Why is the Leica M shutter so loud?

This isn't a troll - honest. I'm thinking about buying a Leica M body and was doing

some research. I came across a website that quoted Modern Photography

measurements for various cameras. It was a big surprise to find that when you

lock up the mirror on some SLRs they are much quieter than a Leica M4-2. Here's

what it said:

 

"Using a self-timer can even make your 35mm SLR quieter than many

rangefinders. For example, if you use the self-timer on the Olympus OM-2, noise

drops substantially below the Leica M4-2 66 dB noise level to 50 dB! Nikon F2

with self-timer drops us down to 45 dB! And the Canon AE-1 with self-timer drops

to an astonishingly low 40 dB. So if you want quiet camera operation, use the

mirror lockup or self-timer for major improvements in lower noise levels."

 

The website is: http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/sounds.html

 

Since locking up the mirror effectively places the M body and SLRs on a level

playing field (unless I'm missing something which is entirely possible) it seems

that the Leica shutter is actually relatively noisy. If the Modern Photography tests

are to be believed, Leica have managed to make a shutter that only sounds quiet

because there is no mirror travel. Why couldn't Leitz have made a shutter that was

at least as quiet as these SLRs?

 

It's a bit of a blow to discover that, far from great engineering, it's only the lack of a

mirror that keeps the M's shutter noise down. Is there another reason that might

explain this.

 

Bruce

They maybe the measurements, but when I fire any of my SLR's with mirror lock up they are all MUCH louder than either of my M's.

 

The M has a cloth shutter which is usually quieter than metal shutters, but even my cloth shutter SLR (Pentax MX) is louder.

 

Try doing street photography with mirror lock up. You would need an external viewfinder or just guess direction.

 

The M is very quiet indeed, but that is not to say that it is as quiet as a leaf shutter camera such as a Rolleiflex TLR or Mamiya 6.

Using a simple decibel scale to compare the amount of noise that is made by an impulse noise is not good science. There's a science of noise measurement, and Modern Photography was obviously oblivious to it.

 

That said, the Leica shutter is moving a lot more mass than modern metal shutters with 1/125, 1/250, or faster flash sync speeds. The acceleration is low, but there's plenty of mass there.

 

But, the Olympus OM-2 is a scale focus camera with the mirror locked up.

Hi Robert,

 

I entirely agree that in those situations where a quiet shutter is beneficial, an SLR with mirror locked up wouldn't be a lot of good (although an OM1, say, with a 24mm lens and a Voigtlander 25mm viewfinder would be interesting. I don't have an M body before me but I know that an Olympus with mirror locked up is very quiet.)

 

I hear what you're saying about your experiences with SLRs but I'd have thought that Modern Photography's scientific testing would have been an accurate and impartial way of comparing shutter noise levels.

 

But that's not really the point. From what the magazine is saying, the M doesn't really have an especially quiet shutter.

Try a Leica shutter for yourself...forget the "tests. I've used an M4 since 1968, and it beats almost everything out there, except a couple of leaf shutters on a non-interchangeable lens RF. BTW, the shutter mechanism (not the shutter itself) at slow speeds uses some sort of gear train which is noisy, but I rarely shoot below 1/60 so that isn't an issue.

Robert,

 

If you set up some cameras say, two metres away, and fire them why wouldn't a decibel reading be a reliable guide to relative noise levels? Wouldn't it show the peak decibel level for each camera? Where the human ear is concerned, wouldn't that show which camera was the noisiest? If not, how should it have been done?

 

The OM2 would indeed be a scale focus camera with the mirror locked up but, as I said in an earlier post, that's not the issue. The OM2's shutter is cloth as well if I remember correctly so a direct comparison with the OM2 and the M4-2 would seem reasonable to me. It just seems ironic to learn that the M body, if Modern Photography is to be believed, has a noisy-ish shutter, all things being equal.

 

I wonder if the likes of the CL would be any better in that respect. Can anyone say if it's quieter than an M?

Sorry, should have addressed my previous post to John and not Robert.

Bruce I think you're being a bit thick. Why are you surprised at this? The point is

an SLR with its mirror locked up is not much good unless its on a tripod and you

have pre-framed the shot or you have an external viewfinder on it. Even then on

many SLRs continuous shooting cannot be done with the mirror locked up

(although it can on some). But with an M you can focus and frame and still get the

quiet click of the shutter. As to the other content: the M-shutter is intrinsically very

quiet, but what Modern Photography says doesn't sound foolish either, the point is

its not much use to you unless you genuinely don't mind locking the mirror up

when you take a shot each time.

Hi Stephen - what you say is interesting. I have just bought an M4-2 body - still getting through first rolll of film. And I noticed that there is a half second of quiet gear whirring after the shutter has fired. Is this the noisy gear train to which you refer?

I'll take issue with something they said in that test.

 

As one of the Moderators of the Canon FD forum I own just about every Canon FD

mount body. I have in my hand a beautifully tuned up AE-1 and the sound the

shutter makes is virtually the same level with or without the self timer since

the mirror does not prefire. Measured with my sound meter directly in front of

the lens firing at 1/1000th and a 50mm f1.8 mounted at 12" the shutter on self

timer is 68db on the C scale fast response and 65-66 using the self timer. The

AE-1 has no Mirror lock up.

 

My FTB has Mirror Lock up and using the same conditions it gives 70db and 68-69

db with MLU

 

My F-1N gives about 75db and 74-75db with the self timer precended by 60db beeps.

 

So not sure how they got 40db unless they looked for the quietest shutter speed.

 

Now as a reference my 1955 Ig RD with a 50mm f1.8 Canon Black and chrome set to

1/500th comes in at 64-65db

 

my Black Canonet QL-17 G-III with it's leaf shutter set to 1/500th measures just

61-62db

 

I don't own an M but I doubt it is quieter then either my 1955 Ig RD or the

Canonet.

 

SO it appears to me after doing my own testing that the AE-1 is about 4-6db

noiser then a very quiet RF like the Canonet with it's leaf shutter or the super

simple cloth Leitz shutter in my 1955 Ig RD.

 

By the way normal low conversation level measured about 12" from my mouth it's

around 72-78db.

Oh try a Zeiss Contaflex II for a SLR with a leaf shutter

Robin,

 

No need to resort to personal insult, if that's what you were doing. I'm surprised for the very simple and obvious reason that Leica M bodies have the reputation of having very quiet shutters. The magazine report suggests that, once you remove the mirror element from some SLRs, they are quite a bit quieter than an M.

 

What that says to me is that there is nothing especially quiet about the Leica shutter: its relative lack of noise is purely a consequence of the fact that it does not have a moving mirror. As I said earlier, I fully appreciate that an SLR with its mirror locked up is not a lot of good in most situations - but not all -where you would want a quiet camera. The apparent fact (I'm taking the website's report of the Modern Photography tests on trust) that the Leica shutter, in itself, is not particularly quiet remains a surprise to me and, I'd imagine, a lot of other people who had wrongly formed the view that there was something special about it.

There are three components to sound. The level (decibels), the pitch, and the suddenness with which it occurs Even given the same overall sound level (which I doubt), the M Leica produces a lower pitched sound which is far less noticable (thunk rather than plink), and also is softer in intonation (smooth rather than sudden sound).<P>By comparison, many (most) Compur or Copal between-the -ens shutters are far less obtrusive than a M Leica.

Under "normal" use, I would say that the shutters of all the M camera's that I've had

and currently use (M3, M4, M4-2, M4-P, M5, M6) are extremely quiet and unobtrusive

in comparison to any of the Nikon's, Minolta's, and Pentax's that I've also used. I don't

normally lock-up the mirrors of SLR's because it totally negates the advantages of TTL

viewing that I need these cameras for. I would suggest you borrow or rent an M camera

(especially an MP) to really understand the use of a rangefinder and experience their

wonderful optics.

If you can Bruce, please compare for yourself the cameras under consideration. Bring along a friend for a second opinion. The last Leica M that I got to try out was an M4-2 and was a good bit more quiet than any of my several OM-1s, mirror up or down. There is something hard to describe about the sound of the M4-2. It wasn't just quiet but a gentle "thurupp" at 1/30 or 1/60. What I would call a "soft" sound. Even with the mirror up my OM release also actuates the stop down lever and there is more of a metallic "ting" sound that finishes off the cycle. As mentioned, any of several leaf shutter, fixed lens RFs would most likely be quieter if you could get along with their fixed field of view (no interchangeable lenses), that would be a personal decision of course.

 

regards, John R.

Mark,

 

You're right about the AE1 not flipping the mirror up when using the self timer so I'm not sure why that camera was included in the test results. As for the other cameras you've mentioned, neither the FTB nor the F1n were mentioned in the magazine's tests. From my reading of the Modern Photography results, they're not saying that ALL SLRs with mirror locked up are quieter, only some.

"<I>Since locking up the mirror effectively places the M body and SLRs on a level

playing field </I>"

<P>

Not really. Locking up the mirror of the SLR eliminates the opportunity to adjust

focus & framing just before exposure. There's no reason an SLR shutter can't be as

quiet as an M shutter when the mirror is removed from the operating sequence, and

for an electronically-timed shutter such as in the OM2 or AE-1, the sound of the

timing gears is also eliminated. I'd be curious to see what the difference between an

M4-2 and M7 is, the M4-2 being mechanically timed and the M7 electronically-timed.

John,

 

I have owned a couple of Leicas in the past - an M2 and an M3 - but it was 22 years ago and I can't remember how they sounded now! What some people, including yourself, have said about the Leica making a softer sound makes sense and could explain why they are almost universally considered to be quiet. It's probably like listening to a string quartet and Metallica and at the same level and I know which one of those would sound noisier!

Douglas,

 

The level playing field I was talking about was just as far as the shutter goes. Obviously you can't frame and focus the shot on an SLR with the mirror locked up!

What year was this written???

May I say decibel metering - as objective as it can be - only measures the noise level.

 

Human ear, might be less or more sensitive to different kind of notes. Both my M4-P and M5 were far less conspicuous on triggering the shutter than any focal plane shutter camera I ever owned.

 

I don't know if they were noisier than any SLR in MLU position (not a very practical thing in action photography) but they troubled the crowd (and the subject) far less than any SLR used in standard mirror down when triggered position.

 

My point is simply to underline the usual argument of some people about keeping the slow synch speed and slow maximum speed cloth shutter on a Leica M because of the noise emitted is simply swallowing one of the arguments used by the brand to keep backward designed features instead of trying to damp the noise of a more modern shutter the proper way.

 

When I ear my son's lowly Canon 30D noise and compare it to the Nikon F2 I still have, I can measure the progress which was possible to lower the noise level of an SLR when you really want to, even with the handicap of swivelling mirror, despite using a more performing non cloth shutter instead of a cloth shutter one.

 

FPW

I can see where Bruce and Modern Photography are coming from. Leica shutters

have the reputation of being very quiet, but the shutters of my M2 and M6 aren't (in

my opinion) *that* much quieter than that of my OM1n (with mirror locked up so as

to compare just the shutters). I might also add that at least one of my subjects has

remarked that Leica shutters aren't as quiet as they are cracked up to be.

 

We all want Leica shutters to be inaudible marvels of engineering, but maybe Bruce

and Modern Photography are playing the part of the boy in the story of the Emperor's

new clothes.

I have to go by the evidence of my own ears, (concert-blasted tinnitus and all). I can't

accept that finding. I happen to have an OM1, a couple of F2s and an M2. And to my

hearing the M2 is definitely quieter and more pleasant than either of those others with

the mirror locked up. But individual examples of cameras may vary in sound depending

on the state of their condition. Maybe Modern's M was full of marbles or something :).

One of my F2 bodies is louder and more 'metallic' sounding than the other.

 

However there certainly are quieter cameras, for instance most any digital P&S if all

the sounds are disabled. TLR's w/ leaf shutter, and many modern electronic SLRs are

fairly well muffled. I recall that some the Canon Eos film cameras seemed as quiet as

a Leica, motor drive and all.

 

BTW the whirring gear-train sound of the M series is only heard at slow shutter speeds.

>1/15s

This is really very important!

Hi Douglas

 

I recently found all of my Leicas (M2, M4, M7) empty and did the once-a-year visual shutter inspections for dents, holes - and pieces of film.

As I had too much time...

I noticed four things relevant to your question (M4 vs. M7) and to some further above.

 

1) The subjective noise level produced by all cameras (Leica M) changed a bit with each shutter speed. I'm talking only about 1/50 and faster where there is no "gear noise" perceptible.

 

2) The sound quality (pitch and slew rate and so forth) varied much going through all the exposure times. They are characteristical.

 

3) The M7 was, subjectively, the quietest by far, followed by the M4, with the M2 a close third.

 

4) The same ranking persisted for the subjective magnitude of shake the shutters produced at 1/125. All first curtains (on B...) were acting very softly, the one of the M7 again (by a hair) the softest.

 

Especially the M2 hits it home hard with the second curtain. This *may* be of no relevance to the picture taken. It is impossible to tell with my method of testing (sit relaxed but still in a comfy chair, fire five times, then change camera, repeat, change back and repeat, change back again, and so forth) whether the shake came from accelerating or from stopping down the curtain.

 

Sidenote: all cameras had either a CLA or their shutter calibrated during the last two, three years.

 

Just for the scientifically inclined: one can easily hear the difference between a Nikon F2 (with MLU) firing its shutter behind a 80-200 lens with its foot on the head and firing a 105mm with the camera sitting directly on the head. There's so much more to sound than dB of the maximum peak.

 

Cheers

Pete