M9 - How fast is it on from standby and from off, how about battery life

krötenblender

krötenblender

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Hello

I'm considering an M9 but there are some open questions for me. One of the most annoying things on my other digital cameras is the time, they need to wake up from standby and the time from pressing the power-button to the first shot.

Although they are fast, I miss the quickness of the old cameras like Canonet QL17, XA or Leica CL. They have no power-switch and no standby... I love it.

I have the R-D1, which is pretty fast on, but takes its time to wake up from standby. Most annoying is, that I forget most times, that it is in standby, and pressing the shutter-release wakes it up, but does not take the picture, an often the situation is gone... Not to mention the Olympus E-P2, which is a fine camera, if it is on...

Both have too short battery life IMHO, even with fresh original batteries.

So I like to know: How fast is the M9 on from off and from standby and how long is the battery life, if I switch standby completely off?

Thanks for answers.
 
If you switch the camera on it is ready to shoot by the time you have it up to your eye. Do you need it to be faster than that?

Battery life is good. OK, you should take two batteries for a day out, and any idiot should know to do that with any camera. But if you don't chimp all the time (set review for the minimum period if necessary), and you go out with a freshly charged battery (not one thats seems fairly well charged but you can't be bothered to fill it right to the top), then you can easily get 350 .dng in all conditions, even the cold. I recently was out for three hours at -16c with the camera switched on all the time and around my neck, made 258 exposures (exposure bracketing), chimped a bit, and the battery still showed just over 75% full when I got indoors.

So, the myths are, its slow to wake up, and the battery life is poor. Clearly even some lowly DSLRs can beat it in those parameters, but does that make any practical difference? No.

Steve
 
I agree with Steve here.

Using my M8/M9 alongside my 1Ds III - possibly the fastest digital camera in the business, I don't find the reaction time of the M8 or M9 a problem at all. That said, I use the Canon on more demanding work regarding reaction time, like bird photography. But for the work I do with my M8/M9 - family shots, street, landscape etc. the reaction time is good enough, by far.

The battery of the M8/M9 is less than half the size & weight of the 1Ds III battery. If it is fully charged it will last a day, but I often carry a spare with me. Which is no hassle because of it's low weight and size. A battery will keep it's charge and function well past 10.000 exposures, which is, perhaps, slightly more than half the battery life of the battery in the 1Ds III. It is important to use fresh and relatively new batteries on digital cameras. I bought new batteries for my M8 recently, I have had the old ones since April 2007.
 
Another problem to consider with the M9 is that it doesn't have any autofocusing. The time it takes to focus is definitely slower than the Canon Rebels. What's more, it lacks a flash.
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
Another problem to consider with the M9 is that it doesn't have any autofocusing. The time it takes to focus is definitely slower than the Canon Rebels. What's more, it lacks a flash.
Click to expand...

I you have your M9 pre-focused, it will be much faster than any camera set to autofocus first.

A M9 and a Canon Rebel are two very different beasts. Use each for what they are best and they will both excel.
 
Consider that the M8/9 has very little to no built-in automation, which will require you to think. With some people that will take a long,long time....
The difference to me between the Canon rebel and the M9 is that I use the M9 to take images now, whereas I tossed the Rebel into the dustbin six years ago....🙄
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the answers so far.

General response to some of your posts:

As you can see in my first post, I have experience witch rangefinders as well as digital compacts.I know, what rf means and I do not need autofocus at most times (in fact, it annoys me most time, because I have another idea, where the focus should be than the computer...) The Canon Rebell and similar are no option for what I want.

Of course I always have at least one extra battery in my pocket, when I'm out. Most times more than one. 300 images with one battery is plenty for me - I'm no serial shooter with a rf. Also I do not use the LCD for checking images normally. Either it's okay, or it's gone anyway...

I do not seek for high shooting rates. I would by a machine gun or a DSLR for that (I have the latter already and it's fast enough, but lacks the advantages of a digital rf).

I did not ask about flash, because I do not care about flash for what I want to do with a rf.

The Epson R-D1 is currently by far the most used and most loved camera in my collection, so the lack of automatisms, flash, autofocus etc. do not matter to me.

To the last one: If I want to take a picture, I know what I want in advance, so there is no need to spend time on thinking... That is why I do not want to wait for the camera to be ready.

One more question: Have you ever tried (or is it possible at all), to turn off sleep mode completely? How long (hours) does the camera work, until the battery is empty?
 
jaapv said:
Consider that the M8/9 has very little to no built-in automation, which will require you to think. With some people that will take a long,long time....
Click to expand...

One more to that: If I'm using a digital compact such as the PEN, the most time, I spend on thinking goes for the problem, how I'm getting the automatisms out of my way or work the way I want... I can't count, how often I'm thinking "Just take the damn picture you stupid camera!" when I'm pressing the button and the camera starts thinking... :bang:
 
jaapv said:
Yes, you can turn sleep mode off completely, the battery will probably last for 2-4 hours. But why should you? Start-up is 0.7 second.
Click to expand...

I tend to forget that the camera is in sleep-mode. When I'm pressing the button, and the camera wakes up I'm confused, why it did not take the picture. I simply don't like that...😱

4 hours would be enough for me with 2 extra batteries in the pocket.
 
krötenblender said:
The Epson R-D1 is currently by far the most used and most loved camera in my collection.....
Click to expand...

Then you know what RF photography is all about.

Epson RD-1 is the only camera with any character & personality to be launched in the digital age. It is beond me that none of the camera producers picked up and developed that character, but instead gushes out all these shiny 'Panasony' dings.

Neither M8 nor M9 have this 'personality' as the RD-1. Leica makes a few shortcuts compared, which makes the whole package more boring. But it is the optics that makes the character of the pictures. The best cameras available today, technically speaking, to utilize the huge collection of optics available for the M-bayonette are the M8 and the M9.
 
This is along the lines of 'how long is a piece of string'?

Answer to the OP: too long compared with a film camera, tolerable compared with most digis. I can live with it and I'm pretty damn' critical.

Cheers,

R.
 
Olsen said:
Epson RD-1 is the only camera with any character & personality to be launched in the digital age. It is beond me that none of the camera producers picked up and developed that character, but instead gushes out all these shiny 'Panasony' dings.
Click to expand...

Yes, same here. What I really would like to have would be an R-Dx, mostly identical to the R-D1, but with modern CCD (the one from the M9 would do... 😉) and some updated electronics. But I guess, the market is too small for such a DRF.

Olsen said:
Neither M8 nor M9 have this 'personality' as the RD-1. Leica makes a few shortcuts compared, which makes the whole package more boring. But it is the optics that makes the character of the pictures. The best cameras available today, technically speaking, to utilize the huge collection of optics available for the M-bayonette are the M8 and the M9.
Click to expand...

Although I'm shooting film too, I'm more the digital type, but with many non-mainstream preferences, so the M8 would not be an option (I already have a bunch of film-RFs). The M9 seems to me the best option in terms of image quality, finder quality (although I think, the R-D1 1:1 finder is very hard to beat...) and others.

What is important: I do not need the M9 - but maybe I simply want it. It's a hobby. So money is not an argument here, just the fun-factor and some others. For the most of them I have answers already. But I'm picky about some details, and that is, why I'm asking such detailed questions. Where I live, there is no camera-store to test the M9...
 
My Nikon D3 has no flash either. Big deal. Is there not a sync plug?

I do not believe a thinking person needs more than 100 photos per day unless he does wedding or sports.

Never forget the design criteria was sam size as an M camera. Very nearly achieved.
So you can fit in a battery only so big. If the camera were made bigger to acomodate a bigger battery, I can here the crying now.
 
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