Leica is probably thinking there's little to lose with this release. If it doesn't sell like crazy, the high price helps cover that, and plenty of buyers will still snap it up. Since there's not much innovation here, very little R&D went into it, so the financial risk is minimal..Their rangefinder and Q series will continue selling strong regardless of how the M EVF1 does in the market.
It almost feels like they see this as a kind of M11 special edition EVF model (taking the chassis and electronics of an existing camera, adding an EVF from another), and putting it on the market to see what sticks.
I agree Fred. They can gather feedback and regroup for the EV2. But on the face, the EV1 looks like a lazy release without innovation and excitement, which can (and I believe already is) damaging for Leica's brand. It unfortunately reinforces some negative stereotypes about Leica...
SlowDriver wrote:
From Jono's review:
"There are lots of things which could be included in such a camera in the future, the obvious thing being some form of focus confirmation. The technology certainly exists for this, but how to do it is much more interesting and complicated. Perhaps a rectangular section like the existing rangefinder, or maybe a confirmation light, or arrows."
No mention of including IBIS in the future though. My guess is that is a hard no till they can find a way to also integrate it in the rangefinder M.
Why wait for the 'future' when there has been plenty of time to develop this feature. The technology for it has existed for as long as phase detect capable sensors have existed.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
So Leica actually released an EVF based M that is more difficult to quickly focus than the classic rangefinder...and no better (and possibly worse ala Nikon) than other mirrorless options? That makes no sense. It's somewhat shocking that there is not a clever, novel focusing aid available. Maybe this cameras sole purpose is to sell more rangefinder M's - or S3's.
The cynical side of me would agree with this. Intentionally cripple the EV1 to steer sales to M, Q or SL instead, depending on which features you prioritize. Leica can then say 'hey, we tried to make an EVF M but everyone prefers the traditional M' and slowly let the EV1 fade into the background.
I'm not going to complain about the price point. There's no point, because it's Leica. They're not going to leave money on the table and dramatically undercut their other product lines.
I'll just pile on to the negative responses:
1bwana1 wrote:
No special focus aids like simulated RF patch or any kind of subject or eye recognition/tracking.
I can't believe they didn't include a PD assisted MF aid (strike one). I guess it would be too much to source a new variant of the very slow 60MP Sony sensor (strike two), or even better, an entirely new (for Leica), faster sensor.
Does it at least have EFCS?
The DP Review preview was not kind primarily because of the lack of a suitable digital replacement of the traditional rangefinder patch.
I guess we'll have to wait 3-4 years for the EV2 to see if Leica will include PD-driven focus assist, a better, faster sensor, etc.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Not to be too pessimistic, but it may be that Leica reasoned that if they included easy focus aides to allow the EV1 to operate as an easy replacement to a traditional M, they might risk sales of the more expensive rangefinder model.
Perhaps, but their margin on this is likely to be wayyyy more than assembling and calibrating a manual rangefinder which has hundreds of precisely machined parts, vs a rather generic EVF assembly. From a business perspective it would make more sense to flip people over to the EV1 if you can sell volume at a price close to the 'real' M. However, similarly to the SL3 there's much less to distinguish it from every other mirrorless camera with the rangefinder removed and the market may not warrant the price. The vast majority of people under 30 are much more interested in video than photography anyways so Leica may as well play into their established users.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I'm really trying to stay positive, but even after all the buildup, this still feels a bit like an April Fools joke... The missing viewfinder is hard to ignore, especially since we're so used to that classic design. Replacing it with a blank space and leaning on outdated focusing tools just feels lazy and uninspired. And with the ISO dial gone too, maybe they just assumed most users would stick to auto anyway.
Leica: "You Belong Here."
I'm definitely not the target audience that "belongs" to this. Still, I hope it finds its audience and does well for Leica.
I'll be curious to see how it does in terms of sales but for me personally, it just does not offer anything clever in terms of blended approaches to focusing. It's less innovative than I was expecting for sure.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I'm really trying to stay positive, but even after all the buildup, this still feels a bit like an April Fools joke... The missing viewfinder is hard to ignore, especially since we're so used to that classic design. Replacing it with a blank space and leaning on outdated focusing tools just feels lazy and uninspired. And with the ISO dial gone too, maybe they just assumed most users would stick to auto anyway.
Leica: "You Belong Here."
I'm definitely not the target audience that "belongs" to this. Still, I hope it finds its audience and does well for Leica.
Is this real? What a F@#$@#$% joke- At no point does this push the ball forward. To say disappointed, it would be an understatement!
Here we have it then. Leica makes an EVF camera. And suddenly it is just like any other EVF camera. The only thing that it offers over something a lot cheaper is native M mount.
Maybe that is the limit of EVF cameras:
- You can have a normal view which is subject to DOF issues if you're stopped down.,.oh wait mechanical aperture
- You can have focus peaking
- You can have some zoom in variation
Maybe that is all that can be without AF.
The real quesiton though is:
What does the little patch window do? Decoration only? I don't see it doing anything else.
One important use will be with 1.3x (39MP) where one still sees "around" the camera if shooting in stoped down mode (unlike the Q3), but allows one to revert to FF in LR.
olegkin wrote:
It was a wasted opportunity to introduce M+ lenses for 21st century with electronic aperture control and data exchange.
This will never in a near future happen with Leica. M+ lenses with electronics might happen if the L-mount and SL lenses wouldn't exist. Otherwise too close to avoid in-house competition between M+ and the SL system.
rscheffler wrote:
Why wait for the 'future' when there has been plenty of time to develop this feature. The technology for it has existed for as long as phase detect capable sensors have existed.
No disagreement here. As I mentioned this is (as expected) rather underwhelming, especially at a price point that is $1,600 higher than the Hasselblad X2Dii...
I applaud the idea and the fact that the camera is lighter (484g) but that is about it.
retrofocus wrote:
How is the manual focus done in the EV1 if not via focus peaking nor magnification?
Like it's done on the Z-Nikons with the latest firmware. You can find videos on Youtube where people show Nikon's implementation of MF assist. That one I use myself, and the Canon Rs's implementation looks even better, although I haven't tried that one myself.
retrofocus wrote:
This will never in a near future happen with Leica. M+ lenses with electronics might happen if the L-mount and SL lenses wouldn't exist. Otherwise too close to avoid in-house competition between M+ and the SL system.
I think it’s a pretty winning idea when a prospect is looking for a new camera and ends up choosing between a Leica and a Leica.
panos.v wrote:
Here we have it then. Leica makes an EVF camera. And suddenly it is just like any other EVF camera. The only thing that it offers over something a lot cheaper is native M mount.
Maybe that is the limit of EVF cameras:
- You can have a normal view which is subject to DOF issues if you're stopped down.,.oh wait mechanical aperture
- You can have focus peaking
- You can have some zoom in variation
Maybe that is all that can be without AF.
The real quesiton though is:
What does the little patch window do? Decoration only? I don't see it doing anything else.
Slap a manual Focus lens on a Canon r5mk2-
Its an incredible expience. One that matches RF-
Leica just slapped an EVF on and used the same junk it has with the VisoFlex. I was hoping for something special here. What we got was a 9K afterthought.
This 100% makes me question my further investment into Leica-
Not sure why anyone expected this to be more than a M11 without a rangefinder window - the rumors on this has been consistent for a while.
They're clearly taking a testing the waters approach to this - probably will see how it sells in the market and decide whether to invest in a EVF2. Probably looking at overall M-camera sales and Q-camera sales and see what it does to the rangefinder M sales. I expect it to sell well to certain demographics.
I do think the next version could have a lot more features if they do invest in this line. Focus confirm, in-camera phase detect AF etc... I'm sure Leica and Panasonic has the tech to do all this. I do hope they change the design - definitely a bit weird and ugly which matters for a Leica camera.
Ne314satel wrote:
Sales won't be great. But the disappointment among M fans will be enormous. Good bye M
I don't think there will be "disappointment" among M users/fans - you simply continue what you are using - the M rangefinder. Some M users might see the EV1 as step up especially those who have eyesight problems which might be overcome with the EVF and diopter change option. But since the focusing seems to provide no step up from traditional EVF based focus technology, the EV1 will occupy a niche market within the M user group.
