Leica's M8 frameline decisions

[charlesphoto99]

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Playing with the M8 at my local dealer yesterday - it's a definite must have once funds are in place and black bodies available. I love some of the pics I've seen from it, particuarly in the hands of Magnum photographers.

 

My only real beef with it is Leica's choice of framelines. My "standard" lens will probably be the 24mm 2.8 (I have one and love it and tend to work on the wider end of the scale). When the 24 frameline is in place so is the 35 and i find it incredibly distracting. I tend toward composing figures to the sides often and found the 35 frameline to dissect people's faces or to trap them between the two lines.

 

My choice would have been: 24 with the 50; 35 with the 90; and 28 with the 75. Thereby always a wider with a longer (less distracting on either end), and finally freeing the 75 frame from the 50. I'd also like to see a wider viewfinder (I'm a .58 user anyway) with a 21 frameline. I would also have liked a 135 frame - leave it up to the user whether it works well or not (Best for compressed landscapes, etc)

 

Any idea whether these framlines can be custom changed by Leica? Or DAG (though that would probably void the warranty)?

 

I also hope Leica comes out with an "affordable" 18mm 2.8 with appropriately sized viewfinder. I will miss wide capability as I have on my D200 (constantly renting the 14 for it!)

 

Best,

 

Charles

[carstenw]

It won't work. There are three positions of the little lever inside the lens mount, and for each of the three positions, there are two focal lengths which invoke them. All the lenses have ramps corresponding to this, so you would have to physically change a lens and at the same time change the frames.

 

Apparently though, there are places which will remove frames completely. The 35mm frame corresponds to a 50mm focal length, however, and I would consider this far too use to remove, personally.

[stunsworth]

Hi Charles, your idea won't work I'm afraid. Which framelines are brought up is ditermined by a prong on the lens. The 50mm and 75mm for example have the same prong, so if you modified the framelines to pair the 50mm with the 24mm you'd get the 24mm framelines when you mounted a 75mm lens.

[ho_co]

Charles--

Just to underline what the others have said, the frame selections go back to the M3. That is, the M3 had a particular set of frames when it came out 50+ years ago, and that combination of frames has been the determining factor for focal lengths added later.

 

The framesets can be a bit annoying at first, but I think you would quickly get used to working with them.

 

--HC

[jlm]

if you are hell-bent:

change the lens mount on one of the pair so the 24 and 50 bring up the same mask; then change the masks (custom) appropriately...etc.

[gdewitt]

Furthermore, the reason for the 24 being paired with the 35: 35 used to be paired with 135 in film Ms, but since 135 is not supported with the M8, 35 was by itslef and was the only one available. Changing now would make all the old lens mounts obolete.

[charlesphoto99]

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Yeah, I figured as much. I've worked with M's for 10 plus years now (and Mamiya medium format rangefinders), and the framelines have never bothered me....until I picked up the M8 with a 24 attached. I understand the Leica legacy ("back to the M3", etc etc), but one wonders why they didn't break with that in order to put out the best product they could (I mean most usable for shooters) esp as they were already redesigning the M8 from the ground up. Maybe in the future we'll see different versions of the M8 in regards to the viewfinder. IMO electronic framelines that appear with the particular lens mounted in combo with a preview switch for other framelines would be best of both worlds.

 

Oh well, I'm sure I'll live with it once I have one and it sounds like there really isn't a choice. I may look into removing the 35 line, though I enjoy my 35 asph lux but since I have 28 summicron and 50 lux I sometimes find it a redundant focal length but that may change once I start actually working with M8.

 

Charles

[carstenw]

Without lens coding, there isn't actually anything which could have been done better. You can't move any of the lenses, nor can you move any of the frames, since they are all hard-coded to each other, and are paired the way they are for historical reasons.

 

The system could be improved by using the lens coding, however. If lens coding is turned on, and the lens is coded, the exact lens is known, and just that frame could be shown. This would require a more complex internal system for the frames, however, which Leica probably would not be happy to do.

[adan]

"...but one wonders why they didn't break with that in order to put out the best product they could (I mean most usable for shooters) "

 

If they had, they would have immediately rendered 50 years of Leica-M lenses semi-obsolete (new mounts/prongs for all existing lenses would have been required, not just optional as with the zebra-coding). It would have been a bigger debacle than the IR or banding issues, as far as sales went.

 

I certainly would not have been interested in a camera that crossed up my 28, 50 and/or 90 framing, and it would not have qualified as "most usable" for MY shooting.

 

But I agree that the 24/35 combo is - distracting - for 24mm users. Less so for 35mm users, since the extra frame is outside the picture area. I took one look at the frameline sets when dpreview first posted them, and thought "Man, I'm glad I shoot 21/28/50/90!"

 

You can probably have Leica mask out the lines for the 35mm, once the repair rush for the original M8 batch is over (assuming you don't want to shoot a 35mm as well).

 

A fast prime in the 15-18 range is on my wish list, too. But the 15mm f/4.5 Voigtlander is psychotically good, and probably costs about the same as 10 Nikon 14mm rentals. Check it out while you wait for the 18mm Elmarit.

[macusque]

Charles, I totally agree with all you said.

 

I find the choice of framelines distracting to say the least.

Your choice would have been much much better.

 

Luckily my lenses' setup choice is 15, 28, 50 and 90 hence I don't have to deal with the 24/35 mess (though I'd prefer a cleaner view with the 50mm).

 

Agreed also on a new wide lens.

I'd love to see a little great 16mm, even if f/4, just make it distortion free.

Similar to what they achieved with the new 28/2.8 asph (not particularly fast, but excellent, cheap and small).

[jaapv]

I suspect the R&D budget for the M8 did not suffice to implement electronically generated single framelines. It may well be the main feature of a future M9.

[stunsworth]

Backward compatibility is very important IMHO, so isbeing able to use the same lenses on a digital and film body - which I suspect many people will have.

 

One of the advantages of the current system over electronically selected framelines is that you can move the frame selection lever to see what effect other focal lengths will have - something that's not possible on an SLR without actually changing the lens.

[Guest umb]

Backward compatibility is very important IMHO, so isbeing able to use the same lenses on a digital and film body - which I suspect many people will have.

 

One of the advantages of the current system over electronically selected framelines is that you can move the frame selection lever to see what effect other focal lengths will have - something that's not possible on an SLR without actually changing the lens.

 

Why shouldnt it be possible to change electronically selected framelines with some kind of dial?

[jaapv]

Backward compatibility is very important IMHO, so isbeing able to use the same lenses on a digital and film body - which I suspect many people will have.

 

One of the advantages of the current system over electronically selected framelines is that you can move the frame selection lever to see what effect other focal lengths will have - something that's not possible on an SLR without actually changing the lens.

 

Why should that not be possible?

[stunsworth]

Because it begins to get complicated. You have an electrical connection to show the single frame lines of the mounted lens, and then a lever to show the pairs of lenses in the 'traditional' viewfinder (ok, these could be electronic too).

 

Not impossible I admit - bad choice of words on my part - but a bit messy.

[preston]

While it seems clear that Leica was was right to make its compromises in the M8 design to work with 50 years of lenses, I think the landscape is going to change very quickly from Leica's point of view because of a very rapid migration to digital in M lens customers. Virtually all Leica's M lens sales will soon be for digital bodies, if they aren't already. And if the sensor size remains what it is now (reduced), there may be a shift in customer demand toward more digital-optimized lenses, mainly smaller, faster wides, even if they wouldn't work on film bodies.

 

For example there is no M8 functional eqivalent to the old 28mm f2 on film; the current 24mm and wider lenses are at least f2.8. I personally prefer the M8 FOV of the 24 (32 equiv) to the 28 (37 equiv), but I would lose a stop and still be carrying a larger lens than necessary because it covers 35mm film, which I would no longer need.

 

Once Leica M lens sales are essentially all for digital use, a new body would seem likely to be more optimized for the smaller sensor (no doubt still mechanically compatible with film lenses). Lens coding might permit setting and moving framelines electronically which would be a big improvement, as others have pointed out.

 

Of course if Leica instead switches to a full frame sensor (and can overcome the worsened IR/cyan/incident angle situation that goes with it), all this speculation goes out the window...