Why is the Leica M shutter so loud?

[marc_bergman1]

Bruce said,

 

"Marc,

 

"Why are you talking about "blaming" Modern Photography."

 

Well maybe because of what people said about Modern Photography.

 

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John Shriver said,

 

"There's a science of noise measurement, and Modern Photography was obviously oblivious to it."

 

John Shriver said,

 

"Modern Photography didn't know what they were talking about."

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Bruce said,

 

"That's a rather pejorative way to look at the magazine's findings and betrays a less than biaised(sic) approach, in my opinion."

 

I say,

 

If you can read English you will see that I never blamed Modern Photography or their tests. I said that people were blaming Modern Photography's test methodology!

 

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Bruce said,

 

"This may or may not be true but you've just done what you criticised(sic) the other website for doing - interpreting something you know nothing about."

 

I say,

 

Where did I say that this website didn't know what they were talking about? Please be specific!

 

What I said was that they were interpreting the test results. They did not provide any quotes to the original article. Why not?

 

People are confusing the linked article with Modern Photography's test. I would like to know what Modern Photography said about the test results.

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I ask,

 

How long have you been reading Jason Schnieder? How many books of his do you have? Tell us about your photography library.

[icuneko]

Want REALLY quiet? Try a pinhole box camera with no shutter!

[blowingsky]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned two of the most important qualities of the M series shutters

 

1) They have a richer, more handcrafted and overbuilt quietness and tests have shown that the consequent robust old-world vibration adds more glow to the image.

 

2) A Leica shutter at rest is far more silent than any other camera shutter at rest.

[icuneko]

Leica koan: The sound of one shutter curtain closing.

 

Or, if a Leica shutter closed in a forest with no humans present would there be a sound?

[blowingsky]

Dear S. Linke,

 

The sound of one shutter curtain closing means it's time for a trip to DAG or Sherry.

 

If a Leica shtter closed in a forest with no humans present, would there be a sound? No. Sound is a perceptual response to vibration.

 

The real question is: if you could only have one lens in the woods where you were not present what would that lens be?

[neil_parker]

BTW in case ones immediate thought is that this doesn't matter and is a silly debate, I must propose that they imagine

shooting in a radio studio, or a quiet musical performance, or a theater, or a courtroom or... etc. However for vacation snaps

or dog portraits it's not important.

[Brad_]

What's all this nonsense about buying cameras with shutters that sound like chirping little girls at the playground?

 

When buying cams, I only consider those with the loudest and baddest sounding shutter. Puts people on notice I'm on

duty

when

snapping in public.

[._._z]

"When buying cams, I only consider those with the loudest and baddest sounding shutter. "

 

Bronica S2a. It'll knock loose your fillings.

[andy_piper2]

The bottom line is that "shutter sound" is the sound the camera makes when you press the button to take a

picture. It is silly to subdivide that sound into mirror, and aperture and shutter mechanisms.

 

Press the button on an SLR, and a whole bunch of stuff happens - none of which is avoidable unless one is

willing to poke the camera's eyes out by locking the mirror up. It is noisy stuff compared to what happens when

one presses the button on a rangefinder (Leica or otherwise).

 

Used in the same way for the same kind of picture - i.e. with a viewfinder and focusing mechanism visible and

available for use - the RF is quieter OVERALL. (And a leaf-shutter non-SLR (in general) is even quieter, and a

non-shutter digicam is quietest of all).

 

Comparing shutter sounds alone sounds like a case of measurbating to me - fun but no long-term use.

 

"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. "

 

Why? I never ever thought there was any reason to mess with RFs EXCEPT that they didn't have a mirror. It was

trivially obvious to me decades ago that at least cloth SLR shutters (AE-1, FTb, Pentax) were Leica-quiet if the

mirror was locked up...of course the SLRs were completey useless in that case - but they were just as quiet.

[mohir_ali]

Silence is way down the list of why I use an M.

[midnightcommando]

JDM: There are people here who were not yet born in 1989!

 

Oh and by the way I have in my hands a Zorki 6 - a clone of the Leica, I forget which one. Aside from the fact that the whole body is one chunk of steel, most of the mechanical aspects are the same.

 

All I know is if I'm going into the Block (local indigenous turf, rather full of druggies) to do photography, I'd rather have that than any other camera, because it's literally as quiet as a whisper, and because it doesn't look as valuable as my TLR (a Walzflex 3.5) does.

[Gus Lazzari]

To answer Bruce's initial question, "Why is the Leica M shutter so loud?"

 

Merek was on the right track:

 

Simply put; an Olympus OM shutter has ultra lite Synthetic curtains instead of rubberized silk, ultra-lite strings instead of ban ribbons, ultra-lite nylon spining idlers & barrels instead of metal rollers & barrels and ultra-lite stamped alloy gears instead of cut gears... Are you getting the trend here? The reason that the mirror up Olympus doesn't just blow away the Leica M's?

 

The robust, vault solid HEAVY incasement called the M body...

[Tony Rowlett]

I love Ted Nugent's response to a kid who asked him what kind of electric guitar he should buy? "A loud one!"

[Tony Rowlett]

What I mean to say is: the Leica M shutter is still quiet even though there are numerous other cameras out there with quieter shutters. Back in the old days, the M was one of the quietest. But just because the M shutter is today more loud by comparison doesn't mean the world around you has gotten any quieter. So those around you aren't any more likely to hear you take pictures of them than they were a long time ago.

[carl_becker2]

Neither the M3 or M6 shutter is loud. Actually very quiet. Check it out yourself and let your ears tell you.

[robin_terrey]

1) MP methodology. Place camera in anechoic chamber on shelf 2ft from microphone, a cable goes to the sound pressure level meter. This contain the A weighing filter, (cut out high & low frequencies) measures frequencies heard by humans. The signal is passed to a RMS logarithmic converter which feeds an oscilliscope from which a polaroid is taken. $7500 in 1981.

2) A change of 1db is barely noticable. A 3db increase is a doubling of sound intensity.

3) Found a test of a Minolta CLE in June 81 MP. Sound pattern peaks at 70db at 1/125 sec. The trace shows one spike at 80db when the shutter open and one of 78db when it closes, and sound end inside 1/10 of a sec. The OM 2 trace goes on 3/20 before no sound followed by a spike to 63db at 13/50 sec.

4) From MP OM 1 test April 1973 " cams lightened by drilling with holes and gears hollowed out (that's hard to do!) for the same reason. Oh yes, all gears we could see are nickel or chrome plated and very well finished......

But if, like most of us, you've longed for a 35mm single-lens reflex about the same size as a Leica M-3 and virtually as quiet and refined, take a good look at the Olympus OM-1."

5) Leica M-3 138x77x33.5mm 580g Olympus OM-1 136x83x50mm 510g

6) That more solid body on the M-3 might also account for the quieter shutter sound.

7) Y. Maitani the designer of the OM system grew up using a Leica. He stated the problem with range-finders are when used for macro or telephoto. He wanted a camera to record from the cosmos to bacteria, I think he was motivated to build a reflex camera like a Leica.

[kenneth_cooke]

Ok, a Leica M shutter may be noisier than a meditating Zen monk but come on. Stick with your SLR with the mirror locked

up if that is the case

[noah]

My M6 and MP are seriously quiet, way quieter than any of the slr cameras I've owned and used. Have I compared with

the mirror locked up? No, because I couldn't shoot that way. And because I'd rather shoot pictures than compare decibel

ratings of my cameras.

 

I'm doubting that an slr even with mlu is quieter than an M shutter, but who cares if it is? Can you focus in low light and

shoot 1/15th of a second with your slr with the mirror locked up?

 

Give the M4-2 a try and see what you think. I'm fairly sure that excessive shutter noise won't be your biggest obstacle to

making good photographs. The fact is that any Leica M, and most manual SLR cameras, will be quiet enough for most

situations. I'd recommend choosing your system based on which focusing method you prefer.

[teitur_ardal_rosengren]

anybody who thinks the m shutter is loud dont know what they are talking about.

they've simply browsed the web too much.

 

The most quiet camera I have is a rolleiflex 2.8c & f. they are really quiet and stealthy in a nice way.

[neilambrose]

<p>Well, in deference to Teitur's post above, I have to disagree. </p>

 

<p>I own 4 Leicas - MP, M6, M7 and M8. The quietest shutter is on the M7, but even that is still louder than many common or

garden DSLRs. The days when the M had the quietest shutter are long over. Their reputation as the quietest cameras was built

when the alternative was a twin reflex or a speed graphic, and from personal experience I won't argue that in comparison to a

Leica the sound of a Hasselblad releasing its mirror is like a gun going off.</p>

 

<p>But modern cameras are well dampened, built with large amounts of plastic and foam baffles to reduce sound. They have

lightweight shutters with micro controllers, not clockwork mechanisms. The mirrors are made out of carbon composite coated in

silver. Most of them are already as quiet or even considerably quieter than the M7 because they're not based on a 50 year old

design. And consumer digicams are absolutely silent since they have no moving parts - whatever noise they make is made by

software that plays a click sound to give users some feedback.</p>

 

<p>I do a lot of street photography - some of you may have seen my site - and I favour a candid approach working without the

awareness of the subject. But I don't rely on an M because it's quiet, because frankly it's not. I use it only because I like to work

with a rangefinder. If quietness were the most important thing to me I would have to find something else.</p>

 

<p>As always, YMMV. But my comments are based on a fair bit of practical experience and having tried a lot of cameras :-).</p>

[icuneko]

"The real question is: if you could only have one lens in the woods where you were not present what would that lens be?" Answer: Does a bear sh-- in the woods? If so, not on my lens puh-lease.

[EricBoehm]

My M6 was quiter than my Canon 20D, but not by much. It was MUCH quieter than my Bessas, though. They had the double shutter and really made a racket. The thing I liked about my M's shutter sound as compared to the others was the slower attack and decay of the sounds. Less staccatto. The M was more of a gradual build and decay, the bessas' like a gunshot, and the Canon is very sharp, especially with the mirror slap. I have a Yashica Electro 35 which has a leaf shutter that's very quiet. The rest of the mechanics are kinda noisy, though. I don't think my M was much different sound-wise than any of my SR-T's were with the mirror up, but I didn't own both at the same time to compare.

 

My quietest camera by far is my Rolleiflex 3.5 MX-EVS. Anything above 1/30 and it's so quiet that I don't even know if the shutter has tripped sometimes, especially in a noisy environment. The lower speeds have a bit of a whir to them. Probably the noisiest camera I now own is an old EOS 630, which is just plain loud.

 

My Canon PowerShot G3 digicam is pretty quiet, too, especially one I figured out how to turn off the artificial shutter sound it makes! ;-)

 

Generally, I haven't really paid that much attention to the sounds of my shutters. I shoot mainly landscapes and I haven't scared one off with a loud shutter yet. I certainly understand that certain genres require more discretion though.

[MTC Photography]

What about the diaphram close and open movement of SLR ? Did MP tested only at widest diaphram setting. or even without lens ? If so, it was'nt the real thing

[robin_terrey]

The picture with the article in Modern Photography show the camera on a large block of foam with a cable release and a normal lens. No mention of aperture setting but I would think they would set the aperture to a standard setting e.g. f8

[red_buckner]

You want a quiet shutter? Try a Kodak Retina or a 35mm Minox. YOU won't even hear the sound.