How long until a Chinese company makes a digital rangefinder?

[boojum]

OK, the downside of the Pixii which I should put up here to be 100% honest. It has a slow processor. This is not a Sony A7 with an insane burst mode, not at all. I shoot mostly JPG because I am lazy and use SOOC so JPG works well for me. Pixii takes the photo RAW as I understand it and then converts it to JPG. I may be wrong, a first. LOL But the bottom line is that it is slow. This is not a sports camera. So if you can live with slower processing you can have a nice camera with that magic RAW B&W and color, your choice but not both at the same time. I do like the color but this is a personal choice. I put the link in the post above so that you can decide for yourself. And remember that Flickr takes a few seconds to snap into focus. For an APSC sensor it does great, and it is not too shabby against full frame either. Barth and his mecs have tuned the sensor so very well. So if you can trade processing speed for image quality you may want to take advantage of the 30 day trial.

This is not the perfect camera. It has its own flaws. But it will give you some very nice images. At a normal pace of shooting processing speed is rarely a problem. This is my experience. There is almost no complaining about this in the Pixii FB group. If you want to hear whining, try some Hasselblad groups on the X2D. I bet they treat the parking valets like crap, too. The X2D is not perfect either, but it does give great images. So ask yourself, what are you using the camera for? Like a sailboat, a good one will sail just great and always get you home whether it has radar or not.

 

[bob_summers]

OK, the downside of the Pixii which I should put up here to be 100% honest. It has a slow processor. This is not a Sony A7 with an insane burst mode, not at all. I shoot mostly JPG because I am lazy and use SOOC so JPG works well for me. Pixii takes the photo RAW as I understand it and then converts it to JPG. I may be wrong, a first. LOL But the bottom line is that it is slow. This is not a sports camera. So if you can live with slower processing you can have a nice camera with that magic RAW B&W and color, your choice but not both at the same time. I do like the color but this is a personal choice. I put the link in the post above so that you can decide for yourself. And remember that Flickr takes a few seconds to snap into focus. For an APSC sensor it does great, and it is not too shabby against full frame either. Barth and his mecs have tuned the sensor so very well. So if you can trade processing speed for image quality you may want to take advantage of the 30 day trial.

This is not the perfect camera. It has its own flaws. But it will give you some very nice images. At a normal pace of shooting processing speed is rarely a problem. This is my experience. There is almost no complaining about this in the Pixii FB group. If you want to hear whining, try some Hasselblad groups on the X2D. I bet they treat the parking valets like crap, too. The X2D is not perfect either, but it does give great images. So ask yourself, what are you using the camera for? Like a sailboat, a good one will sail just great and always get you home whether it has radar or not.

Thanks for the sample images Boojum, can't wait to see what it can do with my lenses. I ordered mine in early Jan for a mid-March delivery - as you know, the wait is interminable and unlike a mainstream camera or any other gadget, there's precious little to read and watch online to help with the wait!

The processing speed is irrelevant to me - my benchmark is a manual M film camera, or my point and shoot. If anything, Pixii will save me time in post with its mono RAW files. Possibly the only gotcha is the crop, in that it makes my favourite 35 lens a more useful (for me) 50, but at the expense of an aperture stop. Not sure how I'll like that. Again, though, I'm coming from a reality where an ISO400 film pushed two stops is my ceiling, so f/1.4 is often essential: not so with a digital sensor.

Regards the OP - I haven't read the whole thread yet but IIRC the Pixii serial number run is not even into 4 figures, so it doesn't seems to be worth anyone's while investing in tooling, wherever they are. For someone who is coming from DSLR, Sony or Fuji etc... I think it's a very big ask to convince them to accept the quirks of a manual focus, aperture-priority-only system whether Leica or otherwise.

 

[boojum]

Thanks for the sample images Boojum, can't wait to see what it can do with my lenses. I ordered mine in early Jan for a mid-March delivery - as you know, the wait is interminable and unlike a mainstream camera or any other gadget, there's precious little to read and watch online to help with the wait!

The processing speed is irrelevant to me - my benchmark is a manual M film camera, or my point and shoot. If anything, Pixii will save me time in post with its mono RAW files. Possibly the only gotcha is the crop, in that it makes my favourite 35 lens a more useful (for me) 50, but at the expense of an aperture stop. Not sure how I'll like that. Again, though, I'm coming from a reality where an ISO400 film pushed two stops is my ceiling, so f/1.4 is often essential: not so with a digital sensor.

Regards the OP - I haven't read the whole thread yet but IIRC the Pixii serial number run is not even into 4 figures, so it doesn't seems to be worth anyone's while investing in tooling, wherever they are. For someone who is coming from DSLR, Sony or Fuji etc... I think it's a very big ask to convince them to accept the quirks of a manual focus, aperture-priority-only system whether Leica or otherwise.

I wish you luck and happiness with your Pixii. The A2572 is faster. I really like what it does with an image. I like it with the 50mm Jupiter 8 and with the Cooke Amotal 2" (50mm). Just stand a little further back. It has not played well with Android so I got a used iPad and when the A2572 comes back I will see how it does with iOS. It is a good camera with good images. It is not for everybody.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Leaves me wondering if Chinese companies/brands are actually producing any type of digital camera. Cheers, OtL

Professional high definition digital technology to create the industry

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www.winait.com

Insta360 | Action Cameras | 360 Cameras | VR Cameras

Building better cameras. Discover our leading line of shooters for athletes, creators and VR pros.

www.insta360.com

CK10-上海海鸥数码照相机有限公司

www.seagull-digital.com

 

[TL7]

Just a matter of time as there is a market there.
It would be good to have some alternatives to L & P..
If they price it low..then maybe prices will become more competitive.
Imagine if they came out with 3 models at different price points and MP.
Flippy screen RF w/ video..24 MP.
Leica model w/o flippy screen..48 MP.
Leica MD model for traditionalists..24 MP & 48 MP.
Priced from around $2K to $3K like P but FF.
...boom..

 

[Archiver]

Why do we need a digital rangefinder? Throw those Leica M lenses on your mirrorless and call it a day. With any luck, you can get an autofocusing adapter plus all the bells and whistles that even an M11 cannot offer. Look at all the pro photogs using SL2s with RF glass. Seems to me the way to do it.

There are undoubtedly a number of working pros who use M mount lenses on mirrorless or the SL2-S. Ashkenazi Shai is one who springs to mind. The issues for me is that no mirrorless camera apart from the discontinued Ricoh GXR is fully optimized for M mount glass; even the SL2-S isn't up to the peformance of the M10 or M11 in sharpness and focus field curvature from what I have read. For maximum performance, use SLR or native mirrorless lenses; but then, you don't get the advantages of specific M mount lens rendering.

I use the Panasonic S5 with a variety of M mount lenses, and while it is very convenient and allows for more flexibility than a rangefinder, I still find critical focus to be faster with the M9. All I have to do is line up the patch and hit the shutter button. Even if you have the habit of punching in with the EVF/LCD screen to check critical focus with a mirrorless camera, it adds a minimal but potentially significant amount of time. Even though the coating on my rangefinder window has been peeling for years and makes discernment a bit tricky, it is still faster than using an EVF, even with focus peaking. On the other hand, a good EVF shows exactly what you will get as an image, making framing so much easier. Swings and roundabouts?

I'd love a SL2-S. Maybe its performance with M mount glass is good enough for me, I won't know until I give one a proper test shoot. But that's just my gear lust talking. I'll stop now.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Re Ko.Fe's post: interesting to see the Winait and Seagull links. Lots of cameras -including some high-end ones, we've never heard of.

 

[Out to Lunch]

even the SL2-S isn't up to the peformance of the M10 or M11 in sharpness and focus field curvature

I would not know since I have never used the M10 and M11. I'll probably never know since I'd never buy them either: there is no Leilca M service in the countries where I spend most of my time. I love to use the SL2S with M-mount glass since its viewfinder is superb and critical focussing, even with very fast lenses is easy. Cheers, OtL

 

[Dogman]

Re Ko.Fe's post: interesting to see the Winait and Seagull links. Lots of cameras -including some high-end ones, we've never heard of.

Indeed. The Seagull TLR is interesting (at least to me). A real digital TLR camera. Something to think about.

 

[Coldkennels]

Insta360 | Action Cameras | 360 Cameras | VR Cameras

Building better cameras. Discover our leading line of shooters for athletes, creators and VR pros.

www.insta360.com

Insta360 sent me one of those for free a couple of years back so I can produce some videos with one. It was their first model, and while the image quality absolutely sucked, the software was incredible. I think it might have been the first camera that did a lot of things people now take for granted with similar 360 cameras, like automatically removing "selfie sticks" from the shot and allowing you to track a person automatically when pulling a "flat" video out of the 360º video file.

The stabilisation was fantastic, too; I did one video where it was mounted to my chest and span around, and when I selected a downwards view in the editing software, the ground stayed perfectly locked in position while my body span around the frame.

Every so often I think about actually spending money on one of the newer ones with higher resolution and better image quality; they've come on leaps and bounds over the last few years.

 

[Godfrey]

It is funny, when I made this thread, I didn't own a digital M. My last digital M was an M9 probably 10 years ago. My choices now were an older M and the Pixii just based on what I wanted to spend. I probably would be fine with the Pixii, but ordering in the country I live means paying major import taxes. I'd be into used M10 territory for a Pixii. No thank you. However, I did end up finding a used M240 and went with it. Now that I have it, I realize it is my least favorite camera vs. my Fujis X and GFX cameras and my Ricoh GR3x. It is still cool and I still use it, but it would be the first camera I would sell. I wouldn't be interested in a Chinese copy either anymore.

What about the M typ 240 makes it your least favorite camera? That's question is what's interesting to me.

G

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Indeed. The Seagull TLR is interesting (at least to me). A real digital TLR camera. Something to think about.

Seagull Launch CM9 Digital Twin Lens Reflex Camera

Seagull has announced the launch of the CM9, a DTLR camera with a 600 shot battery life.

www.ephotozine.com

Chinese Seagull CM9 Digital Camera Released It New Flagship

Any as the one of the few Chinese brands in camera market, Seagull starts to fight for its market share.

www.beijingimpact.com

And video:

 

[Godfrey]

Thanks for the sample images Boojum, can't wait to see what it can do with my lenses. I ordered mine in early Jan for a mid-March delivery - as you know, the wait is interminable and unlike a mainstream camera or any other gadget, there's precious little to read and watch online to help with the wait!

The processing speed is irrelevant to me - my benchmark is a manual M film camera, or my point and shoot. If anything, Pixii will save me time in post with its mono RAW files. Possibly the only gotcha is the crop, in that it makes my favourite 35 lens a more useful (for me) 50, but at the expense of an aperture stop. Not sure how I'll like that. Again, though, I'm coming from a reality where an ISO400 film pushed two stops is my ceiling, so f/1.4 is often essential: not so with a digital sensor.

Regards the OP - I haven't read the whole thread yet but IIRC the Pixii serial number run is not even into 4 figures, so it doesn't seems to be worth anyone's while investing in tooling, wherever they are. For someone who is coming from DSLR, Sony or Fuji etc... I think it's a very big ask to convince them to accept the quirks of a manual focus, aperture-priority-only system whether Leica or otherwise.

Um ...? The lens's aperture remains the same, so the light gathering range is identical to using the lens on your film M.

The resulting depth of field on the smaller format is net about a 1 stop increase, which unless you shoot at the widest lens opening all the time isn't too much of a burden. For me it says I shoot at f/4 more of the time on APS-C cameras where I normally shoot at f/5.6 on FF cameras with focal lengths in this range. The lens rendering characteristics are unchanged at the different aperture settings, as a rule, although background out of focus things will resolve a little more.

G

 

[bob_summers]

Thanks for clearing that up Godfrey!

 

[jsrockit]

What about the M typ 240 makes it your least favorite camera? That's question is what's interesting to me.

G

Oh, it's just because I like my other cameras more for the photography I want to do. That said, I still like the M240. I'm sorry if I was not clear. Like you, I think I just have the right equipment these days.

 

[boojum]

Oh, it's just because I like my other cameras more for the photography I want to do. That said, I still like the M240. I'm sorry if I was not clear. Like you, I think I just have the right equipment these days.

Yeah, that is so discouraging to have the gear that you need. LOL There is just so much crap and collateral we need to let into our lives and then we can snap the door shut. I am content with my gear locker. I could get rid of some lenses but am too lazy. Same with the Leicas. I like the M9, the M8.2 is OK. Two M240's? Excess baggage, impedimentia to go to the Latin root.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I like the M9, the M8.2 is OK. Two M240's? Excess baggage, impedimentia to go to the Latin root.

I'm lost in translation here 🙂, but do you know what LCAG has removed M9 and M8 fw downloads for sometime now.
They are pushing on us to buy M240 which still has fw available for download. 🙂
Shizerkopfs...

 

[Godfrey]

Oh, it's just because I like my other cameras more for the photography I want to do. That said, I still like the M240. I'm sorry if I was not clear. Like you, I think I just have the right equipment these days.

I understand, yes. But...

The question is "why is that?", if you can articulate it. What about the other cameras makes them more suitable, likable, satisfying, etc, for your use?

I've tried and used, successfully, a great deal of different equipment over the years. I always like to figure out why a particular camera works well, or does not, for me. So I'm always curious to hear why when someone mentions that a camera I know well does not work for them.. 🙂

G

 

[former member]

I'm lost in translation here 🙂, but do you know what LCAG has removed M9 and M8 fw downloads for sometime now.
They are pushing on us to buy M240 which still has fw available for download. 🙂
Shizerkopfs...

The Downloads for the M-E/M9 and M Monochrom are still on the download site. The M9 download is under M-E, but is obviously for both-
"m9-1_210.upd".

Downloads | Leica Camera US

leica-camera.com

BUT- select "ALL" for the category, not "Leica M System". Start at Page 5. I just downloaded the files for the M9 and M Monochrom to have a copy. I have the latest for the M8, so did not keep looking. I created a "Leica Firmware file" directory on the computer.

 

[jsrockit]

I understand, yes. But...

The question is "why is that?", if you can articulate it. What about the other cameras makes them more suitable, likable, satisfying, etc, for your use?

I've tried and used, successfully, a great deal of different equipment over the years. I always like to figure out why a particular camera works well, or does not, for me. So I'm always curious to hear why when someone mentions that a camera I know well does not work for them.. 🙂

G

Sure, I honestly prefer EVFs, autofocus and shutter priority these days. Of course, I use the M simply to change things up and get me out of my comfort zone. I've always liked playing around with rangefinders. I still do. However, when it comes down to it, I prefer the former.