New M CMOS sensor vs M9 CCD, any thoughts??

colonel said:
IMHO obviously this could be speculated endlessly, but I am pretty sure that detail was not an objective of live view.
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Erwin Puts, and Lloyd Chambers (e.g., here) among others, would disagree with you.

The plane of critical focus is far, far shallower than indicated by a DoF scale, and field curvature is present even in many of the best lenses from Leica and other marques.

This is in fact easy to see. Put, say, a 35/1.4 ASPH on any good mirrorless body (NEX-5, GRD, XE-1, OM-D, etc.) and use magnified live view to focus. You will see, in real time, that considerably finer adjustments than suggested by the DoF scale make a big difference.

For further information see e.g. John Williams, Image Clarity, ISBN 0240800338.

I find it bizarre that Leica shooters would spend huge amounts of money on optics and then reject a feature that allows the performance potential of those optics -- the reason for spending big bucks in the first place -- to more readily be harnessed.
 
jaapv said:
😀 We can file this one under wishful thinking. The strength of the Monochrome comes from the removal of the Bayer filter with its attendant elimination of the (chromatic) aberrations it produces and the lack of interpolation artifacts. Neither of which is implemented in the M. That one will be a superb color camera, outperforming just about any current camera, but the Monochrome will still rule in the B&W domain.
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Ahh, skirting your NDA? Thanks!

Personally, I can (almost) afford one or the other without selling my beloved M9. I'd rather get the camera that is not a one-trick-pony. But I'll still wait and see.
 
semilog said:
Look at the word's etymology. Something tangible is, literally, something that may be touched.

Latin: tangere -- to touch.

A camera's ergonomics and feel are -- by definition -- the tangible aspects of the device.
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Which proves i said exactly what I meant to say: "the Leica feel" is an abstract emotion. Not something you can err... feel...
 
jaapv said:
Which proves i said exactly what I meant to say: "the Leica feel" is an abstract emotion. Not something you can err... feel...
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Ah. That makes more sense.

And as someone who first used an M3 at the age of 4 or 5 years old, and has shot an M6 for a long time, it is to me -- by far -- the least appealing aspect of using an M. For me it's about the tangible experience of using the device and the actual results obtained.

Which is why I don't use a digital M. To me, the thicker bodies on these cameras compromise the form factor of the M3 and its analog lineage.

A difference that, to me, is entirely tangible.

At least the new M has live view, so that one may frame and focus accurately when one has the time to do so. And it may even prove useful at higher ISO values...
 
semilog said:
Erwin Puts, and Lloyd Chambers (e.g., here) among others, would disagree with you.

The plane of critical focus is far, far shallower than indicated by a DoF scale, and field curvature is present even in many of the best lenses from Leica and other marques.

For further information see e.g. John Williams, Image Clarity, ISBN 0240800338.

I find it bizarre that Leica shooters would spend huge amounts of money on optics and then reject a feature that allows the performance potential of those optics to more readily be harnessed.
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You also need a heavy tripod to take full advantage of these optics and higher MP sensors, too. Do you plan on always shooting your M on a heavy tripod?

To be honest, I think that lenses like the new 50 Summicron ASPH are pandering to dreamers a bit, and I'd bet that most Leica shooters don't need the performance of a $7K 50/2 lens.

The appeal of Leica to many of us is the size and the rangefinder experience, rather than some potential, super image quality that would take very large prints, perfect technique, and a tripod to see any advantage. Heck, despite being similar in price, I recently chose a 35/2 IV over the 35/2 APSH, mostly because of the size and weight. If I wanted to use a tripod, Live View, take movies, etc, a D600 and a ZF lens would be a considerably cheaper option, and it would also have exceptional image quality. Same with the A99, if an EVF is more appealing.

Despite there being several DSLRs with better performing sensors than the relatively antique design of the M9's sensor, I still chose the M9 because of the rangefinder. I just hope Leica doesn't get too far off course.
 
Lachie C said:
only a fool would develop either without video capabilities in the current climate.
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An I for the life of me have no idea why video is so important in a still camera.

But then I have little use for most features in most cameras nowadays. I like an MP best of all.

The M9 does everything I need 99.9% of the time in a digital body, and does that in a really simple fashion 100% of the time. That said, I'd probably get an 'M' over an ME or a used M9 if I needed to replace an M9.
 
Not sure. When I first got my M8 in Oct/Nov 2006 it felt just as lumpy as you describe. After a few weeks I got used to it and now it feels completely normal. In fact my film Ms feel rather thin and my Barnacks -especially the rangefinder-less ones- are downright dainty. The form factor I like least is the slab-like M6 TTL and M7. Somehow to me the proportions are wrong. I think the most balanced dimensions are those of the rangefinder Barnacks. I find my iiif just about perfect.
semilog said:
Ah. That makes more sense.

And as someone who first used an M3 at the age of 4 or 5 years old, and has shot an M6 for a long time, it is to me -- by far -- the least appealing aspect of using an M. For me it's about the tangible experience of using the device and the actual results obtained.

Which is why I don't use a digital M. To me, the thicker bodies on these cameras compromise the form factor of the M3 and its analog lineage.

A difference that, to me, is entirely tangible.

At least the new M has live view, so that one may frame and focus accurately when one has the time to do so. And it may even prove useful at higher ISO values...
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douglasf13 said:
The appeal of Leica to many of us is the size and the rangefinder experience, rather than some potential, super image quality that would take very large prints, perfect technique, and a tripod to see any advantage. Heck, despite being similar in price, I recently chose a 35/2 IV over the 35/2 APSH, mostly because of the size and weight. If I wanted to use a tripod, Live View, take movies, etc, a D600 and a ZF lens would be a considerably cheaper option, and it would also have exceptional image quality. Same with the A99, if an EVF is more appealing.
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And a Mamiya 6 or 7 will still utterly crush the IQ of any 135 analog, or any digital camera short of a D800 or Leica S2, in a lighter smaller package and a fraction of the price.
 
jaapv said:
The form factor I like least is the slab-like M6 TTL and M7. Somehow to me the proportions are wrong. I think the most balanced dimensions are those of the rangefinder Barnacks. I find my iiif just about perfect.
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We agree there.

I also prefer the M3-to-M6 classic over the slightly-taller TTL.

And the slightly-smaller-than-an-M Fuji X-E1 is one of the best hand-held cameras that I have ever used. Its size is, to me, perfect.
 
semilog said:
And a Mamiya 6 or 7 will still utterly crush the IQ of any 135 analog, or any digital camera short of a D800 or Leica S2, in a lighter smaller package and a fraction of the price.
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I'm not exactly sure what you're point is with this statement.

I do agree that the X-E1, Nex-7 and X100 are a nice size, although, in use, I don't find my M9 and 35/2 IV to feel overly large, having owned some of the Nex and Fujis. Outside of not having a rangefinder, the problem for me with the X-E1 is X-Trans, but that's another topic for a another thread.
 
semilog said:
Erwin Puts, and Lloyd Chambers (e.g., here) among others, would disagree with you.


I find it bizarre that Leica shooters would spend huge amounts of money on optics and then reject a feature that allows the performance potential of those optics -- the reason for spending big bucks in the first place -- to more readily be harnessed.
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I have not read those two saying that Live view can increase detail by improving focus comfortably within the DOF.
The digilloyd example you link to says that the lens is misalligned/faulty. under these circumstances you could still focus the lens with LV. Well and good but I would rather have the lens fixed and use the RF.

LV is certainly not useful for handheld critical focus on any camera I have used. It is very useful for hand held fast approximate focus though.

I think live view is great functionality. i am not rejecting it at all.
It is useful for subtle shooting at waist height, for critical framing or for more control over focus on a tripod.
 
Live view significantly increases the current draw and battery life shortens. Batteries are not particularly inconvenient to carry, but Live View users will need several.
 
I'm getting >1000 frames from two small batteries with the X-E1 (>500 per charge). So battery life is an issue but certainly not a huge issue. I'd rather carry an extra matchbox-sized battery that weighs less than the pentaprism from a Nikon F3 than 30 rolls of 135-36!

And yes, live view in principle can heat the sensor resulting in a noise increase.

Of course, this conversation is about CCD vs. CMOS, and a major reason for choosing CMOS in the first place is its lower power consumption and correspondingly lower heat dissipation.

In real applications, the best live view cameras do not seem to have noise problems. The noise floor of (for example) the NEX-7 or X-E1 or OM-D sensors is astonishingly low, with good ISO 3200 and very usable ISO 6400 coming out of APS-C or 4/3 size sensors. This is probably due to the fact that it's mainly dark current that is affected by heating, and typical photographic exposures are too short for dark current to be a huge problem (vs. say, astronomy where long exposures are the norm). Read noise can also increase with heating but suppression of this type of thermally-influenced noise is obviously an area where sensor engineers are making extremely rapid progress.

Note also that sensor heat dissipation and power consumption are bigger problems with bigger sensors. It will be interesting to see how the live-view Sony RX-1 fares vs. its larger cousins (e.g., Nikon D600, which presumably uses a closely related chip) with respect to noise and power consumption.
 
In regards to live view generating noisy images... Yes, maybe, if you had live view enabled for several hours on modern cameras.

I have personally done a 30 minute exposure on a Fujifilm X-Pro1 and there was absolutely no noise in the image (base iso of 200). That is the equalent of using live view for 30 minutes straight.

I expect the new M to behave the same. If not - the CMOSIS sensor is basically garbage in my eyes, compared to the rest of the CMOS world.
 
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