Leica R9 first impressions

Back then, Huss, when I held the R9 in my hands, I already had a Nikon system and very little interest in branching out. But it's always good to know that Leica would have offered an alternate focusing screen for my failing eyesight. 😉
 
Ok, because I tell it how it is... see that image below? Taken thru the VF. See what's weird? If you hold the camera so u are looking down into the Vf (and thus cutting out the top of the image) you can see a reversed reflection of the image at the bottom. Just like on my Zenit TTL!
Now normally you would just look straight into the vf and not see this, but there's nothing normal about me... and I do not recall this effect with any of my non Ruski kameras. I will check my F6 etc when I get home. Problem is that now that I have seen it, I see it...

Untitled by desmolicious, on Flickr

2nd item.. the VF is only 93%. It doesn't really matter I guess but when all my F series Nikons are 100%, as well as my Minolta XK, I expected the same for what was a mega bux Leica SLR. Hmmm.
 
Alright - so I checked my other SLRs and they also do that, but some do it more than others.
Best is the Nikon F3 w/HP head. Worst is the D850. How on earth did I not notice this before?!
 
Huss said:
Looking at the R9, I don't know why Leica didn't name the SL the R10. It's what the R9 would be if AF and a permanent digital sensor was added. Same thing as the M7 becoming the digital M8/9/10/10v2
Click to expand...

Yes! This! I have been thinking the same. R10 would have been such a better name. I'm guessing the reason is the new mount, but I still would have preferred R10 instead of SL.


/ET
 
I must admit the main reason why I got the R9 to begin with, was because I love the industrial design of it. I know it's an either love-it-or-hate-it design, but to me, it's one of the best looking SLRs ever made.



/ET
 
Just finished a second roll of film thru it, will get it developed tomorrow (and get my first one back). This time I took a SF24D flash along w/ me to see how it handles fill in work automatically at the beach. Interestingly it is meant to be in avg metering (not matrix) for this.
More notes - the VF is not very good if you wear glasses/sunglasses. It just does not have the eye relief like a Nikon with an HP finder. Amazing really that Nikon made that back in the 1980s, and no 'current' camera offers that.
Film winder really is the smoothest ever.
Really dumb that when you power off, the frame counter LCD also powers off so you have to turn the camera on to see how many shots are left.
Fantastic that you can pick meter modes while looking thru the VF - excellent design.
 
Huss said:
More notes - the VF is not very good if you wear glasses/sunglasses. It just does not have the eye relief like a Nikon with an HP finder. Amazing really that Nikon made that back in the 1980s, and no 'current' camera offers that.
Click to expand...

Viewfinders are built with a set of competing interests inherent in the design. Magnification, coverage and eyepoint all have effects on each other within a single set of design parameters.

The Nikon F3 HP finder has 100% coverage and a 25mm eyepoint, but a 0.75 magnification. The Nikon F5 DP30 has 100% coverage, 20.5mm eyepoint and 0.75 magnification. The Nikon F6 viewfinder has 100% coverage and 0.75 magnification and an 18mm eyepoint. The decrease in eyepoint largely coincides with a decrease in the physical size of the finder.

The R9 viewfinder has 0.75 magnification, 96% vertical and 97% horizontal coverage and a ~22mm eyepoint. It's not perfect but it's very good. I think it's as good as the F3 finder for manual focus, and only slightly behind the very best manual focus viewfinders. If you wear glasses while you take photos, very little beats an F3HP finder.

Mary
 
Freakscene said:
Viewfinders are built with a set of competing interests inherent in the design. Magnification, coverage and eyepoint all have effects on each other within a single set of design parameters.

The Nikon F3 HP finder has 100% coverage and a 25mm eyepoint, but a 0.75 magnification. The Nikon F5 DP30 has 100% coverage, 20.5mm eyepoint and 0.75 magnification. The Nikon F6 viewfinder has 100% coverage and 0.75 magnification and an 18mm eyepoint. The decrease in eyepoint largely coincides with a decrease in the physical size of the finder.

The R9 viewfinder has 0.75 magnification, 96% vertical and 97% horizontal coverage and a ~22mm eyepoint. It's not perfect but it's very good. I think it's as good as the F3 finder for manual focus, and only slightly behind the very best manual focus viewfinders. If you wear glasses while you take photos, very little beats an F3HP finder.

Mary
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity do you have a stat for the OM1 Marty because I've yet to look through anything as good?
 
Thanks John ... it was interesting that they rated the F3 as having the best finder. I've never looked through one from memory.
 
Keith said:
Out of curiosity do you have a stat for the OM1 Marty because I've yet to look through anything as good?
Click to expand...

A couple of things to watch out for - linear and area measures of coverage are not the same (those sources both mix them up). Magnification at 'infinity', often interpreted as 50x the focal length (i.e. a 50mm lens at 2.5m 'infinity') is not the same as magnification at a properly long distance away (i.e. using the moon as 'infinity'). Also multiplying magnification by coverage to get an 'apparent viewfinder size' doesn't provide a reliable measure because of the effect of eyepoint. If you have to get your eye right up to the viewfinder to see it things tend to look bigger anyway.

The OM1 viewfinder is amazing, but it was designed for high magnification and coverage at the expense of eyepoint (it is higher than the 15mm cited in one of those references, but not much) and keeping the physical size of the prism housing reasonable. These choices do help make the OM1 viewfinder great, but don't overlook the area and amount of semi-silvering for the metering - some of the light goes through the mirror to allow the camera to meter the ambient light - and this loss is always lower in manual focus SLRs than in autofocus cameras because light is only passed through the mirror to the meter, not also to the autofocus sensors, so the finder is really bright. This perception is often slightly decreased by the real ground glass focus screen an OM1 has, which has a coarser grid for more focus snap but which transmits a lower proportion of incident light than modern autofocus SLR screens which are made of a bundle of optical fibres with microlenses on each end. This is why Olympus developed the 2-series focus screens. Apparent brightness and focus snap are not purely related to transmission. This is why AF screens look so bright but can be hard to focus.

So, in short, 'best' is relative and influenced by a lot of things.

Keith, I can bring an F3 next time I'm in Queensland. I have the DE3 and DE2 finders. I might also bring a Contax Aria (95% coverage, 0.82 magnification, 22.5mm eyepoint) or an RX (95% coverage, 0.8 magnification, 22.5mm eyepoint).

Marty
 
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Just got my films back, and am really happy with the results. The Leica 35-70 F4 is a knock out lens. Incredible. I used to think my Minolta 35-70 3.5 that I use on my XK was great, this puppy is on a different level. As it should be given the price difference.

Selection below, Fuji C200, all scanned with a Nikon D850. With one I used an SF-24D flash in the auto fill in mode, to see how it works. Mounted on camera, directly pointing at the subject.









 
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