Leica Denies M9 in 08 and R10, well....

[LJL]

Both Doug's and Vieri's comments are well placed. Going with a different shape sensor, more like MF is one solution for sure. While I liked using my old Hassies with square format film, there would be a lot of good pixels wasted for those used to shooting with a more rectangular format. We will just have to wait.

I also appreciate Doug's comment about "absolutes" and stuff, and thus the qualifier, "probably" ;-) The idea of no mirror and thus maybe no "reflex" would be a shift from SLR....like eliminating the "R". They could always go to a pure live view and not have a mirror at all as another possibility.

I really did not intend for my comments to come across sounding so pessimistic, as that is not my nature anyway. I just have been reading too much about all of this lately and trying to make some sense of things for moving forward. Things still do not look very clear, so best idea right now is to pour a nice glass of Irish single malt and stop thinking about it for a while ;-)

LJ

 

[woodyspedden]

I would certainly hope that the R10 is not a "live view only" body. There are wonderful applications for live view but there are many that are not. For tripod mounted landscape shoots live view is hard to beat. But for shooting my fast moving grandchildren, or sports or wildlife (in motion) it is very cumbersome. Including live view, as I have on my Nikon D3 is great, but not "only." JMHO

Woody

 

[jonoslack]

I would certainly hope that the R10 is not a "live view only" body. There are wonderful applications for live view but there are many that are not. For tripod mounted landscape shoots live view is hard to beat. But for shooting my fast moving grandchildren, or sports or wildlife (in motion) it is very cumbersome. Including live view, as I have on my Nikon D3 is great, but not "only." JMHO

Woody

I couldn't agree more Woody. The E3 live view with the flip out LCD is splendid for any tripod work, macros (with the focusing) - really excellent for anything where one has time and a tripod. The idea of using it to take pictures of people is horrifying (it's tough enough without the inevitable lag and unreality).

Live view is a really excellent innovation, but for everything - the expression EVIL (electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lenses) just about sums it up for me!

 

[gogopix]

a lot of the discussion here assumes future cameras will adapt technology to photography. Rather, technology, from reflex, SLR, RF etc all gave us new features that WE adapted to. Live view critique is based on poor diplays. Yes there are docs who stiil insist on "silver' films when digital MRI are more acurate etc.Are they right?

As an 'old dog' I actually welcome the new 'new tricks
Mirror issues? go away with EVF. Or a squared, SMALLER mirror for focus (2x)
Cant change laws of physics so 6 micro is the workaround for sensor size vs noise .
Physical size is also there; bigger morror, more slap.
On and on. I for one would love to see Leica take the lead in the next paradigm for a camera. The one we have have worked for 150 years, but hey, is it right for the next 150 ?(days!

regards
Victor

 

[jonoslack]

Hi Victor

a lot of the discussion here assumes future cameras will adapt technology to photography. Rather, technology, from reflex, SLR, RF etc all gave us new features that WE adapted to. Live view critique is based on poor diplays. Yes there are docs who stiil insist on "silver' films when digital MRI are more acurate etc.Are they right?

As an 'old dog' I actually welcome the new 'new tricks
Mirror issues? go away with EVF. Or a squared, SMALLER mirror for focus (2x)

Well, I agree, we should embrace the new technology rather than trying to make it do what the old technology did . . . . I still think electronic viewfinders are nasty for taking pictures of people though

Cant change laws of physics so 6 micro is the workaround for sensor size vs noise .

Well, you can't change the laws of physics, but if a small sensor with tiny photosites can produce a good image at low ISO, I don't think that it's the laws of physics which are stopping it from producing a good image at high ISO . . .

Physical size is also there; bigger morror, more slap.

Again - other things being equal, but big mirrors can be damped.

On and on. I for one would love to see Leica take the lead in the next paradigm for a camera. The one we have have worked for 150 years, but hey, is it right for the next 150 ?(days!
regards
Victor

I agree - I'd like to see it happen (as long as they don't abandon the M series). But I can't see how they can possibly compete, at least, not as long as the cameras are hand made in Germany!

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

...

Well, you can't change the laws of physics, but if a small sensor with tiny photosites can produce a good image at low ISO, I don't think that it's the laws of physics which are stopping it from producing a good image at high ISO . . .

To a first approximation, the quality difference between base ISO and pushed ISO in a silicon sensor (CCD or CMOS) is due to the maximum number of electrons captured in each pixel when the cell is used at base ISO. AFAIK, no imager actually changes on-chip biases to make the pixel collect more electrons per captured photon when used at high ISO, they simply throw away empty high order bits, shifting the output data. The rest of the considerable bag of tricks is postprocessing, which some cameras turn into pre-RAW file massaging. So that part is physics, or really the statistics of noise in data that results from counting discrete events.

Pixel design, a branch of memory circuit design, is engineering, and there have been many clever tricks introduced to hold more electrons in each cell. As memory chips have gotten denser during the progression from megabit to gigabit it was necessary to make memory cells deeper to keep the number of electrons per bit constant at the level required to resist cosmic ray-induced errors. So there's hope for better high ISO, but through better imaging chips which take time to percolate through to the marketplace.

scott

 

[Sean_Reid]

BTW, Scott actually has the credentials to know what he's talking about here.

Cheers,

Sean