mpmendenhall wrote:
Focus-by-wire seems like the most obvious method to me; you can make the focus ring feel mechanically however you want, and once you make the encoder and AF response sensitive and fast enough, it gets really close to the real thing (especially when hidden behind the small lag of a non-OVF).
i've never seen a focus by wire with proper stops and focus scale though. the olympus focus by wire with focus scale doesn't actually have continuous manual focus, it just jumps from zone to zone.
sebboh wrote:
i've never seen a focus by wire with proper stops and focus scale though. the olympus focus by wire with focus scale doesn't actually have continuous manual focus, it just jumps from zone to zone.
Well, perhaps Leica is going the extra mile here. From a technological perspective, it doesn't seem particularly hard --- absolute rotary encoders (with way more than sufficient resolution) have been around for a long time, and continuously varying focus-by-wire is, in my experience, more common than "jumps" (Canon 85L, Sigma DP*M, ...). The most expensive part is probably the nice-feeling mechanical focus ring, not the relatively straightforward electronics it takes to convert that into a lens control signal.
mpmendenhall wrote:
Well, perhaps Leica is going the extra mile here. From a technological perspective, it doesn't seem particularly hard --- absolute rotary encoders (with way more than sufficient resolution) have been around for a long time, and continuously varying focus-by-wire is, in my experience, more common than "jumps" (Canon 85L, Sigma DP*M, ...). The most expensive part is probably the nice-feeling mechanical focus ring, not the relatively straightforward electronics it takes to convert that into a lens control signal.
i don't think it's technically difficult, i'm just curious what they did and whether we can demand other producers do it or whether it turns out to be prohibitively expensive to do to a more pedestrianly priced lens.
for the zeiss touits they used direct drive motors rather than usm citing increased durability. i'm also curious if leica agrees with that.
douglasf13 wrote:
There's a big difference between that Contax and the X Vario: a collapsible lens
As I've said a number of times, the X-Vario needs one of the following to make sense, IMO:
- a collapsible lens, making the camera more flat
- a faster zoom, like f2.8-f4
- a lower price
In its current configuration, I struggle to see much appeal in the X Vario.
The X2 is not that small and its hard to fit in your average jeans or smaller pockets. The X-Vario body dimension alone is already larger than the X2. A retractable/ collapsible lens is a great idea, but it won't make a difference size-wise to those who will buy this camera and put it inside their Louis Vuitton, Prada or Chanel bags. This camera is not for you and I and it doesn't appeal to us on many fronts, but we are probably the minority who look at it this way.
sebboh wrote:
i've never seen a focus by wire with proper stops and focus scale though. the olympus focus by wire with focus scale doesn't actually have continuous manual focus, it just jumps from zone to zone.
This is not new for Leica. The Digilux 2 from 2004 has the same hard stops for focusing and it works well. Nudge it to one end and its AF mode, move it away from that position and you have Manual focus.
My guess is that cost played a major part in the zoom spec. It is a fact of life that Leica's very small volume pushes the cost of electronic components up significantly compared to its larger rivals. Add to that a costly body construction, plus "made in Germany", plus no factory automation, and you have the recipe for a very high cost base. So there just wasn't very much money left at all for a lens that could be faster and yet deliver good IQ, which Leica know how to design even in very compact form. Something had to give, so it was the speed, because it disn't compromise IQ. It did compromise useability, though, but that is something Leica are familiar with. Sort of, "a Leica is not for everyone". Which they try to turn into a marketing asset, in making leica ownership a form of elite, because you "get it", "dig the experience", etc. I can "get it" when the product differentiation is major, such as a rangefinder. It becomes much more tenuous on the X-series, and downright ridiculous on the rebadged Panasonic compact cameras, where there is nothing to "get", except if you thnk the red dot is part of the experience.
"...except if you thnk the red dot is part of the experience"
Leica makes some excellent products (at least the M and S series) and are making a profit but still they are a very small player and I think it would be a mistake not to capitalize on the fact that they are considered a luxury brand and that some people are willing to pay solely for the red dot and with new owners I can imagine that the pressure has increased even more to generate revenue where it is possible.
Do I like it? No, not really and I hope it will not go to far and leave the Leica brand devaluated. Hopefully the marketing department will stop cannibalize on the M brand like they have done here because that letter is the legacy of Leica and one of their best assets.
Spyro P. wrote:
Really? I opened the one with the gondolas in the 2nd row and 3 out of 4 in the 3rd row and they all looked a bit average to me TBH
agreed. i was expecting more given the price and modest spec of the lens. the gondola shot is slightly misfocused but many others aren't and you can see the corners are show a significant drop off. seems only slightly better than what i was looking at from the fuji zoom.
From the downloadable DNG examples (opened in RPP), the lens seems to have pretty bad barrel distortion towards the wide side. Certainly fixable in post (probably done automatically through Adobe's RAW processing tools), but with another small hit to resolution.
Spyro P. wrote:
resolution and wideness, by correcting you are effectively cropping
I think (?)
Since Leica probably expects the images to be viewed after default in-camera or RAW processing including a distortion correction step, they probably accounted for this in labeling the lens (the distortion-corrected, cropped image is probably close to the nominal field of view). But the cropping does mean you're chipping a megapixel or so off the actual sensor data (while re-scaling to keep the image size constant).
philber wrote:
Michael Reichmann pretty much says it all in Reid's quote. He was shooting outside on an overcast day, and, using the long end, he had to go up to 1600ISO. The zoom's performance in full daylight is what a good prime does well past sundown. That some people won't know better, or won't care, or will accept the tradeoff, sure. But enough to call this a "good compromise"? Not if you ask me.
It is really hard to understand who this is for...
- a grandma shooting her grandkids? - not a single photo of fast moving kids will be sharp...
- an "uninformed" Leica wanna-be? (a Leica tester Jono is repeating this at least 10 times an hour on every forum)
But shooting f8-f11, an uninformed photographer will not see any difference between an iPhone and this...
BTW it's hard to see any difference in f11 photography unless it's an amazing lens like Zeiss 21, Leica 21 SEM,
or Zeiss 50 macro. This zoom for sure is not one of those.
Everything else will look the same, iPhone, a small sensor compact, this, anything...
Seriously mind blowing.
I can't tell for sure from pictures of the camera, but it looks to me almost like most of the markings (focus scales, control labels, etc.) are just silkscreened on, instead of engraved and painted. Is this true? If so, it seems like a bit of a cheap-out for a camera being marketed on luxury build quality. For anyone who's seen the camera in person, are the markings engraved in or just painted on?
snowboarder wrote:
It is really hard to understand who this is for....
You and a vocal number of ALT FM'rs do seem to be struggling with the concept of the X Vario.
OTOH I was hoping to handle an X Vario today, but a phone call this morning to my nearest Leica premier dealer ascertained they've sold their allocation, including the demo model ...
I am not impressed at all with the Flick'r images of Venice in terms of colours. That is unexpected, because the X1 and X2 have fine colours. But it is just one set of pics, so generalising is not a good idea.
