Tariq Gibran wrote:
I don't really see how offering Live View would threaten Leica lens sales as those who buy them are not likely going to go for something less and if they were, there are already plenty of alternative M lens options out there - Zeiss ZM, CV, etc.
I only see LV useful for close-ups beyond the RF MFD. Range finders focusing is very accurate and fast in the same time, and those who buy M bodies are die hard RF users. I don't see any LV advantage for landscapes and architecture, or even product shots. All can be framed with the optical VF and chimped on the LCD immediately.
edwardkaraa wrote:
I only see LV useful for close-ups beyond the RF MFD. Range finders focusing is very accurate and fast in the same time, and those who buy M bodies are die hard RF users. I don't see any LV advantage for landscapes and architecture, or even product shots. All can be framed with the optical VF and chimped on the LCD immediately.
Really? I could sure see using it if it provided 100% framing accuracy, something a rangefinder does not offer. So, not only for double checking focusing accuracy but for those cases where you might use an SLR and require the framing accuracy. Trial and error chimping after the shot for product shots, copy work, architecture and so forth would be a nightmare. Shoot, chimp, re-frame, shoot, chimp, re-frame - no thanks.
edwardkaraa wrote:
I only see LV useful for close-ups beyond the RF MFD. Range finders focusing is very accurate and fast in the same time, and those who buy M bodies are die hard RF users. I don't see any LV advantage for landscapes and architecture, or even product shots. All can be framed with the optical VF and chimped on the LCD immediately.
spoken like someone who's never used LV seriously. chimping is way slower and often requires many takes till you give up and say close enough. LV view allows much more precise control of dof than anything else and perfect framing every time. LV is the best thing for landscape and architecture since sliced bread (or maybe tilt shift lenses).
EVF/LV = an actually nice tele-lens experience on a m-body, close-up shooting, accurate framing, focus wherever you want in the frame without recompose.. etc
its not just the framing in the sence of knowing where your frame starts and ends... it's also about having near and far objects and trying to get them to overlap or not overlap. Cant do that without seeing through the lens. And chimping will only tell you if you were right or wrong, but, unless you're using a tripod, it wont tell you exactly where the camera was when you took the photo so you can try from a slightly different angle. Unless you can chimp while sitting reeealy reeealy still whithout moving your head so you can put the camera exactly where it was before, while hoping your subject doesnt move
Did that make sense to anybody or is it just me being schizophrenic?
Smiert Spionam wrote:
Well, if it's got a decent live view, it could use R lenses, and just about anything else. Imagine the Sony NEX focus peaking in a Leica body. Helluva camera. It might never happen, precisely because it dilutes the singular buy-in of the Leica system, but it would be formidable.
I didn't know much about the corporate attitude there, but what an eye-opener! There's Leica's agenda and list for improvement, and then there's "ours." Here's what the overlap probably looks like:
Tariq, Kwalsh, Sebboh and the others who have replied to me. You make it sound that what you're really looking for is a DSLR or more likely a FF mirrorless. Naturally the only FF mirrorless available at this time is a Leica M but the M9/10 are not exactly that. They are different product and design philosophy altogether.
I would be very happy to get LV, don't get me wrong. It will make the M10 more versatile, as in taking longer lenses and having macro abilities, as ulkrift mentioned. But I would still buy it even without. It's not a deciding factor for me.
At the end of the day, the M10 exact description is a digital range finder camera, with what that entails. The fact that it happens to be mirrorless is just a secondary effect. I would love it to be more versatile, but then, if I wanted all what you guys ask for, I would wait for someone else to make a FF mirrorless body, which is surely going to be way cheaper and much more versatile.
I would think if you raise the same question at RFF you will receive not too dissimilar answers.
theSuede wrote:
Read noise good enough to give it the same performance at ISO1600 as the M9 at ISO800, with large aperture lenses.
Do you mean DR or deep shadow noise performance, since those are the only two aspects that would be helped by lower read noise, right? Regarding High ISO SNR, the FWC looks kind of shallow @ 39k - that's 50% below D3/D700 levels but 10k better than M9 (using DxoMark-derived sensorgen.info numbers).
Btw, for FWC the spec says 39k at qmax and 33k at qmin, with a footnote saying qmin is calculated from a linearity test. Can you shed some light on this? Does this imply a non-linear ADC?
edwardkaraa wrote:
Tariq, Kwalsh, Sebboh and the others who have replied to me. You make it sound that what you're really looking for is a DSLR or more likely a FF mirrorless. Naturally the only FF mirrorless available at this time is a Leica M but the M9/10 are not exactly that. They are different product and design philosophy altogether.
sadly they are not different products yet – only one exists. i'm not so sure anybody other than leica will come out with a FF mirrorless in the immediate future, so i'd prefer that leica made a camera i would like. you are correct though, i wouldn't care if leica took the rangefinder off the top of the camera. however, there are lots of people who love the rangefinder experience and also think LV would be nice to have for when they are doing exacting tripod shots.
All ADC's are linear +/- a few hundreds of a percent, but the charge capacity isn't. You get a slight "knee" on the curve when you approach saturation in most common sensor read strategies. Losses increase as you try to fill the well "all the way up".
FWC needs to be leveled against no of pixels - so it's about 70% better than M9 (18*29.9=538, 24*38=912)
For the D3 that would be 12*60=720, D3x 24*55=1320, D4 16*85=1350
I mean midtone to lower shadow noise, the important part when it comes to the type of photography you would expect with a camera like this. A large part of this increase is a 15% higher efficiency, and 20% lower losses from F2.8>F1.4! You need efficiency as well as low noise to get high ISO performance.
theSuede wrote:
FWC needs to be leveled against no of pixels - so it's about 70% better than M9 (18*29.9=538, 24*38=912)
For the D3 that would be 12*60=720, D3x 24*55=1320, D4 16*85=1350
doh, I forgot. Thanks!
theSuede wrote:
20% lower losses from F2.8>F1.4!
20% lower vs M9? Where does that put this sensor in relation to others, say in the plots DxoMark produced at:
sebboh wrote:
sadly they are not different products yet – only one exists. i'm not so sure anybody other than leica will come out with a FF mirrorless in the immediate future, so i'd prefer that leica made a camera i would like. you are correct though, i wouldn't care if leica took the rangefinder off the top of the camera. however, there are lots of people who love the rangefinder experience and also think LV would be nice to have for when they are doing exacting tripod shots.
So we are in agreement then
Basically I am not against LV but rather against an EVF to replace the RF. Certainly I would be interested in a FF mirrorless like a Nex-7 or X pro 1 featuring an EVF or a hybrid OVF/EVF, but I really love the RF experience and would be very disappointed if it was removed from future M bodies (not that there is any risk of this happening soon )
Basically I am not against LV but rather against an EVF to replace the RF.
Me too. Sorry if my terse response earlier implied otherwise! I think it would be silly for Leica to abandon the RF niche. I'm not an RF shooter, but they'd alienate all their users if they went to an EVF exclusively. But if they added live-view I think it would expand the utility of the cameras to their users and perhaps even expand their user base a bit.
kwalsh wrote:
Me too. Sorry if my terse response earlier implied otherwise! I think it would be silly for Leica to abandon the RF niche. I'm not an RF shooter, but they'd alienate all their users if they went to an EVF exclusively. But if they added live-view I think it would expand the utility of the cameras to their users and perhaps even expand their user base a bit.
Ken
agreed, though a hybrid evf/rangefinder would be pretty sweet.
Well, one thing for certain, a Leica mirrorless is on the way. Since it's not FF, I personally am not really interested, especially that other companies like Sony or Fuji are better equipped to make such an electronic gadget. I am very curious though.
Yeah, I'm certainly not advocating that Leica remove the rangefinder, just that they add Live View for the rear LCD screen Hopefully, Leica's next M Digital gadget will have such a feature (of course, REAL photographers only use full mechanical, film fed M's.).
I think even a hybrid viewfinder would alienate a lot of Leica loyalists, and would probably be instantly vetoed internally -- and honestly, for mostly good reasons. I would be shocked if anyone could develop a hybrid that didn't detract, in some way, from the functioning of the optical rangefinder, which is a thing of mechanical beauty.
I'd like to think that LV could be implemented, but even that might be too offensive to the purists, which is unfortunate.
you are correct though, i wouldn't care if leica took the rangefinder off the top of the camera. however, there are lots of people who love the rangefinder experience and also think LV would be nice to have for when they are doing exacting tripod shots.