Reichmann Alert

[Bill Pierce]

That excellent site, The Luminous Landscape

http://luminous-landscape.com/

recently posted the following announcement.

“I have also been thinking a lot about the rangefinder camera's relevance in today's environment. Later this week I will publish an Open Letter to Leica, with my thoughts on the future of the M Series camera. Watch for it.”

Michael Reichmann is an intelligent, experienced photographer. He does a great deal of landscape and nature photography where the M’s lack of anti aliasing is an advantage and its comparatively poor performance at high ISO’s is less important. The current digital Leicas are certainly more useful to him than those of us who are often “available darkness” photographers. In many ways I think he is the photographer the M9 was created for. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

 

[Bill Pierce]

Reichmann's article is now available on his website. It is must reading for any photographer currently using a digital rangefinder. Sometimes I think the web is a huge and capacious wasteland where photo writers dump their superficial, shallow trash. Then an article like this appears, and I am so happy to be wrong.

 

[visiondr]

Bill, thanks for posting this.
His arguments make a lot of sense to me from a practical standpoint. Not being a digital M owner, I have to admit I'm not "in the know" about the niceties (nor the "not niceties") about the M8 or M9. Still, I have to wonder if making all these changes to a future digital M would eliminate the beautiful simplicity of the M-series camera that many users, including myself, find so endearing or even - dare I say it - essential.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

I dunno. It sound to me like the guy is trying to play both sides of the fence. He acknowledges an absolute truth: that the M body is an obsolete design, using an obsolete focusing system. But then he tries to cobble together an unlikely amalgam of ideas to try to keep it somewhat like a M body.

What the M needs is a complete redesign, along with its lenses, to become a modern, AF camera. But, then, nobody would buy it. Because that's not what M buyers want. They want the M mystique, they want a camera that looks and feels like an M3, that focuses like an M3, but has the digital capabilities of a 1DsMk IV.

If they change the camera at all from that formula, I don't think they would be able to sell it.

 

[visiondr]

I've heard that argument before, but it doesn't entirely ring true to me. Cue the old story about the "rejection" of the M5. M users, while somewhat nostalgic, are also fanatical about "feel". If the camera feels right; solid, dependable, small, precise (in a word: Teutonic) they'll line up to buy it.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I think a super-high-quality OLED EVF with "peaking" style focus confirmation is a superb idea. i think Leica's next M-mount camera should be a digital CL with EVF--it could be a trial balloon to see how M enthusiasts respond. Then, if it works well, this technology could be incorporated, in its newest incarnation, into the next M.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Ron, to significantly change the M camera would remove current M's, including the M9, to the camera ghetto. It would be an acknowledgement by Leica that the cameras people buy "to use forever and pass on to their children" are obsolete curiosities. And remove all doubt that the $7,000 M9 they bought was in reality a disposable camera in Leica's eyes. A disaster for Leica, no doubt. The box they live in.

 

[Jim-st]

It is indeed a thought-provoking article - thanks fo rthe heads-up, Bill, and hopefully MR's contribution will help move things along hereabouts. Too much for me to take in or respond to with due consideration tonight, but I'll be spending some time tomorrow pondering it - comes in the week when I'm just about to take the plunge and grab an M8. And me a mostly Scottish Highland Landscapes guy...

 

[Fujitsu]

Reichmann's article is now available on his website. It is must reading for any photographer currently using a digital rangefinder. Sometimes I think the web is a huge and capacious wasteland where photo writers dump their superficial, shallow trash. Then an article like this appears, and I am so happy to be wrong.

In short: Leica missed the chance to introduce the X1 with an M-mount. Maybe the M10 can be built much cheaper than the M9 because the optical finder will be replaced by a digital.

 

[Keith]

I personally don't think the camera needs much changing of the ergonomics but live view would be a bonus IMO. It would be nice to know exactly what is hitting the sensor instead of the approximation the rangefinder gives on the odd occasion!

For the more considered shots when using a tripod ... or where composition is important without the need for cropping in post is high on my list!

 

[redpony]

I fail to see what is so interesting about Reichmann's "open letter." It strikes me as fatuous, at best. For example:

"I am arguing that the current M9, and any other camera built further on the viewfinder / rangefinder paradigm, has become an evolutionary dead-end."

(Uhmm, this is the rangefinder forum, right?)

Anyway, why stop there? If we are making profound statements about historical imperatives, why not conclude that all 2D imaging has reached an evolutionary dead-end? Witness the rise of video in dslrs and 3D in movie theaters. Heck, maybe all of our techno-fetishism has itself reached an evolutionary dead-end, as it is surely non-sustainable, both economically and environmentally.

This reductio ad absurdum is only half in jest, but surely no less valid by the very logic, which is admittedly scant, on which Reichmann's argument hangs. As we await extinctions massive or otherwise, the M9 is selling very well. As most commentators seem to think the camera a success, it may be some time before we see an M10. Perhaps by then video will have become firmly entrenched amongst mainstream consumers, or, maybe, Reichmann will be vindicated and hell will have frozen over.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

I think his meaning in "evolutionary dead end" is to question what else Leica could do to the existing platform to produce the next M digital? Add more pixels? Higher ISO? If you've got to keep the same shape and size, the same mechanical RF and use the same lenses, why would anyone shell out $10,000 for the M10?

It's the same problem they have with the M7. Where else do you go with the existing design?

 

[Keith]

The MP, popular as it is, was a step back into the past ... Leica can't survive on the appeal of the nostalga factor forever surely.

 

[antiquark]

Reichmann talks about Leica attracting new customers... I have an idea, give the M10 autofocus! Isn't that obvious?

(You know, it can be done... the Contax AX could autofocus manual lenses.)

The MP, popular as it is, was a step back into the past ... Leica can't survive on the appeal of the nostalga factor forever surely.

I wonder what will happen when HCB recedes from memory, and photographers of today become icons at some time in the future. For example, will people buy Nikon FM2's so they can emulate the Steve McCurry of the 1980's?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I've heard that argument before, but it doesn't entirely ring true to me. Cue the old story about the "rejection" of the M5. M users, while somewhat nostalgic, are also fanatical about "feel". If the camera feels right; solid, dependable, small, precise (in a word: Teutonic) they'll line up to buy it.

Where do these people come from? 😕 :bang:

 

[Frank Petronio]

I usually don't agree w MR but I think he nailed it. Leica has an opportunity right now to lead the high end photo market. The camera concepts he is talking about sounds great to me, if I could ever afford one.

Of course Panasonic can read that article just as easily as we can. And that's a great roadmap for a camera just a year or two away....

Leica would make a gazillion if they partnered with Panasonic and the leaders had the wisdom to use the best talents from each company. They could keep the M9 series as their premium luxury amateur line... and so a hybrid per MR.

 

[Trius]

Reichman's propositions are based on (mostly) economics, not on quality of the output, which he states is already extremely high. They are two separate arguments, but he gets it all mixed up, getting into technology. His letter could be shortened by a factor of 90% or so if he would just say "Make a 'full frame' digital camera that takes LTM & M mount lenses with a larger high res, live view EVF and a thumb grip, because as the longtime M film users die off, no one else will buy a digital Leica based on the M3."

I'm not sure I agree with his premise, since one of the key differentiators of the Leica (and its "clones") is the immediacy of the rangefinder view. The other factors (size, weight, quiet operation) are important, but the raison-d'etre of the Leica (beyond the optics) is the viewfinder.

 

[semilog]

I have a much more serious gripe with Reichmann: he goes out into the world with the best gear available, and consistently returns with astonishingly dull photographs. Their formal qualities are uninteresting, their subjects are mundane, their treatments are bland.

And none of those in a good way, either.

 

[Keith]

because as the longtime M film users die off, no one else will buy a digital Leica based on the M3."

My understanding is that they (the M3 Zealots) are now a protected species and are actually being bred in captivity in secret labs somewhere in Germany!

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Then, Trius, the M9 is Leica's last camera. What significant improvement could they make to the M9 to justify producing a mechanical rangefinder M10?