Jman13
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 Re: Doesn't look too good according to DxoMark | |
That\'s all well and good, Flash, and I, for one, am glad that Leica is sticking to a core photographic experience for their users. And I know they are built well, and I know they are priced according to their precision and unique manufacturing.
But there is still a very large disconnect when you are touting your product to be the end all be all of photographic machines...and then the key part that makes the image in a digital camera, the sensor, is years behind the times in capabilities, and that premium still exists. Do you not see the disconnect here? Do you not find it odd that a camera that costs 1/8 what the M-E costs and has a sensor with 1/4 the area has greater dynamic range, color depth and signal to noise ratio? Don\'t you find that a bit disconcerting for a \'premium\' product?
There will always be people who want to shoot with a Leica and nothing else. And there\'s nothing wrong with that. And, no doubt, the M9 and M-E with that phenomenal Leica glass will last for ages and are capable of amazing imaging capabilities. But this isn\'t a closed wall garden. There are other tools on the market, and if they don\'t recognize that, they AREN\'T going to be around very long.
I feel that Leica choosing to put these sensors, which for their size, massively underperform compared to their peers (though current digital technology is ALL very good...and my main camera has a sensor that performs very similarly to the M9 as far as empirical measurements are concerned), is sort of a slap in the face. Because the sensor is the film, it\'s almost like they are saying \"we know that people love to shoot with Portra and Velvia and T-Max and Provia and so on....but we\'ve made our latest premium film camera, though it only operates with Kodak Gold 200!\"
The point is, when making a digital camera...Leica is choosing to have everything extremely high end, and charge that way, with everything except the actual image sensor...which is one of the most important parts of a digital camera. It\'s that part of it that rubs me the wrong way. When the M9 was released four years ago, this sensor wasn\'t the best on the market, but it was decent. Releasing the same sensor in a camera in 2013, and claiming it\'s now the \'low cost\' version, while still charging $5,500 is frankly arrogant. If anyone else tried that in the photographic industry, they\'d be absolutely lambasted.
Imagine if Canon, instead of releasing the 6D with an incredible sensor, decided that since it was the \'low cost\' full frame Canon, they\'d just put the original 5D sensor in it (a sensor that is about the same as the M-E\'s sensor) but charged $2,500 instead of $2,000 (the same ratio as the M-E to the M). It would be the most flamed camera in history, but this is exactly what Leica is doing here.
Like I said, I have no doubt that Leicas are awesome to shoot with, and I know the mechanical and optical quality is there in spades. And I know for those who love shooting with a rangefinder, there\'s nothing better, and it\'s no skin off my nose if that\'s how you choose to shoot, or how you spend your money. More power to you. But I find it baffling that the repackaging of a 4 year old sensor (that was behind the times when it was released) into a new body, with minimal price drop consideration, is hand waved as insignificant by Leica shooters.
If Fuji were to release a rangefinder coupled camera similar to the X-Pro but with slightly higher build quality, and a full frame version of the current sensor, and do it for $2K? My guess is half the people who would considered purchasing a Leica will jump on that instead. And they\'re going to have a hard time competing when that time comes, because someone is going to do it, and it\'s not going to be that far in the future. That\'s all I\'m really trying to say. I want Leica to succeed. I want them to be around to set the bar for excellence in construction and optics, so that others are continually striving for that goal. But doing things like this diminishes that legacy, IMO.
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