digital M Meter?

Does anyone has any idea of how the digital M meter is going to be/funcion?

?

No idea, but I can't imagine they would do anything other than the current "meter off the white spot on the shutter curtain.: Except that in this case, it's the shutter blinds, since it's known that it will have a vertically running metal blind shutter, to get a reasonable X-sync, and quicker time-to-market. I presume it would have a double-set of blinds, like the Bessa cameras, for light-tightness.

 

It's also a slam dunk that it would be aperture priority automatic exposure.

Btw, apologies if this is a really naive question, but why exactly does a digital camera need a shutter? Does the sensor mind if light falls on it that it doesn't have to save as an image? How noisy are these leaf shutters anyway?

Ulf,

 

The larger sensors need a shutter to get short total exposure times (the same as curtain travel time), for example the one I am using in my digital M takes over 300ms to traverse the sensor in 'self shutter' mode, with a minimum exposure of 1/80000th/s compare with a Leica M shutter of 1/50th second traverse and 1/1000th/s minimum exposure. So I am using the M2s shutter to cap the sensor while it is cleared then the sensor is left alone while the shutter exposes the sensor and after all that I read out the picture. Small P&S sensors are much quicker and can do without a mechinical shutter (of course there are exceptions)

"I presume it would have a double-set of blinds, like the Bessa cameras, for light-tightness" no need, the sensor will not be 'activated' for any length of time behind the shutter slats.

Vertical metal shutter: So it is a digital Hexar, not a Leica? ;-)

Thanks, Huw -

 

now at last I understand this - and I really like your curtain travel analogy.

 

It would seem then that Leica might now be able to do what Peter Loseries and Otto Domes tried on the basis of the R4 at the beginning of the Eighties, i.e. a major cost reduction via a common chassis for both R and M as described by Gunter Osterloh in his latest book. It had failed at the last minute because the leaf shutter wasn't light proof enough for film.

 

I wish they had you working for them (and I'm saying that despite having the greatest respect for their engineers).