I want my film advance lever

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rvaubel

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A lot of people scoffed at the film advance lever on the RD1. Even though it served a purpose (cocking the mechanical shutter) it seemed a little Faux Retro to most. May I purpose an actually use for a winding lever on the M8? I'm sure I'll be laughed off the forum but here it goes.

What if cocking the shutter lever actually generated a little electrical juice to charge a small battery or capaciter to serve the needs of the camera for the next exposure? Not a lot of power is needed to operate the shutter and CCD. After all there is no power hungry auto-focus to worry about. And the LCD screen could operate on any extra power generated and then black out.

Not that you wouldn't want a charged battery for full functionality, but at least a dead battery wouldn't mean a dead camera. Thats part of the Leica ethos or,at least used to be, before the M7. Being battery indepent would have some real practical advantages. On a recent trip to Canada I took four batteries and two chargers. If I had a self charging advance lever, I would have taken only one backup battery at most. Charging batteries turns into a real chore when you have been shooting all day and you have multipe dead batteries to deal before beddy-by.

Before you laugh to hard, consider my current emergency flashlight situation. I got tierd of retreiving dead flashlights during every blackout or earthquake. I finally got a couple flashlights and radios that you wind to generate power. They work every time.

Of course the arguement could going to be made that it would be way to complex and cost to much. It's true, I don't know exactley how much cost it added to my 10 dollar flashlight.

Anyway, it will never happen, but I think it would be cool. And so retro.

Of course, keeping in the retro, analog vein, I want the RD1's mechanical gauges too.

I'm not too optimistic. But I'll be happy enough with the M8 if it meets the current specs as we know them. And please, no feature laden camera with custom goodies buried deep within unfathomable menues.

Rex
 
It wouldn't take much to place a dynamo and resistor in there, but to create enough power you'd either need to 'stroke' the lever about 50 times per shot, or have such a big dynamo that it becomes a design flaw or size issue. That's as much as I remember from AS level Physics.

It's a great idea but the image sensor, card reader/writer, etc need a lot more power. You may as well have a solar panel front piece.
 
Brilliant idea.
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It is a kind of pity that it most probably won't happen.
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Ash said:
It wouldn't take much to place a dynamo and resistor in there, but to create enough power you'd either need to 'stroke' the lever about 50 times per shot, or have such a big dynamo that it becomes a design flaw or size issue. That's as much as I remember from AS level Physics.

It's a great idea but the image sensor, card reader/writer, etc need a lot more power. You may as well have a solar panel front piece.
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Hmm... solar optimized vulcanite? There's an idea.

I don't think that you would need the dynamo to power the camera entirely - you would still have the primary battery - but have that as a backup - a little extra juice going back into the battery - maybe if the battery was dead you could have a charge mode that you would either use a film rewind crank, or the advance lever - 1 minute or so, for 10 shots (or whatever).
 
Well obviously if you have to ratchet the lever 10 or 20 times to generate enough juice to take a picture, my idea wouldn't be practical. I'm not an electrical maven, but I do know that a couple of cranks on my flashlight gives me a couple of minutes of fairly bright light. And lightbulbs aren't exactly power misers. I don't know you many watts of power it takes to take a digital picture but I bet it isn't much. Now the LCD screen is another matter, but I could do without in a pinch.

Rex
 
I think that sounds awesome...would be a great way to take the rugged, durable, mechanical ethos of the MP into the digital rhealm as a second digi Leica M option. I wouldn't want to hang the company fortunes on it, as some people are fine with batteries, but like the MP, it could have devotees.
Who wouldn't want an excuse to stroke their M? If not implemented in the shutter, how about the rewind crank?
 
Ash said:
You may as well have a solar panel front piece.
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Hey! You know those watches that get wound by just moving your lazy @ss?

Since we're adding/removing features before we actually see the product, how about a locating device? You know those things that beep when you whistle that are used to locate your keys? Very handy when you don't know where your rangefinder is.

Also, how about a bottom-loading card slot?

I know it sounds cool...but let's wait and see if the thing actually works like a dream. I say :confused:
 
:D The generator is already there, it's called the shutter cocking motor. That of course is assuming it's a permanent magnet DC motor and not a stepping one. :D

Bob.
 
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gabrielma said:
Hey! You know those watches that get wound by just moving your lazy @ss :confused:
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Those are called Automatic watches. I am wearing one right now, and have been for the last 50 years. Quess what? No batteries!!!
They tend to be expensive, since they are entirely mechanical. We used to call them "self-winding" watches back in the 50's and everyone had one. The advent of the digital watch almost killed off the Swiss mechanical watch industry but in the last 10 years or so the industry has come back like gangbusters.
Rollex is the best known brand, but for the true fruitcakes (yours truly), the Rollex brand kind of represents the lower end in a funny kind of way. I prefer Jaeger Lecoultre, IWC, and some of the other smaller names. But Rollex is cetainly durable. I wear mine when I am slopping the hogs or digging fenceposts.

Rex
 
rvaubel said:
Those are called Automatic watches. I am wearing one right now, and have been for the last 50 years. Quess what? No batteries!!!
They tend to be expensive, since they are entirely mechanical. We used to call them "self-winding" watches back in the 50's and everyone had one. The advent of the digital watch almost killed off the Swiss mechanical watch industry but in the last 10 years or so the industry has come back like gangbusters.
Rollex is the best known brand, but for the true fruitcakes (yours truly), the Rollex brand kind of represents the lower end in a funny kind of way. I prefer Jaeger Lecoultre, IWC, and some of the other smaller names. But Rollex is cetainly durable. I wear mine when I am slopping the hogs or digging fenceposts.

Rex
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Anything with a Valjoux Incabloc inside will get you there on time. I don't do watches. They can wait for me. :)
 
What makes more sense is a 'film rewind lever.' After every 36 shots you would be prompted to wind the 'film rewind lever' for 30 seconds. The repetitive action of winding the lever every 36 shots would re-charge a small auxillary battery and in-turn extend battery life between charges.
 
A clockwork M8

A clockwork M8

Mark Norton said:
I have a clockwork phone charger, takes an awful lot of winding to make a call on a phone with a flat battery...
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Mark
This clearly is a fantasy that ain't gonna happen but, it is a aesthetically pleasing fantasy. The notion of having an electronic, digital device free of a battery charger has a cetain elegance to it that is hard to describe to a person that has no appreciation of mechanical things.
But for a fantasy to work, it has to be do-able. My intuition is that the power requirements for the digital capture are quite low. The RD1 already takes care of the shutter requirements. So maybe it is feasible to capture a file with a single stroke of the shutter cocking lever. You must admit that would be cool.

Don't worry I'm not going to start a letter writing campaign to Sohn. They probably think their customer base is crazy enough as it is.

Rex
 
What there should be of course is a car charger to charge one or more spare batteries. Not much use if you are out hiking (solar cells strapped to your back-pack?) but handy if you are on the road.
 
Well, with some luck we'll see small fuel cells on the consumer market soon and perhaps it could even be possible to make fuel cell replacements for common rechargable batteries. Then we'll only need to keep some booze around to keep our cameras going.. ;) :D

/Anders
 
Mark Norton said:
What there should be of course is a car charger to charge one or more spare batteries. Not much use if you are out hiking (solar cells strapped to your back-pack?) but handy if you are on the road.
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They could always offer an a la carte option to replace the leather with flexible solar cells that have a lizard skin pattern...:D
 
Some good thoughts here.

All I would want is a battery compartment that takes the rechargeable battery OR 2x AAA cells (a la Richoh GRD). No need to worry is you forget to charge or simply lose charge. You can fit 4 of these in an empty film cannister - enough jiuce for over 100 shots.
 
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