Size of the M8 Battery Charger

[michael friedberg]

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Pictured here is the new M8's battery charger compared to the charger furnished with a Canon Rebel XT. As you will note, there's a not insignificant difference in size (and weight too).

 

I personally like to use the Leica as a travel camera. Especially with today's airline rules limiting carry-ons, to my thinking compactness is a plus. And on this score traveling with the charger can't be as desirable as with a smaller one.

 

Does anyone know is there's a reason for a charger of this huge size? To my knowledge the batteries are more or less the same, and it doesn't work faster, etc. But perhaps there's some benefit I'm missing. Although, frankly, I wonder if the super-large charger was simply an engineering oversight.

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[jonoslack]

You can use it to stand on and look over fences at important football matches.

[robsteve]

Does the Canon charger work on the DC from your car? That might explain the size difference.

[jrc]

I've had, I think, ten digital cameras of one kind of another, and Leica's battery charger is larger than any but the D2x charger, which uses a battery about twice as big as the Leica's (although I can't remember what the charger looked like on the Kodaks. Hmmm.) I have a Canon G7, a great pocket camera, which uses a charger like the one shown in the photo. The Leica charger by itself is **as big as the G7.**

 

It strikes me that with this camera, Leica did brilliantly on the hard stuff, but not so well on the easy stuff. Aside from the red stripes/green blobs, which is an electrical fault and will be fixed, Leica showed genius in putting together the camera, and then slipped badly on things like beta-testing and public relations.

 

If Leica had started a campaign six months ago, pulling on their beards and publicly arguing the merits of selling a camera that did brilliant B&W, plus brilliant color that needed an "auxillary" filter, I think most Leicaphiles would be praising them for their insight into the needs of the photographic community. All it would have taken was a little music, a little tap-dancing, a little pageantry, and we would have completely avoided the fist-fight (aside, of course, from the mandatory Canon trolls, who are simply a part of the Internet culture like horseflies in a barn.)

 

Eventually, though, Leica engineering will prevail, and we will get a charger Mark II with the Leica M8 v1.1. The M8 is really the Ur-Leica; we'll get the M3 in a couple of years.

JC

[andym911]

 

If Leica had started a campaign six months ago, pulling on their beards and publicly arguing the merits of selling a camera that did brilliant B&W, plus brilliant color that needed an "auxillary" filter, I think most Leicaphiles would be praising them for their insight into the needs of the photographic community. All it would have taken was a little music, a little tap-dancing, a little pageantry, and we would have completely avoided the fist-fight (aside, of course, from the mandatory Canon trolls, who are simply a part of the Internet culture like horseflies in a barn.)

 

Eventually, though, Leica engineering will prevail, and we will get a charger Mark II with the Leica M8 v1.1. The M8 is really the Ur-Leica; we'll get the M3 in a couple of years.

JC

 

Very well captured what Leica could have done, I hope they read this and take it on board for future product releases.Still looking forward to my M8...2 weeks to go.

 

andy

[mike prevette]

The DC to DC charging is a non issue. The chip required to do the 12v to 5v or 3.7v conversion is smaller than the size of my thumbnail.

 

_mike

[carstenw]

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Mike, what about the current? Cars have a lot of oomph.

[michael friedberg]

(aside, of course, from the mandatory Canon trolls, who are simply a part of the Internet culture like horseflies in a barn.)

 

I certainly hope that your free-floating insult about Canon trolls wasn't directed at me because I showed an image of a Leica charger and a Canon one, and asked why the Leica one might be unduly large. That certainly is a legitimate comparison and a legitimate question. I appreciate those who have provided direct and helpful replies, such as discussing the issue of DC charging.

 

While there is some substance to what else you state, your quoted text does little to add to any meaningful substantive discussion, let alone on the subject I raised. That's the real problem with the Internet --and now back to Leica....

[erl]

Perhaps part of the size of the M8 charger maybe explained by the IMHO clever adapters built into the charger, specifically to assist with your international travel. Their physical operation presumably requires a little extra volume.

 

I recently returned fro travelling with an RD-1 with charger plus adapters to suit the various countries vistited. The combined bulk of those adapters + charger was greater than the Leica which needs no additional adapters. Possibly the same argument may apply to the Canon.

 

Which ever is the case, batteries and chargers are the down side of any digicam. However, in todays environment I would choose digital over film to travel, even though I really enjoy film more, but now I am digressing.