Lloyd wrote a letter to Leica AG...

[Lss]

It’s difficult to disagree with Lloyd unless you are in some kind of denial.

I guess there is no need to continue this discussion.

 

[jsrockit]

...autofocus is the way to go, especially if you use a camera that allows you to match individual lenses to the camera’s focusing method. An autofocus Leica or one that used an electronic viewfinder display to indicate focus wouldn’t be a rangefinder, but it would be a Leica.

I'm not opposed to an AF Leica... I'd welcome it. However, I think it should be a totally different camera with the digital M still available for those that want it.

 

[Paul Luscher]

I'll go with braver on this one. "Reactionary noise?." sorry, but the M9 IS a unique camera, and provides a unique photographing experience. It 's a fairly minimal but well-built camera which requires the photographer to do a lot of the work himself (Shocking! shocking!)and...it has a rangefinder...which makes it ...unique..

So I guess, as had been said above, I can't understand being down on a rangefinder camera because it had ...a rangefinder. And focus confirmation? C'mon! isn't the rangefinder patch (two images merging into one) enough?

I understand that Lloyd may be pretty much of a landscape photographer. And that may be part of the problem here. Most people know that a Leica M is not the most ideal camera for landscape work. Yes, it has inexact framelines. Yes, you can see what's in focus or out of focus. But you lean to work with those things....and of course, its metier is photojournalism, reportage and candid photography....

If we're going to talk about "reactionary noise," and "improving" the Leica M, then I suggest you take a look at the Fuji X100. There's your "improved" Leica....

...Well, at least until you all start going on about how that camera's all wrong, wrong, WRONG, and needs to be "improved"...

 

[braver]

Watch me get flamed for this one, but I think the weakness of the rangefinder camera is the rangefinder.

Ah, I can totally understand that position, so I won't flame 😉.
However, when I look at how large even micro-4/3 camera's and lenses like the Panasonic 20/1.7 are, I do not believe currently you can do that much better in full-frame than Nikon and Canon are already doing.
And then there are those that believe the strenght of rangefinders to be in the rangefinder.... Technology hasn't provided us with anything else than the rangefinder, slr, liveview or the evf, yet anyway. None of these things don't introduce serious problems along with their solutions.
So if you want the M to not be a rangefinder you pose Leica with an unsolvable problem, if only for their marketing department.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I like having a choice in type of camera to use, and I like using RF's. Leica is the only digital RF in production. Autofocus DSLR's certainly are more practical for most situations. Mirrorless u43 and APS-c format cameras have a way to go before replacing reflex viewing. The day is probably coming when the EVF finder of the EP2 looks as crude as the LCD on the Kodak DC120.

I'll still be using a rangefinder even when that day comes. I just like it.

 

[braver]

Autofocus DSLR's certainly are more practical for most situations.

I always joke about how impractical my photography workflow is. Shooting film, with a rangefinder, wet printing, listening vinyl while at it.... Only wet plates are more of a hassle 😀 I'm only rational when my boss pays me to be 😉

 

[BobYIL]

Dear Bill Pierce...

Dear Bill Pierce...

... Slowly, professionals and artists who had no loyalty to the camera, only the pictures that they could produce with it, found other cameras that could do the job better. There are still folks in these groups using Leicas, but they are a much, much smaller number than in the past...

How true! I remember the 60's while Leica was regarded as the masterpiece of fine mechanics to perform the best and to last decades with no failure.. Leica was one of the leaders -if not the leader- of camera engineering.. You buy a Leica and decades later you brag about having the “L” seal still intact… The M-Leicas wrote legends in the hands of photojournalists, awarded with prizes and decorated the walls of exhibitions and museums.. Some even argue that Leica and Magnum Photos, they coexisted.. These have made Leica what it was..

From the 70s on the company struggled to cope up with the developments when electronics began to dominate camera engineering. Leica tried collaboration with Minolta for what they lack but did not bring anything in the long run. Like what happened today with the M9, the similar peaks and then downs were experienced when the M6, R6 and R8 were introduced.. Leica was struggling to survive only.

The M8 was a sort of comeback but also the start of the issues unknown to the name Leica; since the majority of the components had been subcontracted to outside including software. These are the years for Leica to rely on the components and the engineering of others and a great deal of them. And it still is going on in the same channel.

In the not-so-ancient past when the Nikon F2AS was costing $609.50, the M4-2 body was for $745.00. When a 35/1.4 Nikkor AI was costing $387.00 the Summilux-M was costing $337.50.. With the present philosophy of “boutique camera” Leica chose to target a certain clique of people rather than regaining the usual followers. Today for the majority of Leica users to buy an M9 and the latest 35 and 50mm Summilux lenses is a looong dream whereas just 30 years ago, inspite of far lower purchasing power of ours, we could be buying them in numbers to support a feasible production aiming masses..

As an engineer by profession and being a Leica user since almost 50 years, when I look at the leading technologies on sensors, image processing engines, displays or other features like AF, high ISO capability,etc., I ask myself: If I were to design a digital Leica to be sold for $4K or $7K, would it be the M9?

Probably the majority of Leica followers were asking the same question...

Regards,

Bob

 

[user237428934]

I'm absolutely not interested in the brand Leica but I'm interested in rangefinders. So as long as Leica builds rangefinder cameras I look at what they have to offer.

 

[jsrockit]

I'm absolutely not interested in the brand Leica but I'm interested in rangefinders. So as long as Leica builds rangefinder cameras I look at what they have to offer.

I agree. If someone else makes one, I'll gladly buy it. I buy Leica because it is the only modern digital rangefinder out there, not because of the glass. I could make do with lenses from many companies... but the digital rangefinder is what I like and why I use Leica.

 

[porktaco]

... Working backwards, that means I probably began using Leicas in the early Sixties, much of that as a journalist. News photography has to be delivered quickly. That now means digital. But my experience with the digital M’s was not good, regardless of how much I wanted it to be. I sold my digital M’s and, since most of my work is digital, my film Leicas have gone to my son or sit mostly unused in my closet. It doesn’t make me happy to agree with Lloyd, but I do.

wonder how many working photojournalists use leica today

 

[Olsen]

I think when someone starts a review/letter/whatevs by telling leica what they need to do to "grow" and "make money" and what he "invests in", he has kind of missed the plot. Leica is not about making money, it is about making a specific kind of camera that they like. If it was about making money they would be listed, and they would have a bunch of bean counters representing a bunch of banks, investors and shareholders, telling them to move production to Asia, reduce quality and associated costs and stop servicing ancient cameras that are cannibalising their current production.

Do a company have to be listed to be profitable? Quite on the contrary. Some of the most profitable companies around are not listed. Of cause not. If you had a very profitable company; would you list it?

That said: Leica AG is listed....
http://investing.businessweek.com/b...ocks/financials/financials.asp?ticker=LCA1:GR

But not very profitable.

 

[semordnilap]

So, I read it, and I wonder if a lot of people aren't halfway asking for Leica to create a new line of cameras. I think a lot of people are asking for that, with high quality lenses, af, but with the Leica name, and without the RF, or with a modified version... I haven't tried an x100, but I have used a Sony A55, and that idea is the future of cameras, I think. It's EVF makes any others I've seen look like garbage, and it's really the only EVF I've played with which feels useable. It's small and light... I really like that camera. The EVFs will only improve, and as they do there will be many, many options to develop new cameras, with new designs.

I wonder if the whole thing Lloyd is trying to take advantage of, the M lenses, is the albatross that really prevents Leica from giving him the camera that he wants...

I personally don't care a hoot about the company–I like optical RF shooting, and I hate film, and that's why I'm still happy with my M8.

 

[Olsen]

"....bring the price down to $ 4K...'

Lloyd Cambers describes a camera that will compete with Canon's 1Ds III in spesifications, but cost more than 40% less. Ha, ha!

 

[newsgrunt]

Not as many as should/could be.

 

[K3N]

From the Wikipedia article for the Porsche 928.

Managing Director Ernst Fuhrmann was also pressuring Ferdinand to approve development of the new model in light of concerns that the current flagship model at the time, the 911, was quickly reaching its maximum potential where it could soon no longer be improved upon.

The Porsche 911 is an icon like the Leica M.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

As do I. Thank you for your reasonable post amongst so much reactionary noise both here, and at LUF.

From the oft-quoted Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary):

The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical".

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise):

In common use, the word noise means any unwanted sound. In both analog and digital electronics, noise is an unwanted perturbation to a wanted signal; it is called noise as a generalisation of the audible noise heard when listening to a weak radio transmission.

Hmm...ok 🙄

 

[paulcurtis]

I think the point that several people are overlooking is that he quite rightly points out that Leica is really a Lens designer and an exceptional one at that. They rebrand some Panasonic's cameras which i've never understood and they don't really design their own sensors. I too have messed around with Kodak CCD sensors directly when i was experimenting with designing cinema cameras a few years ago, i'm aware of their characteristics and they're fine. Yes there are analogue electronics and firmware around it but frankly you're pretty limited to getting the best out of the sensor. Designing better support electronics may squeeze a bit more out of that sensor but in the grand scheme of things that's nothing compared to using a modern sensor. The only 'clever' bit was altering the arrangement of the microlenses for the shorter distance from the lens.

I have to say that on the one hand i covet Leica glass like no tomorrow (sadly stuck with voigtlander at the moment) i'm fairly cold to an actual M9. I see no reason, it offers no more than many other cameras. I have both dSLR and the Nex 5. I easily have a couple of nex 5 bodies for the lenses. The sensor in the nex 5 is better than canons sensor and really is quite exceptional. Sony really do know there stuff here and in fact isn't there a rumour flying around that Leica are using Sony sensors next time around? But what makes the Nex a joy to use is that it's easy to focus off the screen and the next firmware has peaking in, so you get a visual confirmation of what's in focus with false colour outlines. This is something from the video side but it's a perfect addition to manual focus these days. That's where interesting stuff is happening - when you take advantage of live view rather than complain about it.

Put simply i can take better manual focus photographs with the Nex than the canon

I don't mean to inflame anyone but he does have some points and the blind defense of Leica doesn't do Leica any favours.

Wasn't there a great article by a excellent war photographer that really did rip apart some of the usability issues with Leica in the field? Ripped apart the M9 compared to film Leicas. This critique is very useful for Leica, they are in a position to make exceptional cameras and i hope they do. I don't believe the M9 is it though.

cheers
paul

 

[jaapv]

Michael Kamber you mean? He wrote a negative field report on the M8 and less than year ago he gave a raving testimonial to the Leica and the M9 in the NYT. 180 degrees opposite of ripping it apart...Let's get our facts straight.


http://blog.leica-camera.com/interviews/an-interview-with-michael-kamber-of-the-new-york-times/

Wasn't there a great article by a excellent war photographer that really did rip apart some of the usability issues with Leica in the field? Ripped apart the M9 compared to film Leicas. This critique is very useful for Leica, they are in a position to make exceptional cameras and i hope they do. I don't believe the M9 is it though.

cheers
paul

 

[Harry S.]

I think all it comes down to is; If you want a full frame digital rangefinder, buy an M9. If not dont.

Id be happy to use an M8, but I dislike crop factor.

 

[Mister E]

CMOS detectors lose more off-axis light and require more intense processing to acheive uniformity over the image and to reduce noise.

Brian, please show one example where a modern CMOS sensor looses out to a CCD in the noise category. While theoretically the CCD should be better in practice it has not been.