larry_mobbs Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 I am a Voigtlander rangefinder with a digital system rather than a film mechanism. I'm very basic. My sensor is the same size as 35mm so your lenses will have the same magnification. I have replaced the film advance with a two stage dial that lets you set ISO and White Balance but I don't have a LCD or other typical digital features. I retained the through the lens metering and the viewfinder of the Bessa R. I have a 5 megapixel sensor and come with 256 mb compact flash card. My price is $600 without lens. Would you buy me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al_kaplan1 Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 I hope that they offer a version with the M bayonet! Yes, I'd buy one. It should also have the same shutter release position and overall height as an M body so I can put my Visoflex IIs on it. Hopefully Cameraquest will sell them for around $450. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shambrick007 Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 hmmmm....maybe for $500.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob F. Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 Why don't you have an LCD screen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_vanlane Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 Yes and maybe even more than $600 but only....... IF it had the M mount. IF the image quality was clean at 400 and 800 IF it was quiet and didn`t have the fake shutter sound Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry_mobbs Posted June 21, 2003 Author Share Posted June 21, 2003 My thoughts on the proposal were based on keeping the system as minimal as possible as well as cheap. Without zoom lens and LCD and very minimal electronics the battery life would be greatly extended. If one uses normal bracketing techniques I thought you could avoid needing the LCD and rather go with the larger compact flash card. I use a Nikon 880 which has a lot of features but it takes forever to go through the menus to find them and turn them on. I would be content with a metering system that would let me select what to do and avoid all the rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hm Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 Not without an LCD. Today, in the real world, the cheapest 35mm full-frame sensor digital camera is around $5000. So your price may be optimistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 5 meg, even at full 35mm sensor size is okay, but not quite enough. even 6 to 8 meg would do it for me as long as it was a CCD. One of the better features of a LED screen is the use of the histogram. Even a smallish screen with the histogram would be of great help. However, all of my digitals have an on-screen picture review feature that flashes any blown whites. I wouldn't be happy to loose that. I'd pay $2,500 for a M mount digital body with 6-8 meg full frame sensor, and a small screen. I wouldn't care if it had a delete feature, or anything other than white balance and ISO as you mentioned. TTL flash ability would be nice but not a deal breaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skip_williams Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 No one will make you today for $600, so it's a moot point. Perhaps in 2-4 years such a beast will be availale. Today the full-frame sensor itself would be $600...or more. And the size of the pixels on a full-frame, 5MgPx sensor would be too big for adequate resolution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christopher. Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 I would buy you! I am glad to hear you share my desire for a simple digital, as the M is simple. To me waiting for an M with an LCD, histogram, menues, blah blah blah, is would be as bad as if Leica made a film M camera that was polycarbonate, auto film loading, 3fps, AF, like the typical canon or nikon film slr. I just want what we have now in an M in a digital. I would even take a fexed focal length, as long as the lens was as rugged and solid as a cron/lux and was manual focus. Why have all the adjustments? Most are going to post process anyway, some do this with all film as well. Anyway Larry, I think you share my vision for a Digital camera, I am glad I am not alone on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cabophoto Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 I would buy you. Having no LCD screen is fine with me. However, I don´t understand the need for a white balance setting; why not work in RAW mode alone so the white balance can be set on a PC later ? Carsten http://www.cabophoto.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
todd_k. Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 Yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christopher. Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 Carsten makes a good point, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_chan5 Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 I don't know if I would buy it. One of the biggest advantages of digital is being able to see the picture immediately, and if you don't like it, nuke it and try again. The short feedback loop is what makes digital so dandy. The white balance can be edited in PS, so that isn't as important. A clean iso 400 and a usable iso 800 would be requirements. I would gladly trade the down to a 2/3 size sensor if there was an LCD offered instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglas_green1 Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 I can't buy you. You are a fake, a fraud - you don't even exist. And not only that, your parent company has neither the interest nor, especially, the wherewithal in electronics to create you. OTOH, if your parents were Minolta and Konica, I might believe that you could some day be real, but again, they would need to care enough about your market to wish to bring you into this world, and I suspect that they don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael_bender Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 True, it's not likely Cosina will produce digital cameras - but the brand name is not important (could be nikon, canon, pentax, minolta, or even that obscure smallish company, leica).<br> (a) It's techically difficult to properly process full 35mm frame. It's not only the sensor size, it's the light falloff because rays do not hit the CCD at right angle, size of buffer and speed of flushing from memory to more permanent storage, speed of image processor etc.<br> (b)Without LCD a digital camera is not needed. One has to use a digital once to see the enormous difference it makes: as a photographer with the immediate feedback you progress 2-3 times faster than with a film camera; if you are a professional, feedback lets you bring guaranteed results.<br> © The biggest problems are the speed of response (shutter lag) and sensitivity: will I get the expression/movement I saw? Or will I get strangely crooked faces and awkwardly looking movements of people captured in wrong moments?<br> Will I be able to photograph in available light in the street at night? Indoors? In dim light? (d) your stress on "mechanical" does not make sense, as the r?st is electronical, and so whether the shutter is mechanical is not relevant. The camera will die without batteries anyway. <p> The only part of your fantasy that I am OK with is rangefinder for focussing; however for marketing reasons no manufacturer will ever do it; I would also be OK with simple spot metering built in and nothing else. A small versatile digital with fast response has been talked about for ages, but no one seems to be able to produce it yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bas1 Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 I would be OK with an digital M or other rangefinder without a LCD screen. To me it would suck away too much battery power. I'd prefer to keep the unit small like an M and to be able to go weeks and thousands of shots without new batteries. If that means loosing an LCD, fine. Never needed one with 30 years of film shooting, don't quite understand why LCD seem to be a MUST with digital. Digital could work fine without. For those that would start to screen, but I have to know I got the shot. Again never needed that before and always got the shot, even on slide which has a narrower margin of exposure. I'd probably miss more shots starring at the bloody screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglas_green1 Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 Bas, if not for the shutter lag, I wouldn't need an LCD either. But it IS imperative to get some feedback when the picture didn't snap until 2 seconds after you pressed the button. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 Bas, there isn't one digital that I know of that doesn't allow you to turn off the screen and reserve battery power. The screens are all but usless in bright sun anyway. I just turn it off and use the view finder...maybe turning it back on and checking it after a series if it is important to have the shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 Bas, there isn't one digital that I know of that doesn't allow you to turn off the screen and reserve battery power. The screens are all but usless in bright sun anyway. I just turn it off and use the view finder...maybe turning it back on and checking it after a series if it is important to have the shot. As far as shutter lag is concerned, that is mostly a P&S problem, and a bit of a problem for the slower focusing SLRs whether digital or not. I haven't noticed missed shots with either the D1X or 1Ds.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bas1 Posted June 21, 2003 Share Posted June 21, 2003 as for the LCD, I know you can turn them off. But I wouldn't want the perceived nessecity for one of them limit the Leica engineers in coming up with a digital M. If it came with one I would turn it off, if it didn't had one, it wouldn't bother me. I think it is far more feasible for the Leica folk to design one without then with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry_mobbs Posted June 22, 2003 Author Share Posted June 22, 2003 I'm rather taken back by all the responses. When I opened the discussion I thought if someone was using a M series camera they didn't have all these features and didn't seem impaired by their absence. If normal bracketing solved most complex issues why wouldn't the same be true in digital. Secondly, I've always assumed shutter lag was due to auto exposure and auto focusing issues and I wanted a rangefinder that was fully manual in these areas. Mostly, I wanted as little power usage as was possible. Metering only and with the option to turn that off, a true Bulb setting and provisions for the cable release to use it.On Friday I was given a Canon QL 19 that I gave to my father more than 30 years ago. It had been in an attic for more than 20 years when it was given to me. It had an old 625 battery in it that was still functioning and gave correct exposure readings yesterday.I would want at least the choice to power nothing more than the chip functions for the purpose of battery life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karl_yik1 Posted June 23, 2003 Share Posted June 23, 2003 Most important question, do long does it take to turn you on? ;] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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