leica M digital conversion... thoughts

Well, if you had an existing M body, the amount of money spent on a digital back could nail you a nice film scanner and quite a few rolls of your favorite ____


If only they would have built an MP with a digital sensor and a very well blended LCD (and no automatic after-picture preview 🙂 )

I mean just because you arent advancing film, who said nobody wanted a manual cloth shutter? Oh well, its been said.
 
black_box said:
Well, if you had an existing M body, the amount of money spent on a digital back could nail you a nice film scanner and quite a few rolls of your favorite ____


If only they would have built an MP with a digital sensor and a very well blended LCD (and no automatic after-picture preview 🙂 )

I mean just because you arent advancing film, who said nobody wanted a manual cloth shutter? Oh well, its been said.
Click to expand...

I have to admit, that, from a purist perspective, Leica lost the plot. If they had produced such a beast - effectively the Leica version of the R-D1, they may have ended up with a more successful product. The end result is very, very good - the image, that is - but the M8 is not really a Leica M in the traditional sense - more a caricature.
 
Ben Z said:
Clearly all the required digital guts fit into an M body--the M8 proves that. Maybe a digital back would be a little bulkier, like adding the Motor-M or a Leicavit.
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Not really. The M8 has the R shutter for more reasons than just a higher speed. I don't think that they could fit the sensor behind the cloth curtains.

Not to mention that all of this is a bit silly, the DMR requires no surgery to the R because the back comes off. Not so on an M.

You want a digital back on an M? Get an M8. Take pictures. Be happy.
 
To further the purists point... continuous shooting? Cmon. Its like stepping into SLR territory and voluntarily loosing (w/ 2fps). Soon we're going to have an SLR with rangefinder focusing.
I dont disagree with a digital M, and honestly I really like the M8 and wish I had one... but little details make it less 'rangefinder' like. I mean whats going to happen in a year when a super efficient sensor comes out that has some mega dynamic range-- release an M9 eighteen months after the M8?
 
fellow R-finders,
I posted on R-D1 and M8 forums a few weeks back...
I'm planning on gutting an M2 and a D-SLR to build my own D-RF. I'd originally considered making a hybrid R-D1 and M6 - incorporating the R-D1 electronics into a modified M6 body - keeping the M6 rangefinder - with an M winder body shell to house components that would not fit into the M6 (so as to maintain the original lines as much as possible).
Didn't get much in the way of +ve support for the venture - no matter. I'm aware of Huw Finney's M2ad project - about which there has been little news recently. Being more mechanically minded than electronically adroit I'm happy to adapt existing technology.
I've now acquired a Fuji S1 SLR for its electronic bits and plan to place these in an M2 with M winder. The easier route is to transpose all the relevant innerds from the S1 - including its shutter. Ideally I would prefer to keep the M2 shutter.

A question for the floor: how can I use the X-sync on the Leica shutter to synchronise with the S1 CCD at all Leica shutter speeds? is it possible to modify the X-sync to work from 1/1000s?
Thanks for any help - any other suggestions most welcome.
Carl

ps I;ve chosen the S1 - for price - the fact that it is a hybrid camera already - combining a Nikon film body with a digital interface...
 
If he wants the full range of speeds the m2 sync needs to switch on the chip, open and close the shutter, then switch off the chip. With the x-sync the shutter opens, the x-sync switches on and off then the shutter closes, that’s why it only works at slower speeds.
 
I think a user is capable of manually switching on the device and knowing when to turn it off to switch batteries.

The x-sync is only useful for strobe photography at 1/50 and below because, in order to function correctly, the opening curtain must be all the way open and the closing curtain not yet starting to close, in order for the strobe to illuminate the full frame. As is done with digital SLRs, an electronic capture device is able to behave much like film when recording the image of a moving narrow slit on higher speed Leica shutters.

The point here is to let the sensor "know" when to record an image.

Also, does the M2 have flash-bulb settings? These typically trigger earlier -- such as when the opening curtain begins to open -- in order to allow the flash bulb to reach maximum illumation. That might be technically helpful.

But it strikes me that Leica users want an image the precise instant they snap the shutter -- hence x-sync, not some built-in delay mechanism.
 
Well, to use an electronic sensor with the cloth shutter should be perfectly doable , it just requires the electronic exposure to begin before the first curtain is released and end after the second curtain has closed. To avoid excessive image noise the duration of the electronic exposure should be as close to the actual one as possible, though.

I have never looked inside a M camera but in the FED/Zorki cameras (which should have a similar shutter construction, right?) the shutter button extends all the way to the bottom of the shutter mechanism where an activation microswitch could easily be placed to detect the start of the exposure. A real simple way to handle the end (which would not work with bulb, though) would be to always do a 1 sec electronic exposure.

Gutting a DSLR for this type of construction does bring the problem of (binary) patching the firmware not to detect the lack of operational electronic shutter and mirror parts.

Cheers,

Anders
 
AndersG said:
A real simple way to handle the end (which would not work with bulb, though) would be to always do a 1 sec electronic exposure.
Click to expand...

I have a feeling that there would be some serious noise at higher ISO levels though...

I'd suggest having the sensor turn on w/ the the trigger button. maybe even making it a momentary closed loop while the trigger is depressed, allowing the image to be recorded only in that instant. Obviously this wouldnt work very well if you were to just "snap" the button, but if you were to hold it down for the duration of the exposure, then you wouldnt have a problem. it would work w/ bulb, too!
 
The trigger button adds unnecessary and, as mentioned, unreliable linkages. Electronic flash couplings have been reliably used for more than 55 years to sense the activation of shutter curtains. I think firmware could sense the light loss with the closure of the trailing curtain. You could also create a second coupling to sense the closing of the trailing curtain. It would also not be difficult to create an electronic contact that knowns the position selected for the shutter-speed dial. In this case, you're going to have to modify a specific body instead of make an add-on device.
 
NL2377 said:
I have a feeling that there would be some serious noise at higher ISO levels though...

I'd suggest having the sensor turn on w/ the the trigger button. maybe even making it a momentary closed loop while the trigger is depressed, allowing the image to be recorded only in that instant. Obviously this wouldnt work very well if you were to just "snap" the button, but if you were to hold it down for the duration of the exposure, then you wouldnt have a problem. it would work w/ bulb, too!
Click to expand...

If it is possible to sense when the second curtain closes one could probably always have the gutted DSLR in bulb mode and get electronic exposures that matches the real exposure in length (under the assumption that the firmeware can handle really short bulb exposures). An interesting problem is how to deal with the initial shutter delay of the DSLR electronics - I have no idea how large it might be but some milliseconds could be plausible.

To me the key interface between the mechanical and electronic part of the camera seems to be the detection of:
1. The opening of the first curtain (or preferably an event some milliseconds before this) and
2. The closing of the second curtain.

If the flash sync provides this all is well, otherwise some kind of modification to the camera is needed to detect these events.

Cheers,

Anders
 
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