had fairly good eyes, can't do it now with my fading eyesight.

OVFs are still my favorite. I'm hanging on to my DSLRs and I only use my X-Pro camera's OVFs. But I use AF here. I like seeing the unaided, unfiltered scene but I gotta have something to help me focus it. AF with OVFs. MF with EVFs using focus peaking, magnification, whatever. I'm not a purist. I'll use what works. I'm out for the pictures.



........................................

 

[Dralowid]

If Rangefinder Forum and the internet had been around when the M5 was launched I wonder what they would have said...

 

[Duofold RF]

EVF has its advantages, as Dogman said. Leica M users are mostly not professional photographers. For the amount of money, the Leica M doesn’t even offer autofocus or image stabilization capability.

 

[Godfrey]

Let's understand these focus aids properly:

• Focus peaking was invented for video work as it gives a telltale of the focus zone at working aperture, not the best plane of focus.
• Magnification does the same thing that a magnifying class does on a groundglass screen in an LF camera: it gives you a magnified view of a detail of the FoV.

BOTH of these focusing aids require that your eyesight and the optical adjustments necessary allow you to see the EVF clearly have been done, and allow you to MAKE A JUDGEMENT about what you consider to be the "best focus setting." They don't define what that "best focus setting" is in and of themselves.

By contrast, a coupled rangefinder, when properly adjusted, requires that you determine when some image elements' doubled image in the viewfinder is aligned satisfactorily. When properly calibrated to the lens, this fully defines the "best focus setting" for that item in the scene. You STILL have to evaluate what item in the viewfinder is the correct plane of focus for the whole scene.

So the focus aids for an EVF work in a completely different way from the focusing of a coupled rangefinder: they let you find a plane of focus as you look, where a coupled rangefinder requires you determine what you want as the focus plane and then sets the lens to that point. They're simply different tools/different approaches to the problem of focusing a camera lens. Which works best for your picture taking is completely up to you. The M typ 240 up to the M11 series cameras allow you to use either focusing workflow at your convenience, the M EV1 only permits one focusing workflow. (Aside, of course, from the focusing workflow of setting a distance by scale on the lens independent of the viewfinder aids...)

BTW: If your rangefinder and EVF on the same camera (or your optical reflex finder and EVF, for those with SLRs that offer a Live View option) do not agree, the most typical reason is that the rangefinder or reflex finder is out of calibration to the EVF and sensor plane, OR that you're not seeing the optical RF or SLR focusing tools with satisfactory resolution (or are being sloppy about using them). I have seen very few instances of calibration failure with any of my SLR or RF cameras, but I have seen many instances of my "being sloppy" about using the focusing system over the years ... 😉

G

 

[Godfrey]

EVF has its advantages, as Dogman said. Leica M users are mostly not professional photographers. For the amount of money, the Leica M doesn’t even offer autofocus or image stabilization capability.

I would say, based purely on the numbers of cameras produced by the manufacturers, that very very few 35mm-sized cameras could be said to be used by "mostly professional photographers" ... Professional photographers are a tiny percentage of workers in the world, and 35mm-sized cameras are mass produced in far far greater numbers than are needed to satisfy the needs of that group in order to be a profitable manufacturing business.

Autofocus and image stabilization make a much much smaller difference to the use by professional photographers vs use by amateur photographers, and are features generally not offered by the highest-end cameras (beyond just the 35mm-sized cameras) where the percentage of professional photographer users is significantly greater.

G

 

[pgk]

Rangefinders off the most precise way of finding a specific point of focus with standard to wide-angle lenses. They are precision instruments and this is where rangefinders work optimally for focus and independant of aperture setting. EVFs offer an approximation of focus via focus peaking which whilst it can work well enough is not actually a form of precision focusing, especially stopped down, because it doesn't define the plane of precise focus. Focus magnification is far more precise, but slower. Each system has advantages and disadvantages. However, personally I find focus peaking most effective with AF lenses, the rangefinder best with medium to wide lenses and focus magnification very precise if the camera is on a tripod. This is how I've used all three methods for a good many years. To me the idea that a manual focus EVF camera is going to compete with a rangefinder is not a good one. Different ways of working for different types of photography. Leica needs to promote the M-EV1 as being for different purposes than its M ragefinders. The problem is the M branding IMO.

 

[bcostin]

I fully believe that. I've also found that focus peeking is not as accurate as it is made out to be. Although not on an M, but on various Sony's, I do see that when comparing focus peeking against image magnification, there's often a difference in favor of image magnification. Neither match what the AF seems to pull off, probably because that combines maximum contrast with phase detect.

I prefer magnify/focus/recompose. I do use focus peaking sometimes when zone-focusing, just to remind myself what's at the edge of the current DOF. Otherwise I get distracted by the edge highlighting while trying to compose and just turn it off.

I think I'd prefer "inverted focus-peaking", if that makes sense. Leave the in-focus/edge-detected parts of the image as-is, but overlay subtle pixel shading or zebra lines on the unsharp parts of the image. That'd convey the same information without cluttering up the part of the frame where I'm most likely to be looking. Does any camera maker offer something like that?

 

[bcostin]

EVF has its advantages, as Dogman said. Leica M users are mostly not professional photographers. For the amount of money, the Leica M doesn’t even offer autofocus or image stabilization capability.

Most people taking photographs are not professional photographers. That said, autofocus and image-stabilization are obviously completely unrelated to whether someone using the equipment is a professional photographer.

 

[Duofold RF]

Most people taking photographs are not professional photographers. That said, autofocus and image-stabilization are obviously completely unrelated to whether someone using the equipment is a professional photographer.

I agree with “autofocus and image stabilization are obviously completely unrelated to whether someone using the equipment is a professional photographer”; however, these features are related to the price they charge.