JohnJ wrote:
The Germans are not that stupid. Are they?
not all of them
Look, no car drives like a BMW, an amazing piece of engineering.
Still, the electronics s@ck, the electric system might fail any time even in the newest models,
and the navigation for example is pure junk. So yes, I think they are great engineers (or opticians),
but electronics - they should leave it to some guys leaving outside of Europe...
snowboarder wrote:
not all of them
Look, no car drives like a BMW, an amazing piece of engineering.
Still, the electronics s@ck, the electric system might fail any time even in the newest models,
and the navigation for example is pure junk. So yes, I think they are great engineers (or opticians),
but electronics - they should leave it to some guys leaving outside of Europe...
Which is why I think the M series should still be primarily considered a rangefinder based system. Those wanting a primarily live view based camera are likely better off sticking with the Asian brands.
I am truly surprised by all the complaining going on here. We all have choices. If the M240 features do not meet YOUR needs, it is time to look at other alternatives. Just don't spend the next six months bitching about something you have no intention of buying. Move on....
douglasf13 wrote:
Which is why I think the M series should still be primarily considered a rangefinder based system. Those wanting a primarily live view based camera are likely better off sticking with the Asian brands.
I think in the mid term, it could be a catastrophic mistake for Leica not to attempt to merge the benefits of both the Rangefinder/ Window viewing experience and the best of current electronic mirrorless cameras. That's what I thought the M240 was about. Take away the rangefinder and, of course, the current Leica is all chips, sensors, lcd's and electronics so it's not like we are talking about Leica M3 mechanical guts here - Leica has to eventually get this stuff right or they will falter just as they did with the transition from Rangefinder to SLR. This is really an opportunity for them to combine the best of both...but, it's not like it's occurring in a vacuum. Their timing is right now but in a year, all rivals will pass them by...and I'm thinking Fuji and Sony here.
...as for German cars, I'm making do with my VW TDI Sportwagen - German engineered, built in Mexico! So far, so good. It sits in the drive beside my Dads 9th gen Carrera 4 convertible which I'm car sitting at the moment. My 5 year old calls it the race car and my wife...a glorified penile extender. It is fun to drive though.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
I think in the mid term, it could be a catastrophic mistake for Leica not to attempt to merge the benefits of both the Rangefinder/ Window viewing experience and the best of current electronic mirrorless cameras.
You would be surprised how few Leica buyers care about features beyond the basics. You would probably not be surprised by how few are talented photographers.
There are some great and talented Leica photographers out there, no surprise most of them don't care too much about added features either.
My impression from customers and dealers is that people are most concerned about what they might LOSE at the expense of new features rather than what they might gain.
I would like to hear your guestimate of catastrophic, do you not think the camera would sell?
I think we're all forgetting this is a MANUAL FOCUS ONLY CAMERA, electronic bells & whistles are secondary.
Anyone whinging should probably buy an NEX and save $5k. Why don't you? Honestly, I want to hear what the haters actually want a Leica for.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
I think in the mid term, it could be a catastrophic mistake for Leica not to attempt to merge the benefits of both the Rangefinder/ Window viewing experience and the best of current electronic mirrorless cameras. That's what I thought the M240 was about. Take away the rangefinder and, of course, the current Leica is all chips, sensors, lcd's and electronics so it's not like we are talking about Leica M3 mechanical guts here - Leica has to eventually get this stuff right or they will falter just as they did with the transition from Rangefinder to SLR. This is really an opportunity for them to combine the best of both...but, it's not like it's occurring in a vacuum. Their timing is right now but in a year, all rivals will pass them by...and I'm thinking Fuji and Sony here.
...as for German cars, I'm making do with my VW TDI Sportwagen - German engineered, built in Mexico! So far, so good. It sits in the drive beside my Dads 9th gen Carrera 4 convertible which I'm car sitting at the moment. My 5 year old calls it the race car and my wife...a glorified penile extender. It is fun to drive though. ...Show more →
I don't know. While I have no problem with the live view features, I still think much of the appeal of M is the rangefinder method of working, and, as long as Leica is the only digital rangefinder in town, success will be there. Either way, if they're going to do live view, I do think that they should do it well.
p.s. I'm embarrassed to admit that I also have a 9th gen Carrera Targa. Definitely a fun drive. I run my business from home, and I don't put a lot of miles on cars, so it isn't all THAT impractical...at least that's what I still tell my lovely wife, now that we have a 1 year old. I actually think I'm going to sell it for something more "family oriented."
thrice wrote:
I think we're all forgetting this is a MANUAL FOCUS ONLY CAMERA, electronic bells & whistles are secondary.
Anyone whinging should probably buy an NEX and save $5k. Why don't you? Honestly, I want to hear what the haters actually want a Leica for.
i did buy a NEX. now i'm a leica hater because i said the way leica implemented the MAIN new feature of their new camera was poor? i'm sure i've criticized most every other high end camera released recently too if that makes you feel better. i don't want any current leica camera because, as you say, a NEX serves me better. what i do want is a small FF camera that i can use leica lenses on. i don't really care who makes it but i'd probably prefer a hypothetical leica one to a hypothetical sony one because the leica one would be designed intentionally for manual focus and for leica lenses while the sony one certainly would not be (on the other hand the sony would probably allow that nifty helicoid adapter for leica lenses). what bugs me about this implementation of liveview is that it seems as though leica just decided to add features that people have asking (liveview, movie mode ) without bothering to put any thought into why people want such features and how they will use them. that seems very odd for a company that is supposed to keep things simple with no unnecessary bloat.
I would have thought the fundamental change in sensor technology, screen size, framelines and buffer size were the biggest changes for their major user-base. It might surprise you that the live-view mirrorless market is a very small part of the Leica world. Those looking to mount R lenses are a slightly larger but still much smaller part of the market, most Leica users are either well heeled status-seekers or rangefinder aficionados looking for a better buffer and better high ISO than the M9 they already love.
Leica do a lot of research with their core customer base, I guess none of them were of the minority that want scrollable live-view. I'm sorry that they didn't tailor the features in such a way that they suit everyone, but there is no silver bullet camera. With any luck they will add scrollable live-view via firmware update or in the next camera. Given that you're not on a waiting list already I'm sure you have plenty of time to decide or wait and see if they add what you're after.
thrice wrote:
I think we're all forgetting this is a MANUAL FOCUS ONLY CAMERA, electronic bells & whistles are secondary.
Anyone whinging should probably buy an NEX and save $5k. Why don't you? Honestly, I want to hear what the haters actually want a Leica for.
While I'm not a whinger, per se, I might be able to answer that last part:
**Full Frame**
The M240 will be the first full frame camera that doesn't royally screw up lens performance for a huge range of legacy lenses (hopefully they tackle the banding evident in some of the beta images).
The Sony VG900 beat it to market, but as we all know, it sucks with wide angle rangefinder lenses. Why the interest in rangefinder lenses from many who are probably coming from SLRs? Small, very high quality. Precision. I think a lot of people are tired of the monstrous 'pro' SLR lenses. Even the ZE/ZF lenses, as great as they are, are huge. Then there are those with considerable manual focus era SLR lens inventories that can finally be used on a camera with adapters without needing lens mount conversions.
While probably in a year we'll see other mirrorless FF options on the market, I suspect none of them will be optimized to retain maximum performance from non-SLR lenses. Maybe Ricoh will surprise us, but I doubt Sony will care to offer such an optimized sensor. However, this aspect likely will not matter for anyone wanting to use legacy SLR lenses. The issue is, does one wait an undetermined time for another solution, or in the meantime bite the bullet, shell out the money, and use the M240? One consideration though, for those on the fence: Leica body resale tends to hold up much better than other brands. Chances are if you're an early buyer and you find the camera is not for you, you won't lose much if you decide to resell.
thrice wrote:
Leica do a lot of research with their core customer base, I guess none of them were of the minority that want scrollable live-view. I'm sorry that they didn't tailor the features in such a way that they suit everyone, but there is no silver bullet camera. With any luck they will add scrollable live-view via firmware update or in the next camera. Given that you're not on a waiting list already I'm sure you have plenty of time to decide or wait and see if they add what you're after.
One would think enough people asked for live view/video for Leica to include it. That must mean a sizable chunk of the core customer base is progressive and technologically forward-looking. I also believe that Leica knows they need to attract new, non-traditional users to the brand. But these new users are probably not going to be Leica brand loyalists. They're going to want certain features for their money and will judge Leica less favorably against the mass market brands and their much less expensive, if imperfect, solutions. That is what we're seeing in this discussion, because their perspectives and priorities are different. This certainly poses a challenge for Leica, which must try to balance its core values/features/brand image favored by many longtime users with the demands that come with new technology and the new users interested in that technology.
thrice wrote:
I would have thought the fundamental change in sensor technology, screen size, framelines and buffer size were the biggest changes for their major user-base. It might surprise you that the live-view mirrorless market is a very small part of the Leica world. Those looking to mount R lenses are a slightly larger but still much smaller part of the market, most Leica users are either well heeled status-seekers or rangefinder aficionados looking for a better buffer and better high ISO than the M9 they already love.
Leica do a lot of research with their core customer base, I guess none of them were of the minority that want scrollable live-view. I'm sorry that they didn't tailor the features in such a way that they suit everyone, but there is no silver bullet camera. With any luck they will add scrollable live-view via firmware update or in the next camera. Given that you're not on a waiting list already I'm sure you have plenty of time to decide or wait and see if they add what you're after....Show more →
dude, the fundamental change in sensor tech was to allow for liveview. i seem to recall you posting a number of diagrams explaining why cmos was inherently inferior to ccd for dealing with rangefinder lenses, yet leica seems to have changed anyway. hopefully the new sensor will have other advantages than allowing liveview for the rangefinder purists like better high iso performance and less color shift. the frameline change just seems like cost saving rather than a feature. was the buffer size on the m9 really so bad that it actually effected anybodies shooting? it's not like it was a high frame rate camera.
i'm sure they do a lot of research with their core customer base, and i hope you see the problem of that with adding new features – their core customer base does NOT use the features yet. surely they didn't add the new features just to please their existing customers who don't want the new features anyway?
The M240 will be the first full frame camera that doesn't royally screw up lens performance for a huge range of legacy lenses (hopefully they tackle the banding evident in some of the beta images).
The Sony VG900 beat it to market, but as we all know, it sucks with wide angle rangefinder lenses. Why the interest in rangefinder lenses from many who are probably coming from SLRs? Small, very high quality. Precision. I think a lot of people are tired of the monstrous 'pro' SLR lenses. Even the ZE/ZF lenses, as great as they are, are huge. Then there are those with considerable manual focus era SLR lens inventories that can finally be used on a camera with adapters without needing lens mount conversions.
While probably in a year we'll see other mirrorless FF options on the market, I suspect none of them will be optimized to retain maximum performance from non-SLR lenses. Maybe Ricoh will surprise us, but I doubt Sony will care to offer such an optimized sensor. However, this aspect likely will not matter for anyone wanting to use legacy SLR lenses. The issue is, does one wait an undetermined time for another solution, or in the meantime bite the bullet, shell out the money, and use the M240? One consideration though, for those on the fence: Leica body resale tends to hold up much better than other brands. Chances are if you're an early buyer and you find the camera is not for you, you won't lose much if you decide to resell....Show more →
Again, 100% agree
Funny how I agree with many people here in this thread, still I'm called a troll...
Anyway, I'm exactly at this position, I'll see what I have available when M10 is on the market
and decide if I swallow all those BS limitations just for a FF M lenses experience, or
I wait and enjoy a modern NEX camera and the crop images.
I think many users unhappy with the current solution would be best served to wait. I don't think I'll be able to handle the endless posts by users who bought (or wish to buy) the camera yet feel the need to continually lambaste it for what it is missing.
It'll be the M9 all over again
sebboh wrote:
was the buffer size on the m9 really so bad that it actually effected anybodies shooting? it's not like it was a high frame rate camera.
Yes! I am probably not a typical Leica shooter. I'm coming from Canon 1D series cameras and am used to being able to shoot off 8, 10, 12 fps sequences. So I tend to shoot rapidly to account for quickly changing situations. With the M9, I have frequently hit the 7-8 frame buffer limit in 'action' situations. For example, these photos of Spain fans celebrating in my hometown after Spain won EURO 2012: http://ronscheffler.com/samples/blogpix/20120701_spain_fans_gallery/
Around image #133 there was good action with a bunch of young guys drumming in a circle. Major wait for the buffer here. Very frustrating to see opportunities pass by while waiting for the camera. I've since stopped shooting RAW+Jpeg in favor of just RAW, which cuts the write time from about 7 seconds to 4 seconds per file. I also try to avoid shooting above ISO 160 as the higher ISOs seem to bog down the buffer again. Instead I'll underexpose and recover in post (this is based on the 'ISO-less' approach to using the M9). The reason I previously shot in-camera Jpegs was for quick editing on import in Photo Mechanic so I wouldn't have to wait for previews to be generated from the RAW files, for which Leica embeds a puny thumbnail. The M240 DNGs still have puny thumbnails...
I'm probably one of the few who would like 5-6 fps or faster shooting with the M240....
An interesting note, some of my newspaper colleagues have started shooting their assignments strictly in video and pulling 1080P frame grabs out of CS6. Basically it lets them shoot at 30fps...
Of course, this is the antithesis of the "Leica-way" where one captures the decisive moment in one shot. That's pretty much what I do, but sometimes the next decisive moment is 1/3 second later.
I've somewhat overcome my disappointment about the live view debacle and realized I need to go back and look at the other features, like those more related to traditional handheld rangefinder photography, of the M240 to see if it is worth upgrading from my M9 and also in regards to live view even if scrolling isn't possible a larger display and the possibility to frame the photo using live view is very welcome.
I'm on the countryside for a couple of weeks now and when I left Stockholm I packed two smallish Domke bags that I own, one with my 5D Mrk II and two Zeiss lenses and the other one with my M9 and 6 (!) M-lenses, this fact and the cheer image quality of M system is what I keep coming back to when I think of the pros and cons of having an only M solution or if I want to keep using my Canon equipment for landscapes.
As far as I understand, and I may be wrong, the Leica M 240 is meant by Leica as an upgrade for Leica M9 owners, with most complaints about the M9 fixed and a few functionalities added, that would make the system more flexible. It is also meant as a way for Leica R glass owners to be able to use their lenses on a Leica body, but not as an ideal solution.
What I did not read anywhere, is that Leica meant the Leica M 240 to be a universal platform for all kinds of lenses to be used on as a FF mirrorless. It sure can be, and it is actually a superb one, especially with the newly designed microlenses that will definitely resolve the problem of incident light rays, corner blur and corner color shift, WITHOUT software correction. But this is NOT what Leica designed the camera to be, it's just an accidental byproduct of how good and versatile this camera is.
So I am really shocked at the crazy attitudes in this thread from normally sane people, who suddenly lost their sanity, as if Leica promised them the ultimate FF mirrorless, and failed their promise, while all what Leica did design and announce is just another M body, FOR M users.
IMO the only thing to be shocked about, is the presumably lack of LV outside center - and those that try to defend such a ridiculous desicion. That is what's crazy - nothing else. There's simply NO good argument for such a braindead desicion.
When you read this thread, it's no wonder Leica owners sometimes feel a certain hostility from others.
sebboh wrote:
zero, i knew i didn't want to spend $7k on it when i saw it was still a rangefinder. how does my lack of interest in the product negate any of my previous statements? did you actually decide you are going to get one? i seem to remember you were rather indecisive on whether it was the camera foryou around release time.
Sebboh, my comment was not aimed at you in particular, it just happened to be after your post.
As for your question, after having used the M9 for half a year, and realizing how wonderful it is, I now came to the conclusion that all what I would eventually need is an M9 with slightly higher pixel count, better display, faster processor and writing speeds, less corner color shift. Whatever extras that come with the M 240 are just extras. I don't need them, I will hardly use them, if ever, but it's nice to have them. So I will definitely buy the M 240 because it does improve on all the above mentioned points. It gives me exactly what I ask for, plus a few extras.
IMO the only thing to be shocked about, is the presumably lack of LV outside center - and those that try to defend such a ridiculous desicion. That is what's crazy - nothing else. There's simply NO good argument for such a braindead desicion.
When you read this thread, it's no wonder Leica owners sometimes feel a certain hostility from others.
IMO.
So why are you concerned about the M 240 delay or lack of scrollable magnified view.
I actually think I'm going to sell it for something more "family oriented." 
) without bothering to put any thought into why people want such features and how they will use them. that seems very odd for a company that is supposed to keep things simple with no unnecessary bloat.
