Informative & Infuriating

[YYV_146]

I must be one of the few that stays away from Leica bodies (film and digital) but invest heavily in Leica glass.

My film camera is a Bessa. If I shoot just a tiny bit more on film, I'll get an IKon. IMO the construction advantage of the M6 or MP is no match for the price advantage and certain performance perks of these cameras. The IKon's RF window is the best in 135 rangefinders, as far as my experience goes. I want an M7, but won't buy one unless they go down to ~$1500.

But Leica lenses manage to reach a place on the price/size/performance chart that happily makes me shell out thousands of dollars for them. The modern ASPH M lenses are IMO the best 135mm system in terms of optical performance available. I'm not saying that every lens is stellar, however the system certainly is.

And of course as a system Leica offers the lightest and most compact group of FF lenses in production. Lenses such as the 24mm Summilux and 75mm Summilux may be huge, but if you look at the Canon or Zeiss SLR mount counterparts, Leica's offerings are still smaller and mostly lighter. I use to claim that Leica lenses allow for smaller and cheaper filters, but ever since I got my 21mm Summilux I have been forced to upgrade to a 82mm kit...

The bottom line is, I don't buy into the so-called "RF experience", the nonsense about CCD sensors being architecturally superior to CMOS (not that they cannot be deliver more pleasing results, especially without post processing), the "stealth factor" of Leica cameras (the best ILC stealth camera I've ever used is the almost silent GXR), their "value-retaining" ability (Net depreciation of new M9 from 2009 is about $350-600/year) or the "Leica culture" (it exists, but I don't derive pleasure of using the same brand cameras as the photographers I admire). When you take these things out, neither the M240 nor the M9 makes much sense. You can still use them and achieve amazing results, and they certainly are fine and solid cameras. But they are just too expensive for the digital age.

And why am a Sony fan? Because after some two years, five trips to various cold, hot and dusty places and 125,000 frames, I just sold the perfectly working NEX-7 I bought at $900 for $350. Best half-a-grand I've ever spend on anything

 

[charjohncarter]

Dante's site is a kick. I do wish he would let us see some of his father's photos. Maybe he has, but I have missed them.

 

[mrmeadows]

I don't know anything about the color rendition of the Fuji X-Pro. When the Fuji X-Pro first came out I looked at its hybrid viewfinder and found that I could see clearly through the optical viewfinder image — I have good distance vision but need reading glasses — but saw only a fuzzy image in the EVF. Unfortunataly, the store did not have any diopter lenses, but I assume that putting a diopter on would render the EVF image fine but would make the optical VF image fuzzy. I've always wondered how people that need reading glasses would be able to use this camera. Anyone know?


I had a similar experience with the X-Pro1. The view of the subject through the optical viewfinder and the information overlay from the EVF were never both in focus. This situation is caused when the two are not "parfocal". That's a term usually applied in microscopy when the image seen by a camera through a trinocular port is not in focus at the same focus setting that focuses the image in the eyepieces. The X-Pro1 seems to have this kind of focus discrepancy between the OVF and EVF. For my eyes, with my glasses, the subject through the OVF required a +0.5 diopter correction to be in focus, and the EVF display required about +2.0 diopter. No single correction lens will make both in perfect focus for me, and I have too little ability to accommodate these days, so I was unable to get both simultaneously in focus. I returned the X-Pro1, primarily because of this issue. People with sufficient ability to accommodate will not experience this problem, since their eyes can automatically adjust focus better than mine, and most will be unconscious of how it works for them. They will report that there's no problem ... which is true ... for them.

--- Mike

 

[willie_901]

I never understood how CCD detection was superior to CMOS detection. In the early days of digital imaging there were technical advantages to CCD. However CMOS detection advanced rapidly and was not inferior when the M8 was first released.

To be clear, I am only addressing the technology to convert light amplitude into electrical charge. This has nothing to do with the light gathering efficiency and quality of the color-filter array lenses. And it ignores the presence or absence of IR filters and anti-aliasing filters.

I am not implying Leica's CCD systems do not have pleasing, or even exceptional color tonality. It's just that color rendition and the method used to convert the electrical component of light waves into an electrical charge don't seem to be related during the time period Leica used CCD technology.

 

[Richard G]

Enjoyed the one you thought might infuriate. Can't say I disagree with any of it. But I do just enjoy the familiarity and simplicity of the earlier digital Ms. And I like the M5 too, so I am not against Leica innovating. The Simpsons quote that forms the epigraph to the second linked article might be from the same episode my son just told me of. Mr Burns goes to the post office and asks them to send his item to the Prussian embassy in Siam by noon.

 

[__--]

I never understood how CCD detection was superior to CMOS detection. In the early days of digital imaging there were technical advantages to CCD. However CMOS detection advanced rapidly and was not inferior when the M8 was first released...I am not implying Leica's CCD systems do not have pleasing, or even exceptional color tonality. It's just that color rendition and the method used to convert the electrical component of light waves into an electrical charge don't seem to be related during the time period Leica used CCD technology.

I've no idea whether it's a CCD versus CMOS thing, but my eyes tell me, as I wrote in post #11 above, that the color rendition and image quality of the M9 is unique among 35mm digital cameras — the umami as Charles Peterseon says. It might be the overall sensor assembly design, including the color filter array, that Leica designed for the M9 together with Kodak, a company that had a lot of color expertise, considering that the color model for the M9 design was Kodochrome, as Thorstein Overgaard states on his blog.

—Mitch/Paris
Tristes Tropiques
[Direct download link for PDF file of book project]