boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
OK, for a guy who finds can openers, like the P-38's, devilishly complex, what are non-retro focus wide-angle lenses?
How long until a Chinese company makes a digital rangefinder?
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pgk
Well-known
Ones that don't work perfectly with ordinary image sensors😉. Its all about the angle of incidence of the light hitting the sensor, which is too acute from small, wide lenses and has to be compensated for by using offset micro lenses in front of the sensor pixels. So building a full frame rangefinder camera is not actually an easy task because such cameras need to work with such lenses .....
FWIW this topic has been done to death on the Leica Forum many times. [And in all honesty the softer than hoped for corners caused by using a non-microlens sensor is not as appaling as some would have us think. But it detracts from the image 'quality' so is a BAD thing😢.]
F
former member
Guest
Retro-Focus wide-angle lenses are what you find on SLR cameras, and they are great for digital sensors. Traditional rangefinder wide-angle lenses are short focal length lenses with a large image circle. The latter- sharp angles, fine for film but difficult for Full-Frame Digital sensors, especially for those with Color Mosaic Filter. The corners get smeared.
SO- another reason for a company to do a Monochrome Digital Full-Frame sensor. The extra stop gain from ditching the color filter array can be used to pull-up the corners, "Non-Uniformity-Correction", NUC.
I am surprised and happy that the Zeiss 21/4.5 Contax Mount lens did quite well on the Nikon Z5. SO- sensors have much higher dynamic range, corners can be pulled up. Only a few lenses will fly Italian Flags.
P-38s were known as the Forked Devil. I get that reference...
SO- another reason for a company to do a Monochrome Digital Full-Frame sensor. The extra stop gain from ditching the color filter array can be used to pull-up the corners, "Non-Uniformity-Correction", NUC.
I am surprised and happy that the Zeiss 21/4.5 Contax Mount lens did quite well on the Nikon Z5. SO- sensors have much higher dynamic range, corners can be pulled up. Only a few lenses will fly Italian Flags.
P-38s were known as the Forked Devil. I get that reference...
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
No,no, not that P-38, this P-38, one every old GI knows all too well. I just ordered one. Along with dog tags they are a must. My P-38 will go on my key-ring, in case I ever get some C-rations, again. P-38 can opener - Wikipedia. They open other cans, too, can be used to remove bottle caps, as a screwdriver, toothpick, fingernail cleaner and various and sundry other uses as yet undiscovered.
To the point, thanks for the retro-focus explanation broken down enough that an old LibArts can understand.
And, an old joke that you will get,
Faster than a runaway subscript,
Able to leap tall Procedure Divisions in a single bound,
More powerful than a perform thru by varying until,
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Captain COBOL!
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Pál_K
Cameras. I has it.
As I alluded to back in August (post #47), a rangefinder is a niche product within a niche product line. Therefore, it would not be profitable even for the Chinese to design, tool up, and manufacture these things.
What actually would be easier to make and possibly sell better than rangefinders is pack film. I’d love see that resurrected. Once that’s been done, onward to the K-14 process.
What actually would be easier to make and possibly sell better than rangefinders is pack film. I’d love see that resurrected. Once that’s been done, onward to the K-14 process.
Coldkennels
Barnack-toting Brit.
I'd love to see that too, but pack film involves a complex set of chemical processes and very specialised machinery to build. New55 couldn't do it, the Impossible Project declared it truly impossible, and I think it's pretty much universally agreed that it's just never happening; even without the complexities of making pack film, Instax et al. are self-contained, easy to use, and has a lot more commercial demand than messy peel-apart prints.
<edit: yes, I'm aware that this stuff exists - ONE INSTANT & PACKFILM CAMERAS - and while I can't remember exactly what the details are on this, hand-making the packs and selling them at €49 for three shots(!) of frankly dubious quality (!!) isn't a viable resurrection of pack film for anyone but the most dedicated.>
Rangefinders, in comparison, are complex and fiddly little things, but it's still just machinery and optics. Any good camera manufacturer could make one, and arguably already has the tooling to do so - there's no reason Fuji couldn't make an M-mount X-Pro 4 with the same projected frameline setup they have in the current OVF, but with a RF mechanism and window - but there's just not enough demand to warrant the expense.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
Perhaps, but Pixii has found a way around this by having a RF camera with the only mechanical part being the RF itself. I have not had rolling shutter problems but think there have been reports of this. By successfully eliminating the shutter there is a good cost reduction and greater reliability.
Will Pixii jump to FF? I cannot say for sure but it could be easy to open the box and put a FF sensor into it. They currently get good images from APS-C 26MP so I think this could translate to a FF sensor, Sony again no doubt. But would retro-focus be a problem?
I have wondered for longer than I have had a Pixii why it is so resisted. Cameras are retro, RF cameras even more so. So this would indicate that the folks with RF cameras are conservative, i. e., the past is better than the future. And there is just one real company other than PIxii making RF cameras today, so PIxii is "poaching" or at least infringing on Leica territory and this can border on heresy. But I cannot say for sure.
There is a plaque reputed to be on the MIT campus somewhere about bumblebees. It points out that the bumblebee is not aerodynamic, its legs hang down, it does not have the muscle structure to generate enough energy to create lift with anything and the wings are way too small and would shred if they were used for flight. The plaque goes on to say that the bumblebee does not know this and flies anyway.
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nickthetasmaniac
Veteran
For me its as simple as a) wrong sensor size and b) too expensive.
a) I've been shooting an M2 for a decade and have built up a nice set of lenses in my preferred focal length. I'm not interested in a digital M that doesn't have the same 'crop' as the M2. I suspect a lot of existing M shooters are in the same boat.
b) The Pixii is a $5000aud camera. This might be cheap compared to a digital Leica M, but in any other photographic context it's extremely expensive (~$2k more than a Z6II, which happens to make a great full frame digital platform). For me, I just can't afford it (I also can't afford a digital Leica M).
Pál_K
Cameras. I has it.
That is not a principle of conservatism, though that attitude might appear among conservatives in certain aspects and situations.
I would say many appliances of the past such as water heaters, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners were far better in terms of reliability and longevity than modern versions (I speak from experience on this). However, newer things such as medical devices, electronic components, engines, to name just a few things, are far better than what existed in the past.
People who use rangefinders I think choose them mostly for the unique “view” that a rangefinder presents compared to an SLR or TLR. They’re also usually small, although something like a Pentax MX or Lumix camera is also similarly small.
I don’t see cameras as “retro” - I’ve always used film cameras and have kept them for decades, so having them and using them is just a continuation. For someone who is 20, choosing a film camera would be “a retro choice”, I suppose.
That story or claim is an old myth: the thought that scientists or researchers at one time concluded bumblebees shouldnt be able to fly:
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Freakscene
Obscure member
I tried the Pixii. It was useless for moving subjects or in mixed or artificial lighting with any frequency flicker, where a huge proportion of my photos are taken. It is extremely expensive considering that it is not usable for my purposes. My M10M just works. So there is no comparison, and certainly no heresy.
Coldkennels
Barnack-toting Brit.
All of this. I'm not interested in buying a digital camera for fun - I own one for work, and that's it - but if I was, do I cough up £2,380 for a brand new APS-C camera with 16GB of fixed internal storage or £2,600 for a used MP-240 that will already use the lenses I've got and give me the field of view I want to use them for - and takes normal SD cards I already own (and can take out and put into an SD card slot in my laptop with no fuss)?
Hell, if all I wanted was a crop sensor rangefinder experience, I could get a used M8 for £1,450 tomorrow. Yeah, it's not as good as the Pixii at high ISO, and yeah, it's got the weird rendering of black fabric, but at least it doesn't have issues with moving subjects or artificial lighting, and I can still just use SD cards like normal - while saving the best part of a grand to buy a good super wide to compensate for the crop factor.
I applaud Pixii for doing something new, but it's not for me. That isn't "conservativism" - I'm the furthest from a conservative you could imagine in every way! - but the Pixii just doesn't make sense when you look at the feature set vs the alternatives at that price in my eyes. Even the 246 Monochrom is only £2,899; why would I pay the best part of £2,400 for a camera that isn't what I want, when I could throw another £500 into the pot and get something I'd truly love? I suspect most "critics" of the Pixii have come to the same conclusion; it's just a tough sell.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
Sorry to learn this story is a hoax. I never considered it to be anything more than academic humor which I am disappointed is in this case a myth. Aw, it should be true.That is not a principle of conservatism, though that attitude might appear among conservatives in certain aspects and situations.
I would say many appliances of the past such as water heaters, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners were far better in terms of reliability and longevity than modern versions (I speak from experience on this). However, newer things such as medical devices, electronic components, engines, to name just a few things, are far better than what existed in the past.
People who use rangefinders I think choose them mostly for the unique “view” that a rangefinder presents compared to an SLR or TLR. They’re also usually small, although something like a Pentax MX or Lumix camera is also similarly small.
I don’t see cameras as “retro” - I’ve always used film cameras and have kept them for decades, so having them and using them is just a continuation. For someone who is 20, choosing a film camera would be “a retro choice”, I suppose.
That story or claim is an old myth: the thought that scientists or researchers at one time concluded bumblebees shouldnt be able to fly:
We have no surveys on why folks buy RF cameras or film cameras. It surely is not a willingness to embrace change. ;o) I have a few that I bought for image quality and the M8 and M9 are generous with good color. The M240 is OK, too. And the little Pixii does well, too. But I have some auto cameras with EVF's that are very good, easier to use and get pictures right a lot more often. And this is not just me, look at the still photographers out working news, all DSLR with zooms or tele's. And they get some great photos. And in the most difficult and depressing of news coverage, war, they capture the moments we want to see and the moments we don't want to see. In either situation there is little time to dawdle. I may be entirely wrong in this observation but it seems to me that RF's are pretty much a hobbyist's thing.
If setting up and tinkering for an image is your thing then film beckons, and even better with an all manual camera.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
My jaundiced experience on this board concerning Pixii is that very few have held one, fewer have worked with one and that the vast majority are just talking. I have read of rolling shutter problems but have not experienced them. I am not denying that this may happen. I have not had banding from LED lights. I just took a shot of some "fluorescent" LED's and the light they cast is with no banding. Is 60Hz current at 120 volts different from 50Hz current at 220 volts? And I just now went back into what I have shot in a room lit solely with LED fluorescents and there is no banding. This is fact not conjecture or hearsay. So unless you have experienced banding yourself while using a Pixii under LED's and can report banding as fact I am a little skeptical. This is on the basis of my own repeated experience. And I just went back to an older folder from last year with the same LED results: no banding. So not with the A1571 and not with the A2572. I regret folks are having these problems but I am honestly a little dubious. Once again, one experiment is worth a thousand opinions.
I am not sure what is thrilling or better about SD cards. I have another camera with internal memory. It writes to internal memory faster than to cards. I can use a card in it but choose not to. And while Pixii was and still is being criticized for internal memory I know of another good and respected company which has done the same, It is 2023.
Please, if I gave you to understand that conservative means buying a Pixii RF I apologize. That was not my purpose.
Cheers
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
I just posted to Pal_K about this. In a year I have had no "flickering" or "banding" problems. I checked the old files just now, nothing. I will go out and try some motion shots to see what happens, and let you know.
Freakscene
Obscure member
Try shooting under stage lighting, or photographing fast flowing water. Or anything with LED or fluorescent lighting. To be fair, the Sony FX30 and Sigma FP electronic shutter cameras totally failed my rolling shutter testing too, and I tested the Pixii before the newest firmware came out. But electronic shutter cameras are not for me, I think.
Marty
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
OK, I went back to May of '22 for old LED shots. No banding. So, Marty, I will go out tomorrow with my Pixii and the Canon 28mm and shoot traffic at various speeds as it passes. I'll be at the roach coach inhaling some al pastors so you know I am making a sacrifice to interrupt that. LOL I will try to find some local motion. There is a lot of water here but it is the Columbia River and that looks still even though it can be flowing quickly.
But I have not had an image problem with this camera since I got it. That could be subject matter. I will try to make it fail and report back. You know you'll get at least one tortilla pic just for giggles. ;o)
Freakscene
Obscure member
I have no idea whether you will see it with only a moving subject. But with a moving object under light with a frequency flicker, you will see all sorts of weirdness.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
Promises, promises. LOL Rolling shutter should show up when shooting a passing car. It did with focal planes, wouldn't it happen with electronic?
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boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
OK, Marty, is this the kind of weirdness you are talking about? LED pseudo-fluorescents and swinging camera for motion.
wlewisiii
Veteran
Exactly.
There is an important phrase when dealing with Leica and you have to understand this if you want to understand why Leica still exists.
"Veblen Good"
A Veblen good is a good for which demand increases as the price increases. Veblen goods are typically high-quality goods that are well made, exclusive, and a status symbol. Veblen goods are generally sought after by affluent consumers who place a premium on the utility of the good.
Right now only Leica can afford to make these cameras because only Leica has the CUSTOMERS willing to PAY that much for them.
I'm a broke ass bastard but when I got an unexpected inheritance the first thing I did was talk to Brian about if there was a Leica I could somehow manage to buy (still took a bunch of games with my other toys and the pawn shop but I ended up losing nothing and making it work 👍 ). I have a M 240 and frigging love it. I'm Leica's favorite kind of customer - I know the game they're playing but I like the stuff they make and I play along as much as I can aford to anyway.
Those superwides? They give a great excuse for them. I don't need them, personally. I like my 21 but rarely use it. Hell, I rarely use anything other than a 50. If Leica made a Digital Barnack I'd think I'd died and that the monkey'd gone to heaven 😉 Screw my Canon 1.4 on and use it till I'm gone LOL!
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