jaapv said:
To paraphrase another poster in another forum: If Leica had told us two years ago: "the only way to design a digital RF with a file quality that is up with the best or better is to screw a 486 filter in the @ss of the photog.", we would have happily complied. So what are we whining about now?
I think one of the problems here is the apparent disconnect between the engineering types who would have known of the high IR sensitivity (though not, perhaps, the full extent of problems that would cause in the field) and those in charge of the product launch, who built expectations of "Digital Perfection (tm)" but did not build expectations of Purple People (a not so desirable "tm").
I strongly suspect that (a) the engineers were underestimating the problem in the first place, through lack of work with real-world objects; and (b) any engineering concerns were passed on up the line as "underestimates of underestimates" by intervening management. That were then underplayed by PR types. They may even have believed their own bull****t enough that they underestimated the reports of problems coming back in from the field after the product was launched, and so believed they could "spin" the problem since, in their eyes, it was smaller than it really was.
It seems to me like a cascade of obvious-in-hindsight errors, each understandable, but which reinforced each other through the train-wreck of a product launch. Conditioning expectations is the name of the game, there, and (to put it mildly) it was not done well.
It may well be (in fact probably is) true that with current technology a combination of IR-cut filters, colour profiles, lens coding and consequent cyan-shift correction is all that can really be done for a digital M that provides high-quality-enough imaging. One hopes that Kodak has been told to go research thin IR filters for sensor coverings (or that someone else is doing the same).
Should Leica have held off producing a digital M until the "right" technologly was available? I sure don't know. There was huge market demand, and there may still be, despite problems with the launch (and the factory return, which is just an early bug but sure doesn't help). Looking here, as well on other forums, suggests a fair number of people are prepared to put up with all this to have an M8. I've no way of knowing if that's a large enough group to make this a commercial success.
But perhaps, given the demands for a digital M which had been building up, all they need is for the M8 not to be a complete commercial failure. It might just "hold the fort" in the digital space until the appropriate technology is developed. But they'd better spend a bunch of time fixing up their internal systems before they try another product launch. Because you don't stuff one up as badly as this, twice, and live.
...Mike
