B&H had then in stock this morning. Tamarkin shipped out several earlier in the week (including my steel gray one!) 17th St Photo had them on their website earlier this week.
So I think they are starting to ship in improved numbers.....
Yeah I've been on the notification list at B&H since day one. I got the email this morning US time that you could pre-order. I decided not to because of all of the issues.
Red/Cyan corners or left edge: as long as the lens is coded or selected in the menu it is purely firmware, in the meantime cornerfix takes care of it. The off-centre colour shift with non-wides is negligible, it's probably comparable to an SLR... really quite ridiculous. It isn't cuased by microlenses as Edward postulates, it's caused by the IR filter and overcorrection for cyan drift, Leica just need to correct their profiles which were probably made hastily.
Slow processing: firmware - it's dual processor vs single processor in M8, eventually most actions should be greatly improved in speed.
fuzzy image on LCD: firmware
lockups and other little bugs: firmware
Very few cameras are flawless out of the blocks, even my 5D-II had posterisation and "black dot" issue when first released. Once the firmware fix is available then we'll be laughing.
Lloyd doesn't know much about DRF's and this is apparent in his review. With the biogon design he should be coding it as a less wide lens due to the symmetrical design. I've seen M9 + C-biogon images on flickr with nowhere near the issue he has.
Please tell me what Nikon has needed to fix with firmware in the D700? In over a year of it being released there has been one update. The biggest issue I know if is that Long Exposure NR can only run for 109 minutes before crashing, but how many people actually do 109 minute exposures?
I'm not sure the LCD issues can be fixed with firmware update--I hope you are right, but not sure. I think Huff might be right that a M9.2 might be in the offing to correct the LDC, add a sapphire screen and increase the SD format speed.
You are right about Lloyd's lack of DRF knowledge, but, he was honest about the fact. I found his dwelling on a lack of live view excessive. However, he did seem to warm up to the M9, or maybe it was just my reading.
Nate you're right, I'm sure the nikon full frame mirrorless camera doesn't have these issues... oh wait.
Canon's $7000 1D(s)III's didn't have any issues either... oh wait.
I'm totally sick to death of people whinging about the M9 price, it's a Leica get over it. They're never going to release a "bargain" priced camera. Obviously the pricing isn't hurting demand... I'd love to pay less for it, but it's by far the cheapest full frame DRF
James, have you used an M9 yet? The soft LCD issue is only at zoomed out view, when you zoom in after the slow realisation of the actual image (fixable if the firmware takes better advantage of the dual processors) it is sharp.
SD formatting speed is obviously firmware related, as even compact cameras with slower processors are faster than the M9 is currently.
Yeah, I don't know what Steve Huff is smoking, but its clearly good stuff. The LCD, red edge and format are all firmware issues and will be fixed. I am skeptical of an M9.2. Things like sapphire screen will more likely be ala carte options. I suspect an M10 will be three years off and will contain a totally new sensor, probably back-lit CMOS, and will put in some new goodies as a result. As others have said, the M9 is what the M8 should have been; the next generation is where we will see some new stuff with lessons learned from the X1 and S2.
thrice wrote:
James, have you used an M9 yet? The soft LCD issue is only at zoomed out view, when you zoom in after the slow realisation of the actual image (fixable if the firmware takes better advantage of the dual processors) it is sharp.
SD formatting speed is obviously firmware related, as even compact cameras with slower processors are faster than the M9 is currently.
I don't have it yet. Just ordered and paid for it from B&H last night. I'll probably have to wait a couple more weeks.
I'm aware of the zoom LCD issue, which may not be corrected by firmware updates. Anyways, the issues are not deal killers for me.
The corner issue is a lens/camera combination problem. This is my theory:
With non-telecentric lenses, the rear element is very close to the sensor. This will make the IR filter "act" thicker, the farther out in the corners you look from the exit pupil of the lens. The problems will probably get worse when the lens is wide open.
With slightly telecentric lenses, the rear element (and the exit pupil) is not so close, and the light will fall more perpendicularly through the filter, even in the corners.
So, using lenses which protrude alot into the camera, seems like a bad idea. This might be the case with some third party lenses, more than with Leicas own, modern lenses. My CV 28/2 is quite extreme in this case, and probably not a good performer cornerwise on the M9.
It wouldn't surprise me if this was the original reason that Leica skipped the sensor filter on the M8. With the M8, the problems are the same, but because of the filter being in front of the lens, it will act similarly for any lens with a certain focal length.
Makten wrote:
The corner issue is a lens/camera combination problem. This is my theory:
With non-telecentric lenses, the rear element is very close to the sensor. This will make the IR filter "act" thicker, the farther out in the corners you look from the exit pupil of the lens. The problems will probably get worse when the lens is wide open.
With slightly telecentric lenses, the rear element (and the exit pupil) is not so close, and the light will fall more perpendicularly through the filter, even in the corners.
So, using lenses which protrude alot into the camera, seems like a bad idea. This might be the case with some third party lenses, more than with Leicas own, modern lenses. My CV 28/2 is quite extreme in this case, and probably not a good performer cornerwise on the M9.
It wouldn't surprise me if this was the original reason that Leica skipped the sensor filter on the M8. With the M8, the problems are the same, but because of the filter being in front of the lens, it will act similarly for any lens with a certain focal length....Show more →
That sounds about right.
Olympus put a hella lot of effort into developing very telecentric lenses for this exact reason with the short register 4/3 and now m4/3 range.
I remember back in the day they were touting their 'designed for digital' lenses and I never got what the difference would really be. I realise now though that unlike canon pentax and nikon, oly HAD to in order to get acceptable results so it wasnt so much a feature as a requirement which the APS-c and FF crowd didnt need to worry about (much).
Empire wrote:
Olympus put a hella lot of effort into developing very telecentric lenses for this exact reason with the short register 4/3 and now m4/3 range.
I remember back in the day they were touting their 'designed for digital' lenses and I never got what the difference would really be. I realise now though that unlike canon pentax and nikon, oly HAD to in order to get acceptable results so it wasnt so much a feature as a requirement which the APS-c and FF crowd didnt need to worry about (much).
Well there are indeed differences, and they go to more than telecentric properties. A designed for digital lens has digital friendly coatings, its shade matches the FL not the EFL, and that F fits better with the lens suits as a system where appropriate FL's are concerned covering traditional norms.
Baffles inside the lens to reduce flare and ghosting and increase contrast. It probably has telecentric properties anyway certainly Nikon APSC lenses do you can see the Exit Pupil distance in better EXIF readers that confirms this.
The differences between conventional 'film' based design and digital are such that sensors cannot accept more 'off-angle' light that film is more tolerant of. This means that any conventional symmetrical WA lens would not work well on a digital camera, and with crop sensors you are indeed looking to WA lenses just to hold 'Normal' views. Some of the deeper M mount wides like Voigtlanders have up to 60 degrees off-angle light.
As it happens most SLR lenses are retro-focus designs that move the exit pupil out from the sensor/film anyway, the lens is simply more telecentric when the Exit Pupil is moved farther away as with what Olympus have done. In 4/3rds systems this varies but a basis around 85mm is usual, as opposed to more usual 50mm (circa).
You only need look at the differences in FF lenses mounted on APSC bodies to see how damaging the lack of these digital friendly effects are. FF can tolerate this just as it performs well even with less than optimum lenses. APSC and 4/3rds wont be so lucky. They need digital friendly features, thats why crop sensor makers provide them...
Makten wrote:
The corner issue is a lens/camera combination problem. This is my theory:
With non-telecentric lenses, the rear element is very close to the sensor. This will make the IR filter "act" thicker, the farther out in the corners you look from the exit pupil of the lens. The problems will probably get worse when the lens is wide open.
With slightly telecentric lenses, the rear element (and the exit pupil) is not so close, and the light will fall more perpendicularly through the filter, even in the corners.
So, using lenses which protrude alot into the camera, seems like a bad idea. This might be the case with some third party lenses, more than with Leicas own, modern lenses. My CV 28/2 is quite extreme in this case, and probably not a good performer cornerwise on the M9.
It wouldn't surprise me if this was the original reason that Leica skipped the sensor filter on the M8. With the M8, the problems are the same, but because of the filter being in front of the lens, it will act similarly for any lens with a certain focal length....Show more →
There is still an IR filter on the M8, it's just too thin and thus not completely effective. That is why you get cyan drift with uncoded lenses on the M8. The correction is done in software and thus this overcorrection is a software issue. The corners are all cyan on the M9 if you don't select a lens profile in the menu and use an uncoded wide-angle lens.
There are no unexpected sharpness or CA issues with symmetrical wide angles on the M9.
Olympus had to design telecentric lenses because their sensors don't have offset microlenses. The M9 has very offset microlenses so corner sharpness and illumination pretty much emulates film.
thrice wrote:
There is still an IR filter on the M8, it's just too thin and thus not completely effective. That is why you get cyan drift with uncoded lenses on the M8. The correction is done in software and thus this overcorrection is a software issue. The corners are all cyan on the M9 if you don't select a lens profile in the menu and use an uncoded wide-angle lens.
? This is only true on the M8 if you use the IR filter on the front of the lens. I don't think you have this problem on the M8 without the IR filter in front of the lens. Of course, then you'd have IR contaminated colors...
Also, on the M9, the lens coding is mostly for vignetting correction. There aren't cyan corners like on the M8, since you don't need an IR filter in front of the lens. There might be some color vignetting on some lenses, but I'm not sure if those lenses wouldn't exhibit that same color vignetting on film.
I might be mistaken on all of this, but I'm pretty sure this is the way it is...
