Which new Leica product would you buy?

[Jorgen Udvang]

I think a b/w only camera would allready be brave, a b/w camera without an LCD would be very brave.

B&W, M-mount, no LCD but an EVF would be interesting. I mostly use the EVF if I want to review photos on my GH1, so the LCD sees little use.

 

[fotografz]

Jono, since you seem to have been able to quote Terry before she made her statement, I nominate you as our seer to tell us what Leica is set to release!

From my perspective, I will probably sit this one out. I love the M9, and this year I sold a huge proportion of everything else I had for the S2, and between the two, I cannot really think how they are holding me back in my photography in any way. But you never know, they seem to have convinced me to part with a lot of my money in the past...

+1.

However, I've hedged my bet. I usually work with 2 M9s, so in anticipation of the M10/MX I sold both of my black M9s and secured a Chrome M9P for a beautifully classic durable finish and scratch resistant LCD ... which I will keep long term, and then add the M10/MX IF Leica successfully retains the Image Qualities with a CMOS sensor ... which I'll remain skeptical of until I see it.

-Marc

 

[ramosa]

Only interested in M10. Will buy it unless it is crazy with lots of DSLR features (e.g., video), but I don't expect that.

 

[Paratom]

...
From my perspective, I will probably sit this one out. I love the M9, and this year I sold a huge proportion of everything else I had for the S2, and between the two, I cannot really think how they are holding me back in my photography in any way. But you never know, they seem to have convinced me to part with a lot of my money in the past...

I am interested in all of those rumours but I feel a lot like Stuart, that the S2 and also M9 both dont limit me at all at the moment.
Everything better will be a bonus.

 

[Terry]

Jono, since you seem to have been able to quote Terry before she made her statement, I nominate you as our seer to tell us what Leica is set to release!

the dangers of allowing edits :ROTFL:...I saw his post before I posted. Sneaky devil must have like my words better than his.....








.

 

[cam]

after last night's shooting experience in a very dark bar, with f/1 and 2500 not being fast enough, i so vote for a black and white camera with significantly improved high ISO (as well as it simply being available!). improved tonality capture and detail ay high ISO are also a must.

this would also allow me to stop shooting DNG and b/w JPEG (maybe speed up response?) because i can't properly judge focus or lighting with colour and i like to show people b/w images on my screen when i share them since i know that is what they will ultimately become...

then again, all this would be moot if there was no LCD -- which would be just fine with me! especially if it made the camera smaller and thinner, like an M2/M3

i want it and i want it NOW!

 

[gero]

I voted for a digital b&w M to complement my M9

though I admit that b&w film does complement it very nicely at present.

also, it would be a good camera for wide symmetrical lenses

 

[Shashin]

I don't like the idea of no LCD. How do you change the setting that are done with the current LCD?

The idea of a B&W sensor fall flat too. The increase in resolution is marginal. The ISO performance would be nice, but I would just miss raw conversion to B&W with the color channel mixer. And then if I wanted to take color images, it would be rather hard.

I am not sure what I would want from Leica as I would really need to see the camera in question--if it is anything like the X1, it will not be of any interest to me.

 

[Hosermage]

Agreed. Technology didn't stop from 2 years ago. We don't need to sacrifice color to get better ISO/resolution. We don't need to get rid of LCD so people will stop complain about how sucky it is. Just give us the best tech available at the same cost, or slightly more, and it'll probably be enough.

 

[Taylor Sherman]

The difference in dynamic range for a B&W sensor could be huge. Replace the bayer filter with a neutral-density setup, and . . . 30 bits per pixel of dynamic range perhaps?

Or maybe use pairs of pixels instead of triplets and get 20 or 24 bits per pixel, and with larger photosites you've got less noise.

So instead of a 24MP color sensor with 72 million elements (groups of three), you've got maybe an 24MP black and white sensor with 48 million elements (groups of two) - each element being 1.5x the size: you're getting twice the dynamic range as you were from the color sensor, and what, 33% less noise? all at the same time.

You could make the latter by taking an existing (cheap by today's standards!) 16MP sensor and replacing the Bayer filter with a paired-off ND one and then just combining the outputs differently.

 

[Shashin]

How does DR change just because you eliminate the Bayer filters? None of my monochrome sensor cameras have a greater DR than a Bayer camera.

 

[j. white]

I'm not really enthused about any of the speculated options being bandied about for May 10th. A mirrorless camera would be attractive if it features a line of dedicated auto-focus lenses along with a means to adapt R and M mount lenses. Even still, I don't need one, so I doubt I'd bite.

My full-hearted vote goes to a full-frame R10. This is the one camera I've wanted from Leica for a long time. A new range of autofocus lenses for this camera would spell real trouble for my bank account. My sad-hearted feeling though is that this will never happen.

 

[Taylor Sherman]

I was a bit off in the details, but the gist is: with a Bayer filter, you're using four sensor elements to come up with (for exmaple) 24 bits of information: 8 bits of luminance (intensity), and 16 bits of color (hue and saturation, or G-B and G-R, for example). Because dynamic range is determined by the luminance range, you've got 8 bits (256 levels) of dynamic range). Color information is relatively expensive, is another way of looking at it.

A B&W sensor could use those same four elements to come up with 24 bits of information that is purely luminance, so 24 bits of dynamic range (16 million levels). I *think*. I'm not 100% sure - for sure, you could get a significant increase in dynamic range, I'm just thinking through how to do it*.

Understanding Digital Camera Sensors

(* using geeky terminology, using ND filters instead of color filters would let you produce something more like a 10-bit floating-point output (8 mantissa and 2 exponent) rather than a real 24-bit integer output. More research is needed ).

 

[Godfrey]

Something that works better for me than the M9 and GXR-M do now. And by a good margin. don't know what they're planning to release, but I'm pretty happy with what I have already.

Nothing B&W only. Waste of money and time far as I'm concerned.

G

 

[Shashin]

I was a bit off in the details, but the gist is: with a Bayer filter, you're using four sensor elements to come up with (for exmaple) 24 bits of information: 8 bits of luminance (intensity), and 16 bits of color (hue and saturation, or G-B and G-R, for example). Because dynamic range is determined by the luminance range, you've got 8 bits (256 levels) of dynamic range). Color information is relatively expensive, is another way of looking at it.

You are really describing the de-Bayering process which is done after the image is captured. The RAW image is still limited by what each pixel can capture in terms of signal and noise. Removing the Bayer filter does not change that.

 

[jonoslack]

You are really describing the de-Bayering process which is done after the image is captured. The RAW image is still limited by what each pixel can capture in terms of signal and noise. Removing the Bayer filter does not change that.

Oh! I think it does, and I think you're missing something on both of your points:

1. although the de-Bayering is done after the image is captured . . . it doesn't have to be done for the black and white image.

2. at the very least you're removing a filter which is reducing the light reaching the sensor - I've seen different opinions on how much light a Bayer filter restricts, but apparently it's at least 2 stops.

If so, you have a benefit of 2 stops, and the reduction of whatever penalty demoisaicing imposes (and there is certainly some penalty).

What new penalties may be imposed remains to be seen (or not, depending on whether Leica have muddled up May 10th with April 1st!).


all the best

 

[Shashin]

I was referring to DR not sensitivity, which is greater in a monochrome sensor because the filters are not there.

Oh! I think it does, and I think you're missing something on both of your points:

1. although the de-Bayering is done after the image is captured . . . it doesn't have to be done for the black and white image.

2. at the very least you're removing a filter which is reducing the light reaching the sensor - I've seen different opinions on how much light a Bayer filter restricts, but apparently it's at least 2 stops.

If so, you have a benefit of 2 stops, and the reduction of whatever penalty demoisaicing imposes (and there is certainly some penalty).

What new penalties may be imposed remains to be seen (or not, depending on whether Leica have muddled up May 10th with April 1st!).


all the best

 

[Taylor Sherman]

I was referring to DR not sensitivity, which is greater in a monochrome sensor because the filters are not there.

Essentially I'm talking about something that would replace de-mosaicing with a new process, which would combine information from adjacent sensor elements to create pixels with higher dynamic range (versus creating
color pixels from what are essentially monochrome ones).

 

[Shashin]

Essentially I'm talking about something that would replace de-mosaicing with a new process, which would combine information from adjacent sensor elements to create pixels with higher dynamic range (versus creating
color pixels from what are essentially monochrome ones).

That is called pixel binning which combines adjacent pixels to improve sensitivity at the expense of resolution. None of the camera I have used, both monochrome and color, have any real change to DR when binned in any practical sense.

 

[Armanius]

I'd be happy with a M9 with higher magnification OVF, brighter RF patch, lighter, max ISO of 12800 with good noise control on par with the X100, better LCD, and an additional control point to change ISO w/o having to use both hands.

That's not asking for too much right?