Plastic Digital M, the mixed paradigm shift

S

specular

Member
Local time
5:16 PM
Joined
Aug 8, 2006
Messages
40
A plea for sanity. First pick a great lens, budget most of your $ for it, then get a disposable body for the lens. For example, the EOS Kiss/Rebel XTi 400D is essentially an $800 disposable. Then you can afford somethng like the new 85mm f/1.2. In 16 months replace the body with the latest model. ... My Nikon D1X is built like a tank. Maybe it would fetch $650 at auction. It's a great camera just a big, heavy Hummer of a DSLR and just not as good as the D2X. I realize now that I'm not in the press corps. So I don't really need to upgrade to a D2X. Actually, I'd love a digital M for my Leica M lenses... If Leica dropped the rearview mirror would they break? Could they learn to profit from, say, a $1600 plastic digital M with a shutter that lives for only 50,000 clicks? If you drop it, get a new one kind of thing. Get one for each lens. Plastic can be weather proof . It's not the same "feel" and mythos but the photos won't suffer any,

All right, here comes the nurse. I'm having a tipping point in thinking. They haven't given me my meds yet tonight so I'm kind of tipped. Discuss amongst yourselves if you want.
 
Last edited:
Will they even let you take a D2Xs or an M8 on a plane anymore? You could crack open an aircraft window with one of those if you wanted to see if the oxygen masks properly descend.
 
Last edited:
Just a couple of points,

a $1600 plastic digital M ... If you drop it, get a new one kind of thing. Get one for each lens.

If you're thinking this way, you have more money than I do.

There are enough disposable products in our daily lives. The thing I like about my Leicas is the old-fashioned notion of building something to last.

This mindset may be a corporate mistake on Lieca's part and may result in their demise, but I can appreciate it. At least at the moment there is a choice beyond plastic disposable ($1600!) cameras.

Discuss that if you want.
 
I'd love it, it would be great for those of us that are actually working photogs to be able to easily afford a digiLeica...
 
What I think people aren't getting here is that a "plastic digital M" just would not work. You can't slop together an interchangeable-lens rangefinder camera the way you can an SLR.

An SLR has to be manufactured precisely, but the precision needed is all concentrated in one simple assembly: the mirror box. You've got to locate one plane, the lens flange, relative to two other planes, the film plane and the focusing screen plane. These are all static parts; once you get them in the right relationship, they're going to stay there. You've got one moving part, the mirror, that has to be located accurately at a 45-degree angle, but you can do that with a simple mechanical stop. You need precise tooling to create the right relationships among these parts, but once the tooling is set up you don't need to do a lot of adjustments. That's why SLRs lend themselves to high-volume manufacture: you have a big investment in setting up your casting and milling operations, but once that's done you can bang out hundreds of thousands of units.

An RF camera is fundamentally different because you've got two separate, very precise subsystems that have to be synchronized to each other. The lens-to-film-plane alignment is a bit simpler because you've only got two surfaces instead of three. But then you've got a very precise, complex and completely separate mechanism, the RF/VF assembly, that has to be located accurately within itself and with respect to the lens assembly, so that the coupling arm that connects the lens to the RF/VF lines up in exactly the right place every time. You can't do that with a molded plastic chassis and a fully-automated assembly process. You need careful assembly and expert hand calibration to mesh that complicated, precise RF/VF to the lens focusing system, and you need to mount everything on a chassis that's rigid enough that the critical relationships stay put once you've set them.

Besides, an RF requires more inherent precision than an SLR because the exquisite accuracy of its focusing system makes any slop more painfully visible. A lot of us have tried this little experiment, but if you haven't, try it now: Set up your RF camera on a tripod, point it at a nearby wall, and focus very carefully on some well-defined detail so the rangefinder is lined up exactly. Now remove the lens and stick a little piece of transparent tape on the RF cam. Put the lens back on and look through the viewfinder; if your camera is in decent adjustment at all, you'll now notice that the RF is definitely "off" slightly. That piece of tape is ludicrously thin -- I just measured one and got 0.05mm -- but it makes a noticeable difference to your RF calibration.

Now try the same thing with an SLR, sticking your piece of tape on the back of the lens flange to displace the lens by the same amount. Unless you have the eyes of an eagle, you won't notice one doggone bit of difference in how the viewfinder image looks. It's not that one type of camera is more tolerant than the other -- it's just that the RF camera makes even small differences agonizingly visible.

At this point you might be saying, "Wait, there HAVE been cheap interchangeable-lens RFs -- what about the FSU ones?" Well, part of that cheapness was in metal finish and whatnot, and part of it was an illusion created by Soviet economic policies that subsidized the real cost of goods for the sake of getting foreign currency into the country. Some of the cheaper FSU cameras may have used crude techniques to get the necessary precision -- such as those paper shims they used under the lens flanges -- but they still had to be adjusted precisely.

The other approach you can take to get some cost out of the design is to do what Contax did with the G1 and G2 -- eliminate the super-precise optical/mechanical rangefinder assembly and substitute an electronic autofocus module that could be assembled and calibrated by automatic equipment, and ditch the exactingly-calibrated coupling cam on each lens in favor of a ROM chip to store the calibration data and an electronic "chopper wheel" mechanism to handle the coupling. This approach worked quite well -- but was more limited in what lenses it could accept. And without visual confirmation of focus, a lot of people who tried it never got fully comfortable with it.​

What I'm saying is that the dominant way of making cameras less expensive today is to harness automation and electronics -- but the nature of a rangefinder camera limits the degree to which automation and electronics can help.

I've said this before in another thread: If you tried to take a Leica M8 and "decontent" it to the minimum acceptable level -- less-precise rangefinder, fewer viewfinder frames, smaller sensor, more utilitarian finish, etc. -- you'd wind up with an Epson R-D 1, which is still a pretty expensive camera (and a pretty darn nice one.) I just don't think you could make a modern rangefinder camera much less expensive than that and still wind up with an acceptable product.

So, the high cost of a modern interchangeable-lens RF camera can't be helped. Most photographers are happy to take a pass and go with the more cost-effective choice of a high-volume SLR or an automatically-assembled "prosumer" camera.

The remaining tiny minority of us just have to bite the bullet and pay the higher cost for what we feel is a better way of seeing and photographing.
 
Last edited:
With the mindset I experienced at Leica in Solms last year on a factory tour, Leica simply doesn't believe in "cameras for the masses".

They must be very begrudgingly be in bed with Panasonic. Basically the old timer giving the tour said that Leicas, Ms and Rs presumably, are "too good" for 99% of the people in the world.

I was left with the strong sense that he wasn't the only person in the building with this attitude.
 
ausdlk said:
With the mindset I experienced at Leica in Solms last year on a factory tour, Leica simply doesn't believe in "cameras for the masses".

They must be very begrudgingly be in bed with Panasonic. Basically the old timer giving the tour said that Leicas, Ms and Rs presumably, are "too good" for 99% of the people in the world.

I was left with the strong sense that he wasn't the only person in the building with this attitude.
Click to expand...

... and they are right...
 
For me, Leica is akin to Morgan. Hand crafted products is simply what they are about and 21st century ideas about materials and production process be damned. Do I want a a plastic Leica? Well... no. But I do think the M8 is about £1k too expensive. A £2k street price would be about right, with the M7/MP about £300-500 cheaper. But Leica probably can't sell it at that price without taking a loss. Not without changing their ethos. And I suspect many here would rather see them go under than do that.

I do wonder where the tipping point might be for Canon, Nikon or Sony for them to start thinking about a £1.5k/$2k digital m-mount body.
 
I used to own a Morgan - I would not really call that precision engineering.. Mine had about 1 cm gap difference in the bonnet-to-wing closing between left and right. I happened to visit the factory and just mentioned it to the gentleman in charge of the final assembly. He told me : " Funny thing, most seem to have that ... But we never know whether it will be left or right.." I don't see that happening at Solms ;)
 
JLW makes a good point. When you try to save some money with digital rangefinders you end with an Epson R-D1.
Don't get me wrong, I want one :)

But only after I had a chance to try it out in a real store so I can get it adjusted without sending it around the world twice whereas I'd buy a Leica or Contax G via the internet without hesitation.
 
I AGREE with FrankS - there are way too many disposable things in todays world disposable nappie/diapers,TVs, DVD players, cars, clothes etc etc and it is nice to know that something you spend mega money on wont be tossed in a landfill in a year for the new - 12 MP M9 - Do we need the earth to be covered knee deep in mobile phones and digi cams NO!
 
tuznath, it's on you if you dump it for the next big thing or not.

I haven't dumped my 1982 Sony TV nor my 2002 Canon D60. The 1994 Pioneer HiFi set is still in use and and and.

I replaced my washingmashine after 17 years, one of the tragicaly early deaths :)
 
Perhaps, if the M8 is a hit, Zeiss/Cosina will build the camera you're looking for?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mmmmm, disposables! Great invention! If only they weren't so bl**dy expensive. I don't consider my Eos 300D a disposable at all. I take care of it, make sure I don't drop it or get it too wet, and have (travel) insurance in case something does happen to it. I can't afford to break it and buy a new one. I don't have a hundred euros to spare, let alone 500 or 1000.
 
Leicas are built up to a standard, NOT to fit a price point. this seems expensive but then, as Remy points out, most "disposable" consumer electronics are still expensive for their design life.

If film is no longer made then my M6 was a bad buy, but if not I'll still be using it long after an EOS 300D (or whatever it's called elsewhere in the world) is several strata down in the landfill. And I no longer feel the need to use the word "upgrade".

Mark
 
A lot of good points were made here. It was a pleasure reading them. Thank you all.

Should we list our appliances in our profiles? They are revealing. :) My TV and hifi stereo were manufactured in the 80's and are just low-to-mid grade. The speakers are from the late 90's. I love how CDs sound on the system. Haven't played vinyl in years. Don't have an iPod. However, I let the Pentium 2 and 3 go long ago -along with dial-up connection. I confess. The Zip drive, 2X CD-ROM burner and the 15" monitor are six feet under. The DVD burner and 21" CRT (not LCD) are essential. So is the latest version of Photoshop. Digital ICE is a godsend. But my Wacom digitizer pen connects via the serial port -it's really old (knock wood.)

With the M8, are any of these elements of Leica ethos tilting?

1) Engineering marvel.
2) Ownership pride and satisfaction.
3) Luxury collectible.
4) Elite status.
5) Legendary reliability
6) Timeless usability
7) Pleasurable usability
8) Elegant simplicity
9) Glowing, radiant, 3-D exposures
10) Compact travel-ability
11) Stealth usability


Any others?
 
Last edited:
Specular, my PIII is still active as a Linux File and Mailserver, the PIImobile Notebook from the stoneage is used by my niece now. The AMD K6-2 450MHz system is takeing up space on a shelf I can't let go of it, it is in my first computers case which grew from 286/12 over nearly every processor stage until they stopped making AT motherboards. I realy should throw it out, but can't :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom