Leica M EV1 First Review - It's Bad

[StanM]

A Q in M clothes … sounds like a James Bond movie without all the hi tech goodies.
As much as I like Leica, this one will not make me abandon my beloved M Monochrom.
If I want a high mp camera with evf using Leica lenses then I use my Z7 with the TTartisan 6 bit adapter which at least gives me the green square focus confirmation although it’s also fooled by depth of field.

 

[shawn]

I think I'd prefer "inverted focus-peaking", if that makes sense. Leave the in-focus/edge-detected parts of the image as-is, but overlay subtle pixel shading or zebra lines on the unsharp parts of the image. That'd convey the same information without cluttering up the part of the frame where I'm most likely to be looking. Does any camera maker offer something like that?

Not this but another way around having info in the center is a magnified focus box (with or without peaking) in the corner of the screen. And show that for whatever focus point is selected in the viewfinder. XPro2 can do this with its OVF as well as a number of x100 models. Think some of Fuji XT models do this in a dual display mode too.

 

[Rogier]

Would be cool is Leica would create a rangefinder patch to confirm focus in de EV.

 

[bcostin]

Not this but another way around having info in the center is a magnified focus box (with or without peaking) in the corner of the screen. And show that for whatever focus point is selected in the viewfinder. XPro2 can do this with its OVF as well as a number of x100 models. Think some of Fuji XT models do this in a dual display mode too.

Cool. The Magic Lantern firmware add-on for some Canon cameras has a "Magic Zoom" feature that sounds similar to that. It does work really well, even just implemented in Live View on aging rear LCDs.

One of the cool things about EVFs should be their infinite customizability, especially now that most modern cameras have ridiculous image-processing horsepower just sitting there when you're shooting stills. IMHO, it should be just as easy to share and install EVF treatments, pseudo-rangefinder, magnification, peaking, etc. implementations and tweaks as it is to do film simulations or video LUTs. Instead manual focus aids often seem almost like an afterthought or a grudging concession. Free the EVF!

 

[Godfrey]

Cool. The Magic Lantern firmware add-on for some Canon cameras has a "Magic Zoom" feature that sounds similar to that. It does work really well, even just implemented in Live View on aging rear LCDs.

One of the cool things about EVFs should be their infinite customizability, especially now that most modern cameras have ridiculous image-processing horsepower just sitting there when you're shooting stills. IMHO, it should be just as easy to share and install EVF treatments, pseudo-rangefinder, magnification, peaking, etc. implementations and tweaks as it is to do film simulations or video LUTs. Instead manual focus aids often seem almost like an afterthought or a grudging concession. Free the EVF!

I think you overestimate the degrees of freedom that EVFs offer by a bit. And the power of in-camera image processing HP. 😉

I guess I'm the exception ... I like the fact that the new Leica EV1 has just the basics needed to function. I could do without the peaking as well, and just have a clean focus magnification implementation.

G

 

[Rob-F]

If Rangefinder Forum and the internet had been around when the M5 was launched I wonder what they would have said...

RFF wasn't around then, but I'm pretty sure it was Bill Pierce who gave us a talk in one of the St. Louis University lecture halls, in the late 1970's. He had his M5 with him. He apparently didn't like it; he offered to trade it for an M3, with anyone in the audience. There were no takers!

 

[Coldkennels]

RFF wasn't around then, but I'm pretty sure it was Bill Pierce who gave us a talk in one of the St. Louis University lecture halls, in the late 1970's. He had his M5 with him. He apparently didn't like it; he offered to trade it for an M3, with anyone in the audience. There were no takers!

That'd be a tough trade... but only because there's nothing else like the M3 viewfinder out there! Put an M3 viewfinder into an M5 (while keeping the meter readout somehow) and we can talk....