fjablo wrote:
The MF experience will make or break this camera. If they don’t achieve offering a viable alternative to the optical rangefinder, it will fail.
The feedback that the optical rangefinder provides is:
- in focus Y/N?
- how far out of focus?
- front- or backfocused?
Imo Leicas implementation in the M11-V needs to provide all three as well. The only MF assist tool that does this so far is Canon‘s, though third point debatable.
As I've speculated previously, this should all be doable if the sensor has phase-detect capable pixels.
IMO it's the only way to provide definite and accurate manual focus assistance while maintaining a full image view (i.e. not overwhelmed by a sea of focus peaking artifacts or losing the full scene while zoomed in to magnified view).
I also don't think a new line of M lenses with electronic contacts is necessary to do this. Others, like Canon, seem to restrict their focusing aids to function only with lenses that are 'chipped' but it's unclear the restriction is more than an artificial one to 'encourage' use of their own lenses.
The A7Rv EVF has made me more critical of lesser implementations. Leica hasn’t yet upped the EVF specifications, but in a Luxury brand, I think that it is a mistake to use a less than stellar EVF. I don’t expect this improvement, but in eighteen months from now when the M12 is coming to market, I think that a top level EVF is an important improvement.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Doesn't the M11 with the Visoflex already support viewfinder stabilization? I'd hope the in-camera EVF will have it as well.
Yes, but it is not very good, so I just don't like using even the new Visoflex. The EVF and stabilization in the SL2/3 is really good so manual focusing is a pleasure.
Desmolicious wrote:
I just saw that batteries for the M10 series are still not available. It's been like this for several months now.
No way is Leica getting me as customer when they fail their existing customers like this. There is zero excuse for this seeing they have no problems producing batteries for current production cameras.
Sorry for this to be a rant, but is this their business model now to get people to upgrade? They going to do this to M11 owners once they move to M12 etc?
Weird but the seem to be readily available in Europe. Just another Leica anomaly that makes no sense.
rscheffler wrote:
As I've speculated previously, this should all be doable if the sensor has phase-detect capable pixels.
IMO it's the only way to provide definite and accurate manual focus assistance while maintaining a full image view (i.e. not overwhelmed by a sea of focus peaking artifacts or losing the full scene while zoomed in to magnified view).
I also don't think a new line of M lenses with electronic contacts is necessary to do this. Others, like Canon, seem to restrict their focusing aids to function only with lenses that are 'chipped' but it's unclear the restriction is more than an artificial one to 'encourage' use of their own lenses....Show more →
Keep in mind Leica's partner Panasonic already has a Picture in Picture manual focussing aid. I haven't used it, perhaps someone who has can comment on it, but as I understand it you see the whole scene, but you get a box with a magnified view overlaid over the whole scene and you can use that magnified box to manually focus. I expect some version of this as the manual focus aid in this new Leica M11-V. I don't think it would require PDAF, and done right it might be a really nice focus aid. It has always sounded like a good approach to me, but like I said I have never used it.
Steve Spencer wrote:
Keep in mind Leica's partner Panasonic already has a Picture in Picture manual focussing aid. I haven't used it, perhaps someone who has can comment on it, but as I understand it you see the whole scene, but you get a box with a magnified view overlaid over the whole scene and you can use that magnified box to manually focus. I expect some version of this as the manual focus aid in this new Leica M11-V. I don't think it would require PDAF, and done right it might be a really nice focus aid. It has always sounded like a good approach to me, but like I said I have never used it....Show more →
Many years ago I shot Panasonic M43. It was the single best manual focus experience I have ever had, and I remain frustrated to this day that no other manufacturer seems to have the same offering.
As you described you get a picture-in-picture focus aid where you can see the entire scene but you also get a magnified view of your selected region of interest. This has the terrific benefit of allowing you to simultaneously compose and nail critical focus (eg. Eyes in a perfect third).
I presume there must be a patent related reason this approach never found its way into Sony, canon, and Nikon, because once you've used it, it's so blindingly obvious that it is the most efficacious way to manually focus a lens through an evf. The only improvement would be an "eye-af" variant where the magnification pip window tracked the nearest eye.
Either way, if Panasonic allows Leica to use this focusing aid, it will be a terrific boon for the M11V.
fritzx6 wrote:
Many years ago I shot Panasonic M43. It was the single best manual focus experience I have ever had, and I remain frustrated to this day that no other manufacturer seems to have the same offering.
As you described you get a picture-in-picture focus aid where you can see the entire scene but you also get a magnified view of your selected region of interest. This has the terrific benefit of allowing you to simultaneously compose and nail critical focus (eg. Eyes in a perfect third).
I presume there must be a patent related reason this approach never found its way into Sony, canon, and Nikon, because once you've used it, it's so blindingly obvious that it is the most efficacious way to manually focus a lens through an evf. The only improvement would be an "eye-af" variant where the magnification pip window tracked the nearest eye.
Either way, if Panasonic allows Leica to use this focusing aid, it will be a terrific boon for the M11V. ...Show more →
If their relationship with Panny ... the GX8 viewfinder (for an m43) with tilt EVF was nice, and it was in the "rangefinder" position. Seeing a FF EVF with tilt built in would be quite the boon, too. Would negate the need for the visoflex for angle find / tilt.
Like Steve, I think enlarged section, picture in picture is quite possible - that is in the X100 series cameras and , at least for me, works far better than any of their other manual focus camera aids. Obviously, it would be most useful if it can easily be moved around by the user, and has different optional levels of magnification..
I suspect, though, that there will also be other possible focus aids, and hopefully at least one provided by a separate rangefinder window off centre from the main TTL view of the evf. Unfortunately, it won’t be able to be offset enough for a particularly accurate rangefinder effect.
fritzx6 wrote:
Many years ago I shot Panasonic M43. It was the single best manual focus experience I have ever had, and I remain frustrated to this day that no other manufacturer seems to have the same offering.
As you described you get a picture-in-picture focus aid where you can see the entire scene but you also get a magnified view of your selected region of interest. This has the terrific benefit of allowing you to simultaneously compose and nail critical focus (eg. Eyes in a perfect third).
I presume there must be a patent related reason this approach never found its way into Sony, canon, and Nikon, because once you've used it, it's so blindingly obvious that it is the most efficacious way to manually focus a lens through an evf. The only improvement would be an "eye-af" variant where the magnification pip window tracked the nearest eye.
Either way, if Panasonic allows Leica to use this focusing aid, it will be a terrific boon for the M11V. ...Show more →
IIRC the Ricoh GXR I had (actually still have somewhere), had a picture in picture focusing option as part of its magnified viewing features. IIRC, first button press went to PIP and second button press used the full image area for magnified view. When in PIP, it blocked enough of the central part of the image that it was easy to lose track of where the subject was, if moving. It also blocked the ability to see what the subject was doing, if not static. Therefore I didn't really enjoy using PIP for anything non-static. I really think a phase detect based focusing aid that does not require magnification or peaking and barely obstructs view of the entire scene is the most desirable solution, especially for non-static subjects. And I keep coming back to Canon's implementation as a very good one for Leica to emulate.
With PD sensor pixels a virtual RF patch should also be doable.
Back to the Ricoh GXR: the focus assist mode I used the most was the grayscale 'find edges' mode that IMO was more effective than focus peaking. I haven't seen something like that implemented on a camera since the GXR (but also have not recently researched cameras outside of Canon and Leica).
Steve Spencer wrote:
Keep in mind Leica's partner Panasonic already has a Picture in Picture manual focussing aid. I haven't used it, perhaps someone who has can comment on it, but as I understand it you see the whole scene, but you get a box with a magnified view overlaid over the whole scene and you can use that magnified box to manually focus. I expect some version of this as the manual focus aid in this new Leica M11-V. I don't think it would require PDAF, and done right it might be a really nice focus aid. It has always sounded like a good approach to me, but like I said I have never used it....Show more →
It's just a magnification window
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But a rangefinder overlay would be somewhat different and akin to fujis digital split prism.
As I said this would really only be possible to accurately measure distance if the lenses has electronic contacts to register the focus ring for it to work out distance.
brick33308 wrote:
I don't see people deserting the SL system based on the M11V having a better EVF simply because one is AF the other not. What would canibalize SL sales would be creating a full frame CL not much bigger than the existing one that can use existing TL lenses and have a EVF as good as the EVF of the SL system. And put me first in line to buy that CL.
Fully agree with your assessment! This is exactly the reason why we won't see an EVF-based smaller L-mount camera. Leica will keep the M11-V strictly with M-mount for manual M-lenses.
bwcolor wrote:
The A7Rv EVF has made me more critical of lesser implementations. Leica hasn’t yet upped the EVF specifications, but in a Luxury brand, I think that it is a mistake to use a less than stellar EVF. I don’t expect this improvement, but in eighteen months from now when the M12 is coming to market, I think that a top level EVF is an important improvement.
Rest assured that Leica will not include a better EVF in the M11-V compared to what is currently used in the latest SL camera. Leica will do everything to separate both the EVF-M and the SL lines to avoid in-house competition.
mboy wrote:
But a rangefinder overlay would be somewhat different and akin to fujis digital split prism.
As I said this would really only be possible to accurately measure distance if the lenses has electronic contacts to register the focus ring for it to work out distance.
If focusing distance information for the purpose providing focus assist in the EVF was derived from the position of the focusing ring, it would be subject to inaccuracies in build quality and precision, especially if we're considering the camera will potentially be 60MP. IMO that would just be trading the quirks of 'indirect' focusing via rangefinder for another indirect method of focusing. The purpose of an EVF M IMO should be to leverage the ability to eliminate focus vagueness by using information coming directly off the sensor, whether contrast detect or phase detect. Phase detect has the advantage of 'knowing' which way the focus is off, and by how much. This would also take into account lens quirks such as field curvature when focusing anywhere away from the center of the image.
If on the other hand you want the camera to be able to tell you at what distance a lens is currently focused without having to look at the focusing ring, then likely yes, it would be necessary for electronic communication between the camera and lenses. Unless it's possible to leverage the RF cam that all M lenses already have to tell the camera focusing distance.
While I would not want to rely on a solution that converts mechanical RF cam position into electronic information about focus distance for use as a critical focus aid, an advantage it would have over the traditional mechanical RF mechanism would be the potential ability for the user to 'dial in' focus corrections akin to mechanical RF calibration. And a correction for each lens could be saved in-camera and automatically activated based on the 6-bit code. BUT, this is an unnecessarily complex solution. The simplest solution is to take focus information directly off the sensor.
retrofocus wrote:
Rest assured that Leica will not include a better EVF in the M11-V compared to what is currently used in the latest SL camera. Leica will do everything to separate both the EVF-M and the SL lines to avoid in-house competition.
Thinking about the M3 and it's close to 1:1 finder, I would think offering a 1:1 EVF finder (like in the Hasselblad X2D) would make a lot of sense for the very first EVF M-based camera. Not only would it be a major selling point to offer this in a compact M-body but would also show off Leica's engineering prowess if they were able to pull this off. It would also justify a very high price point imo.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Thinking about the M3 and it's close to 1:1 finder, I would think offering a 1:1 EVF finder (like in the Hasselblad X2D) would make a lot of sense for the very first EVF M-based camera. Not only would it be a major selling point to offer this in a compact M-body but would also show off Leica's engineering prowess if they were able to pull this off. It would also justify a very high price point imo.
I own the M3, and yes, it is best for 50 and 90 mm lenses. But the 0.91x viewfinder is not great for wider lenses - I personally wouldn't like to be limited to 1:1 for this reason. I often use wide angle lenses in my photography, therefore I would actually prefer the opposite and more a 0.58x finder for example which still has space around the 28 mm frame lines.
