Update on the digital M

[james_.1]

The Leica sales rep told me a while back they were tinkering with a back for the M7, then decided on a dedicated digital body. This was back in March or so 2003.

[fotografz]

I agree with Jay. Leica is on the right path. If they stay teamed with Kodak (who is now

concentrating on digital components for other manufactures), and Imagon which already

has the a good reputation in digital imaging, they should do just fine. I doubt a modular

system will be possible, but hey, science marches on. So, you never know.

 

The REAL issue will be getting the firmware and software right.

 

Case in point: The Contax ND which utilized a variation of the 24X36, 6.2 meg Phillips

CCD sensor that was used in earlier MF backs. It was a nightmare for the mainly advanced

amateurs with little digital experience who bought it. The RAW software was all but

unusable, and no other software worked on it. But for those who were more expert in

working with such programs managed images like no other digital camera... including the

mighty 11 meg CMOS sensor in the 1Ds.

 

NOW a friend of mine has discovered a software developer that cracked the RAW issues

with the Contax ND... making the camera much more viable a contender with just 6 megs.

I've made 13X19 prints from it that rival my MF back (unless I use the same software with

the back). SOFTWARE makes all the difference in the world.

 

In short, based on my own experience, a HIGH QUALITY 8 to 10 meg full frame sensor with

superb softwear will produce images of the quality we are use to from our Ms ( it will look

different than film, but that's another discussion).<div></div>

[Alex_Es]

I'm glad Leica is doing this and I am looking forward to a digital M.

 

I have no emotional attachment to film, except that I have lots of

film cameras that I don't want to see suddenly rendered obsolete.

Digital has now reached the level of film quality for all practical

intent, but those digital cameras that have are bulky. I'd be happy

to use a digital M.

 

I don't see film disappearing in our lifetimes. There are simply too

many film cameras about.

 

But let me share a Jules Verne fantasy with you.

 

One day X replaces all film because X, which is not silver based film

but digital sensitive stuff, can be used in all film cameras. X is

shaped like a 35mm film canister. It winds like 35mm film and gives

36 exposures. It rewinds back into the canister. But then you can

hook X to Y, which is about the size of a cell phone, which shows you

your pictures instantly. Y hooks up to Z on a computer and can

transmit or print images immediately. X will be like a floppy disk

which stores information but can be erased. Granted that X will only

hold 36 exposures; but its sensitivity will be such that its

resolution will be outstanding.

[gerry_szarek]

First of all the current M's can NOT get a digital sensor into them unless it's sent in for surgery. Take a look at the back of R digital sensor for the thickness. I see a new M being made that is a pure digital camera, the big issue is it a 1.3X or 1.0X sensor (pure gut is the 1.3X wins out but I could be wrong), the next issue is the shutter do you go with the R metal shutter or the cloth one (my bet is the metal one). The last issue is the framelines will need to be redesigned if you have any 1.Y X sensor.

 

My Mechanical Engineering gut tells me it will be a little thicker than the current M (similar to the Hexar RF), it should be about 2 inches taller.

 

Gerry

[raymond_tai]

I wish Leica the best and I would buy one at Leica prices, however I hope it is outsourced to a company that knows how to built a digital camera. Please..."Made in Germany" carries no weight whatsoever, not anymore...and especially not for digital. BTW, Leica can easily release a set of "digital ready" lenses that is can trigger the right framelines on the digital M and can be used on film bodies as well. Lenses are much more profitable than any body.

[daveg]

I agree that Leica is on the right track. But I sincerely hope that Leica finds a way to avoid the rapid obsolescence that affects the other manufacturers product lines.

 

IMO, there exists a proper balance between lens quality and number of mega pixels. Too few mega pixels you can't capture everything your lens is capable of projecting onto the sensor. Too many mega pixels, and you gain nothing in resolving power, but have increased the noise, reduced the ISO, and increased your memory requirements and download time. And for what? Bragging rights?

 

If Leica does it right, they will produce a Digital M with a sensor that is well matched to their best lenses. A back that wouldn�t benefit from a larger sensor, and that won't be obsolete in 2 years. What size would that be? Maybe 10 mega pixels is the answer. Maybe 20. Ask 10 people and you will get 10 different answers. How about a built-like-a-tank mechanical package coupled to a replaceable electronics package?

 

What is certain is that within the next few years sensor technology will surpass lens-building technology. (It may have already.) A few years after that, cost reduction will make the super high mega pixel sensors available to the average Joe. When that happens, all of this talk about mega-pixels will subside, and the conversation will return to what really makes a difference: the GLASS.

[tom h.]

If it's half-decent and I can put M lenses on it, count me in.

[roland_haid]

By Saturday, 07 Feb 04 Leica Camera has announced plans to reduce their staff worldwide by 20% to a total of 1000 people. I think that is the size of the development department of Canon alone. I think Digital-M is vapourware and should hold current buyers to the Leica M-line another two or three years. Due to the current announcement, it is not unlikely that:

 

- Leica may decide to drop the R camera line completely.

 

- The Digital attachment for the R will be dropped as well.

 

- The current development team will start on a Digital M now. This means that a camera is not available, if ever, before 2007. An attachment to the M7 is hardly possible because of the design of the camera, a newly designed Digital M will not have the shape of the current M-line due to the thicker sensor and the electronics.

 

All in all, a Digital M does not make sense at all.

[james_.1]

Attrition to digital from the M system in an already niche market compels Leica Camera to make a digital M. If not, eventually the M system will flicker. Layoffs, doing in the R system, etc. would only serve to concentrate capital on this important project (although it'd be a bummer to see the R system go). How massively hard can it be- little digital p&s's are everywhere for $300, and partnering with Kodak and Imacon to make a pro digital body, and the Leica shooter who has some $$ to spend, will justify the product.

[gregory_goh]

I also hope that "better quality pixels" as several have mentioned includes expanded dynamic range. Many Leica M users use black & white film, and having sensors with a 6-7 stop coverage might be OK for colour, but arguably insufficient for B&W.

[roland_haid]

And, again: the cost item of a digital M is a serious point. A fully developped rangefinder Leica MD(igital) will request $4500-5000. 90% of the relevant parts of a M7 shall be necessary for the digital body as well : Rangefinder, Shutter, Body with Shell, Brass Bottom and Top. Plus sensor, aux. screen, electronics. You will save the film counter mechanism and the brass bottom is fixed by screws, therefore cheaper. A shutter motor would help, would you like to have a digicam with manual shutter cocking?

 

If a manufacturer goes digital, autofocus and full electronic control makes a lot of sense, at the end it saves a lot of money during manufacturing. As Leica did not follow, none of their main system will see a reasonable digital solution.

[lucien1]

.

 

http://www.leica-camera.com/unternehmen/presse/data/03729/index_e.html

 

On Leica website now.

 

I still think it's not the right way to do it.

 

Anyway, good luck to Leica-Camera and future Leica M Digital's users.

 

I sincerely hope it will work and be a success.

 

Lucien

[dale_schreiner]

I'm not that familiar with digital cameras so I may be missing something, but why does the image capture mechanism (chip or film) necessate the use of an LCD screen or motorized shutter as may are suggesting? Those features don't seem very M-like. Wouldn't it be best for Leica to keep as much of the mechanical innards and knowledge as possible and concentrate their R&D and re-tooling funds on the imaging system? I'd prefer an M-camera that happens to have a digital sensor to a bells-and-whistles digital camera that happens to take M lenses.

[jim_shields1]

Is a mechanical shutter necessary to regulate the duration of an exposure on these chips or is the "exposure" purely an electronic recording of the image over an electronically timed time interval? I'm obviously still in the dark ages.

[j_wittenberg]

What is the big deal with the "microlenses"

I have a (Proback) Polaroidback for my Nikon FM2n that uses microlense technology ... so what gives? This technology has been around for quite sometime.

 

Isn't it just a matrix of small hexagonal lenses, densely packed, acting as the film plane and then refocussing the ray paths to the underlying emulsion or sensor (as the case may be).

 

I'll bet they'll be offering digital probacks for conventional SLR's shortly.

[andy_piper2]

Dale: The LCD screen is a convenience for reviewing pictures in the field (or even just showing them to your subject after a shoot). Not a requirement technically - but a lot of people want them. You can always ignore it (I plan to, most of the time, with my Digilux-2).

 

In general, it is helpful in digital imaging for the shutter to be able to 'talk' to the other electronics, so that the chip/sensor 'knows' what exposure is coming. Not required, just helpful in getting the best possible image quality.

 

The primary advantage to a mechanical shutter is that it works without batteries. Since a digital camera is dead-meat without battery power anyway, a cranky, inaccurate clockwork shutter is just a liability.

 

Jim: Digital SLRs (Canon EOS 1D, Nikon D100) still use mechanico-electric shutters.

 

Most consumer digicams with fixed lenses (Canon G5, Leica Digiluxes) do not have a "shutter" in the traditional sense. Their chips are exposed to light all the time, and are constantly outputting a "live" image (which is what you watch on the LCD screen on the back). When you push the button, they just make a 'frame-grab' out of the constant flow of data.

 

With an interchangeable-lens camera, the shutter is still useful for protecting the imaging chip from dust, bright light, etc., while changing lenses.

 

"I have a (Proback) Polaroidback for my Nikon FM2n that uses microlens technology..."

 

Actually, these backs use fiber-optic technology - and even their small contact-print-sized images have a visible honeycomb pattern all over the surface. No big problem for exposure checks - but totally useless for enlargement - unless you really want everything to look like it was shot through an insect's segmented eye.

 

The micro-lenses in imaging chips are MUCH smaller - 1 lens per pixel, so they are about 2.5-6 microns in diameter, while the Polaroid-back fiber-bundles are closer to 200 microns in diameter.

 

As to the Digi-M:

 

A) Leica says "a MINIMUM of 10 megapixels". That's fine by me. My 2700-dpi scanner puts out 8.3 Mp, roughly, and frankly I have yet to see even a Leica-lens image that uses all that resolution - although they come close - very close. Given that direct-capture from the lens gives cleaner results than going through the extra generation of film/scanner optics, 10Mp in the camera is probably equal to 16Mp scanned from film, for clarity.

 

B) I'd like a full-frame chip, naturally. It allows you (and Leica) to keep the exact same finders/framelines as in the film Ms.

 

But it does occur to me that an 80%-chip (1.2x crop factor) would work quite well with most of Leica's lenses - moving them roughly one focal length up the scale. A 21 f/2.8 becomes a 25 f2.8, a 24 f/2.8 becomes a 29mm f/2.8, a 28 'cron becomes a "34mm" cron, a 35 becomes a "42mm" (a "true" normal lens if you go by the 'diagonal of the film' method - and who else makes a 42mm f/1.4?). 75 f/1.4 becomes "90" f/1.4 (thus retaining, or even increasing the amount of background blur available). A 50 becomes a 60mm (just like Sebatiao Salgado uses on the Rs - and what the M6/7 50 frames show you anyway). etc. etc.

 

Create (and sell) ONE new super-wide to be a "21mm" equivalent - roughly a 17-18mm f/2.8 in real life - and you can find an equivalent to almost any of your favorite focal lengths on film, usually with the same max. aperture (or faster at the long end).

 

I'm not recommending this - I'm just pointing out that a full-frame chip isn't absolutely required to still have a fully functional wide-angle Leica system. Going 1.2x might crop off those last few troublesome pixels that the micro-lens 'fix' can't solve completely.

 

C) Photokina 2006 sounds about right for showing a finished prototype and getting it into the hands of the beta-testers. But L could surprise us and get the Beta out in 2 years (PMA 2006) with real product shipping by Sept 2006.

 

D) Note that the bonds are being sold to current Leica stockholders - which means Hermes is picking up 30% of the �15 million tab, plus (so they say) any amount NOT subscribed to by other stockholders. Any "Ein Stuck" owners planning to invest?

[andy_piper2]

Anyone done any thinking about PRICE?

 

Your basic digital SLR runs roughly 3x the price of the underlying film camera ($1500 for a D100, based on a $500 N/F80, $899 for a digiRebel, based on a $299 camera, etc.)

 

Plus Leica/Hermes has to recoup at least SOME of the 15 mill investment - over 10,000 sales, say, at least 1,000 per camera (Euros or dollars). Not all of it - they can count some as "goodwill" in that it will lead (they hope) to increasing or maintaining lens sales.

 

Then you factor in the basic cost of manufacture - including a Leica VF/RF module (about $600 alone). I'd assume Leica will outsource the basic electronic heart of the camera (sensor/buffer/LCD/etc.) from Kodak/Imacon or whoever, and hand-assemble an RF body around it (for that "made in Germany" feel and label).

 

Factor all that against the fact that digital prices are dropping constantly, and that in 2 years a 11 Mp Canon 1Ds Mark II may be down to $4500, perhaps.

 

Playing CFO - I call it at $4,995 for the body, 2006 Euros or dollars. Or twice the price of a film body at the time.

 

Any other guesses?

[al_kaplan1]

I think everybody is wrong about this new digital M Leica. I'm predicting that at about the same time we'll be able to purchase the new Cosina made digital Bessa D body for less than $1,000.

[james_.1]

That'd be a bonus- choices plus lower the price on the digital M.

[Karim Ghantous]

Andy wrote: "75 f/1.4 becomes "90" f/1.4 (thus retaining, or even increasing the amount of background blur available)."

 

That's incorrect, Andy. It's still going to be a 75mm lens. It will merely have the same angle of view as a 90. And if anything, background blur will effectively 'decrease' (i.e. effective increase in DOF) seeing as you have to stand further back with a '90mm' than with a 75 for the subject to remain the same size in the frame.

[._._z]

I think Cosina/Voigtlander is loving this. It's doubtful that this Leica kludge camera will be

full-frame, so Voigtlander will be selling a lot more wide- and ultra-wide-angle lenses.

[scott_stadler]

Incase anyone want to try a digital M earlier than the Leica offering, check out the camera

quest website. Apperantly Cosina already has one ready and has teamed up with epson to

make it.