M9 brochure up... or not

[nobbylon]

You've did all that because you could. But when you are in the Big Darkroom above no one will do that for you.
Personally I would like that my son, his children and their children will see my pictures. I make the pictures partly for them. I myself do enjoy very much the old pictures (sometimes 100 years old) of my family.

Erik.

Erik,
that's the best way I've heard this said and it's made my realise that I need to print some of my pics. I'm going to do some photo books of my kids,
thx j

 

[Ken Shipman]

Do those magnifiers work with the M8/M9 eyepieces? Can you still see the metering info with them? That would be sweet.

I've used them on the M8 and M8.2. According to the brochure (subject of this thread) they are also compatible with the M9, which is not a surprise. Diopters and other viewfinder attachments have been standard across M models for many years. I use the same on my M2, M4, MP, M7.

I find I have to shift my eye up a hair to get a completely unobstructed view of the LEDs. In practice this isn't a problem since I meter and set exposure first, then ignore the LEDs and concentrate on fine-tuning the focus and composition.

I think I prefer using the magnifier for longer lenses, and still get eye relief for wider lenses with the .68 finder. The .72 finder always seemed a little tight for me since I favor the 28mm focal length.

 

[jfujita]

I've used them on the M8 and M8.2. According to the brochure (subject of this thread) they are also compatible with the M9, which is not a surprise. Diopters and other viewfinder attachments have been standard across M models for many years. I use the same on my M2, M4, MP, M7.

I find I have to shift my eye up a hair to get a completely unobstructed view of the LEDs. In practice this isn't a problem since I meter and set exposure first, then ignore the LEDs and concentrate on fine-tuning the focus and composition.

I think I prefer using the magnifier for longer lenses, and still get eye relief for wider lenses with the .68 finder. The .72 finder always seemed a little tight for me since I favor the 28mm focal length.

Thanks for the info. I don't wear glasses and I've got two .72 bodies that I routinely use 28mm and 50mm lenses on. I find that .72 is tight enough to make 50mm work and wide enough to fit the 28 in. Do you think .85 will work with a 28mm?

 

[Ken Shipman]

Do you think .85 will work with a 28mm?

No. On a full-frame camera a .85 finder will allow you to see the 35mm frameline but not the 28mm frameline. When Leica was shipping out .85 film bodies, or when you order a .85 a la carte, they eliminate the 28mm frameline from the finder. Even then the 35mm frameline is tight.

With a magnifier it's easy to pop it on for longer lenses and pop it off for wide angles.

 

[jfujita]

well then... It would be advantageous to go .95 for the 50mm and .68 for the 28mm. The plot thickens and my wallet shrinks.

 

[user237428934]

He is stating that a) Us that shoot digitally are not taking photographs, b) he is making statements he knows is false.

To me that is disrespectfull and trollish. He knows that you can manipulate analoge as well as digital files, he knows that file formats like "jpg" and most likely most of the raw-formats will have support, if not in vanilla systems, then in emulators, for decades to come. His arguments are just going trough the motions. And it has no place in this thread.

Yes!

An opinion is: "I like film better than digital", "Digital does not work for me", "I don't like digital", .....

Ignorant absolutism is: "film is better than digital", "Digital is not photography", .....

 

[Ken Shipman]

I agree. That's my plan. Should be nice. But I already have magnifiers due to my weak eyes.
Before you spend the money on a 1.4 magnifier you should probably wait until you can hold the camera in your hands, mount your favorite lenses, and try the magnifiers to see how it works for you. If you have young eyes you might get along fine without a magnifier for all but the widest apertures and longest lenses.

 

[mike kim]

You guys can drool over the M9 all you want. I'll keep on dreaming about having an MP in the future. 🙂
Meanwhile... I hope the M10 will be the same size as a film Leica. I have the hands of a 15 year old girl (sadly, I'm not exaggerating) and holding film Ms is much more comfortable than holding the M8. I know it's only a few mm, but big difference in small hands. 😛

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Photoshop still opens image formats from the early 1980s (like Amiga), so I think this prediction is wrong. TIFF has already been around for 20 years, and JPEG what, 15? The safer bet is that in 20 years, no mainstream company will be making film, commercial processing will be impossibly expensive, and the EU will have banned silver halide processing as environmentally destructive.

I think all that is true. Digital formats will be readable for our lifetimes, and film will become a niche market, like that for oil paint or 45's. It'll still be around though--in fact, and I've said this before here, I think 35mm film will be available for us to buy for the rest of our lives, though expensive.

By then though I'll be able to afford a user M9 with heavy brassing.

 

[burninfilm]

If you read the catalog, it's pretty interesting. If truly legit, you almost get the feeling that Leica is trying to forget the M8/M8.2 ever even existed!

 

[rxmd]

Computer systems tend to change. In about 20 years no system will be able to read files that are made now.

There's good and free image viewing software out there including the source code that can read and convert just about any format under the sun that has been invented over the last thirty or forty years. I suggest keeping copies of your files in formats such as JPEG (or TIFF, possibly even DNG for that matter) that are open and documented. There's such a big investment in these formats world-wide that you can be assured that someone will take care that they remain readable, in all probability on mainstream software, too.

You are probably right, but for me a photograph is in the first place an untouched recording of life, of facts. Digital files are too easily spoiled with Photoshop, Lightroom and the like.

Spoiling the originals without making copies is akin to touching your negatives with your thumb after eating French fries with your fingers.

And, to make silver-gelatine prints from digital files is very difficult. From photography I want as a result a solid silver-gelatine print that will last many years.

Oh god, 1999 called, they want their arguments back. In 2009, you can get a colour print on standard RA-4 paper (which is actually quite durable chemically) out of any minilab with a Frontier or whatever they use. If you don't trust RA-4, or if you only want B&W, you can get a nice silver halide print on Ilford baryta paper at any professional imaging service that has a Durst Lambda. If you want to print it in your own darkroom, do all the manipulations you like in Photoshop, invert it, have it printed on slide film for low amounts of money (eleven megapixel slides cost about 1 EUR here, less if you order quantities) and print it in your darkroom using any paper and techniques you like. You just need to do it.

Most of us shoot film ourselves and don't need convincing that film is nice. While reading that sort of argument provides the nice experience of a trip into the recent past, today it's not really much more than a set of straw men.

 

[rxmd]

We'll probably see that in our lifetimes. But a big, big freezer, filled to the brim with film is significantly cheaper than an M9.

Let's see. A roll of Velvia costs about $6 if you buy bulk. It takes about 4x4x5.5 cm, so you get 11 of them in one liter of space. Assuming you buy an efficient one, a small freezer of two by two by three feet has a volume of about 150 litres. Assume you actually use about half of that space, you can get about 800 rolls of Velvia in there that cost $4800. A freezer with good efficiency (class A+ or so) of that size costs about $700. Finally, figure out how long these 800 rolls of film will last and check with your utility company how much the 200 kWh/year of electricity cost; it won't be much, but it adds up.

You have some running costs and investments into the computer, but you're likely to do those anyway. Also you may need to invest in hard drives etc. or in some kind of backup solution (I use Ultrium 2 tapes that are standardized enough that they will be readable in 40 or 40 years and that hold 200 gigabytes each for about $20), but the film also wants to be developed and processed. However, if you have a moderately high usage of film, the M9 may well be more cost-effective, just like any other digital camera out there, which is one of the reasons why they are successfull with people with a high throughput.

 

[johnny.moped]

0.72 on M9

0.72 on M9

0.72 just are is possible on the M9.
the body is 3mm thicker, so you would have lost the 28mm framelines.
so now you get the exact same set of framelines as on the film Ms.
nothing to complain about in my opinion.

 

[jack palmer]

Grey paint now instead of the classic Chrome body? Is this a way to save on cost?

 

[adrianzg]

Grey paint now instead of the classic Chrome body? Is this a way to save on cost?

i hope not.. *gulp* 😱

hope it'll be like the antracite finish on the R9s..that'll be sexy!

 

[Ronald_H]

Let's see. A roll of Velvia costs about $6 if you buy bulk. It takes about 4x4x5.5 cm, so you get 11 of them in one liter of space. Assuming you buy an efficient one, a small freezer of two by two by three feet has a volume of about 150 litres. Assume you actually use about half of that space, you can get about 800 rolls of Velvia in there that cost $4800. A freezer with good efficiency (class A+ or so) of that size costs about $700. Finally, figure out how long these 800 rolls of film will last and check with your utility company how much the 200 kWh/year of electricity cost; it won't be much, but it adds up.

You have some running costs and investments into the computer, but you're likely to do those anyway. Also you may need to invest in hard drives etc. or in some kind of backup solution (I use Ultrium 2 tapes that are standardized enough that they will be readable in 40 or 40 years and that hold 200 gigabytes each for about $20), but the film also wants to be developed and processed. However, if you have a moderately high usage of film, the M9 may well be more cost-effective, just like any other digital camera out there, which is one of the reasons why they are successfull with people with a high throughput.

Jeez, I wasn't that serious. You obviously want to make your point so bad you actually did the math. But the pint still stands, For the price of an M9 you can buy enough film and film cameras to last a long, long time.

I just enjoy photography, whether digital or analogue. I have compacts, SLRs, RF's and even a TLR. In 50 years I'll most likely be dead. Will someone be interested in my images by that time? Will my digital files and my negs survive? Let's say that I'm not overly worried that they won't.

 

[Mcary]

We'll probably see that in our lifetimes. But a big, big freezer, filled to the brim with film is significantly cheaper than an M9. Color might be a problem to have developed though. Printing should be no problem as long as you can scan.

But hey, the sale of vinyl has gone UP the last few years...

JMO; But I think film will be available and affordable for some time past our lifetimes. What we will seein the near future is a complete shift of film manufacturing to countries outside North America and the European Union.


So while we won't be able to run down the corner store to pick a roll of film it will only be a few mouse clicks away. Unlike Kodak and Fuji that need billions of dollars of sells each year to keep their share holders happy, smaller companies like the ones that produce Arista and Efke can be profitable with world wide sells that are a fraction of that of Kodak.


As far as processing going local processing will pretty much be replaced by online/mail order services. Where one would pre-pay for processing using a credit card and then send their film off using a pre-paid UPS, FedEx or USPS mailing label. Which unlike traditional mailers would allow sending multiple rolls and even different type of film at the same time. Also with the deceasing cost of online storage some kind password protected scan/down load service could be made available where one could access small previews online for a limited amount of time and then pay for a password that would allow then to download the larger file(s) say in the 4500x3000- 6000x4000 pixel range for a set amount of time.


I can even see some kind of annual subscription, were one would pay for the processing of a set a number of rolls ahead of time, being a possible business model. . Once a person has purchased a subscription/membership they'd simply login enter the number of rolls they needed processed at that time print out the mailing label and send their film off.


Bottom line is while the old Kodak and Fuji business models for film and processing might be short for this world business model(s) by smaller leaner companies could have quite a bright future for some time to come.

 

[italy74]

Hmmmmm
I've just finished to read the brochure and for sure it's a very nice camera and I won't comment the 1/180s flash sync because I realize they probably thought to work with a 135mm lens at most. The camera comes with lots of good things, indeed.

Still, a question remains: they say it's reliable, it's all magnesium, brass and robust body.... but what about the SEALINGS ? Can reporters use it under something like a sandstorm (well, kind of, since nor the photographer might survive.. ) or a heavy rain? Or will it end up just like that guy that had his M8 spoiled by a partial wave splash? There is neither one word on it.

Another strange thing I noticed where the brochure talks about the lenses, namely about the 135 mm. Leica advices to use it stopped down at least two stops. Just for an obvious difficulty to frame and focus with such lens wide open or what?

Food for thoughts, though.

P.S.: Price? Easy. M9 - 9/9/09 at 9 am - why not 9,000 € ?

 

[user237428934]

I really don't know why we have all these price-arguments. A justification in terms of costs is something we need for the spouse but not for collegues in a forum for photo nerds or am I wrong.
If someone prefers old cameras and film this is perfectly ok. But please don't try to convince ME that film would be better for ME. I know why pay a lot of money for my digital stuff. No need to handle film is the killer argument for me.
Why don't we talk about how sexy our equipment ist. Talking about costs is not sexy at all.

 

[Lilserenity]

Oh <insert strong word!> it, I did not make my post 2 pages ago to start up this silly debate between film and digital.

If anything I was praising Leica for releasing something like the M9. My point was is that there is now a viable digital alternative from my point of view that -- though I can't afford it -- there is a chance in the future should 35mm become too expensive for me to shoot in the volume I do at present (which isn't that much) then there is a Leica M I will be happy to use. Apart from my OM, I have no desire to use any other camera system now, the small and entire design of the Leica M's suit me a to an absolute tee in a way that the EOS 7D, D300X or whatever don't. In the meantime I won't be giving up the M2 for an M9, the way the wider market operates over the coming years will dictate that (i.e. when I still want to take lots of photos but it's too expensive to do so on film in my current volumes -- and that will have to include the cost of printing as I delight in prints -- wherever they've come from although I might baulk at a Dot Matrix print from a Star LC10 😉)

I'm just going on record that I have absolutely no time whatsoever for film versus digital debates, my post was nopt intended to start one, just as I haven't had much time for any discussion about a camera that hasn't been released yet. Life's too short.

Maybe time to get back on to the original topic and if you want fight out the age old debate in another thread but no in my name? I certainly did not want to start this tired and beaten to death debate because it's all pointless and a distraction from making pictures.