I do wish Leica would embrace m4/3rds

[biglouis]

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I'm sitting here processing my pictures taken yesterday from my Panny GF-1 and Panny 'Leica' Elmarit 45/2.8 and I've got to ask the question: why aren't Leica making more m4/3rds lenses?

 

The performance of this lens is nothing short of excellent. It reminds me of all the great pictures I got out of my DLUX2 which probably influenced me greatly in terms of investing in an M8. Colour rendition, sharpness, contrast - all fantastic.

 

What I want is a m4/3rds lux 25/1.4 and a cron 17/2. I wouldn't mind a cron 38/2 as well. All with autofocus, btw. And I'd pay the Leica premium price to own them.

 

Given that Panasonic do the lions share in development, manufacturing and marketing I can't understand the reluctance of Leica to expand the m4/3rds line - or to badge the new GF-2 as their own.

 

Instead, CV is once again stepping into the void and may end up taking the prosumer market.

 

I appreciate that Leica have its own mirroless camera to sell, the X1. But clearly someone in their marketing department does not understand kinked demand curves. Selling products for m4/3rds is likely to bring in more revenue in total than selling just one mirrorless product.

 

LouisB

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[bill]

Louis, you are aware that there is a 25mm f1.4 Leica lens for 4/3 aren't you? You can mount it to a u4/3 body with the appropriate adaptor. It is a beautiful lens; I had one for a while, but I have left 4/3 behind.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[luigi bertolotti]

A legitimate question... to which only Leica could answer... I can only make some hipotesis :

- They do not believe in m4/3... they think that the market won't be so significant for investing in a product line that could be of interest for a SHARE of that market.

- They evaluate that even if the market can be significant, the people disposed to pay for Leica lenses should be a percentage that, again, does not worth an investiment in engineering and production capacity.

- They consider that the "no investiment" alternative, to say, labeling as Leica lenses made elsewhere, has not an interesting financial impact : of course, this is an issue that would regard the details of their relantioship with Panasonic... they obviously pay Pana for their Leica branded bodies and get a margin selling them: I haven't idea if they cash in something for the Lumix with Leica-branded lenses.

[biglouis]

Louis, you are aware that there is a 25mm f1.4 Leica lens for 4/3 aren't you? You can mount it to a u4/3 body with the appropriate adaptor. It is a beautiful lens; I had one for a while, but I have left 4/3 behind.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

I am thinking seriously of getting one, especially as the latest firmware for the Panny now supports autofocus. It is a big lens, I was hoping that as m4/3rds allows smaller lenses that a dedicated m4/3rds lens might be available.

 

LouisB

[mjh]

A legitimate question... to which only Leica could answer...

Leicas has stated time and again that they aren’t interested in Micro FourThirds. They have succumbed to Panasonic’s nagging once and cooperated on a single lens, but I wouldn’t expect much more – Leica clearly doesn’t want to be bothered with Micro FourThirds. (That doesn’t imply there is something inherently wrong with Micro FourThirds as such, just that Leica had to make a choice what markets to cater for and this market didn’t make it.)

[pico]

I am thinking seriously of getting one, especially as the latest firmware for the Panny now supports autofocus. It is a big lens, I was hoping that as m4/3rds allows smaller lenses that a dedicated m4/3rds lens might be available.

 

LouisB

 

Voiglander-Cosina has a 25mm f/.95 lens for M4/3, but it is manual. Making AF for fast lenses is very difficult. Best of luck!

[adan]

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Just sold my GH-1. In a year I'd actually produced just one piece of work with it (a video).

 

I won't bore you with the details - let's just say that, like Leica and Bill, 4/3rds (micro or otherwise) is in my past. Ultimately the IQ and the whole "feel" of the camera was more like a scaled-up P&S than a scaled-down 35mm. Not unlike APS (the film) or 110-format - both of which Leica also dallied with and quickly dropped.

_____________________

 

"why aren't Leica making more m4/3rds lenses?"

 

Because they have never "made" any at all. The 45 Macro is a Panasonic-made product that bears the Leica name because it met optical standards set forth in their partnership agreements. No part of it ever got closer to Solms or a Leica employee than emails saying "Is this good enough? Yes, it is."

 

So it is not as though there is some "Leica m4/3rds" assembly line now lying dormant.

[dickgrafixstop]

It may have more to do with the recognition that 4/3 and ~4/3 are already dead standards

as far as technological update. The geometrics and the surface area are inadequate to

significantly improve image quality and are a dead end as aps-c and full frame chips

continue to diminish in price.

[gyoung]

I am thinking seriously of getting one, especially as the latest firmware for the Panny now supports autofocus. It is a big lens, I was hoping that as m4/3rds allows smaller lenses that a dedicated m4/3rds lens might be available.

 

LouisB

 

If you look at the 4/3 rumors site, I think it likely that there will be a proper m4/3 version of the 25/1.4 in due course.

 

Gerry

[mjh]

It may have more to do with the recognition that 4/3 and ~4/3 are already dead standards as far as technological update. The geometrics and the surface area are inadequate to significantly improve image quality and are a dead end as aps-c and full frame chips

continue to diminish in price.

This is mostly off-topic as it has little bearing on Leica’s reasons not to embrace Micro FourThirds, but for what it’s worth: If you judge camera systems by their potential to grow the sensor then all those systems have reached a dead end by now. But the notion that sensors should grow is mistaken to begin with.

 

Maybe the source of this idea is a historical quirk: the first digital SLRs were mostly derived from 35 mm designs but had APS-C sensors – the only available/affordable size. But in 2002 the first DSLRs with 36 x 24 mm sensors surfaced and so there was an actual case of sensor growth within a camera system. But that was that; those SLR systems went from 35 mm film to APS-C and eventually to FF sensors only to get stuck there. There was no further growth from that point so if you want a bigger sensor you have to switch systems. And APS-C didn’t just go away, rather it thrives not only in APS-C DSLRs but also in some of the new mirrorless camera systems such as Samsung’s NX and Sony’s NEX – both are limited to APS-C by design. So all the camera systems are now effectively stuck at a certain sensor size and if that sensor size is limiting you as a photographer then there is no alternative but to switch.

 

In a way it is astonishing to see how FF sensors have failed to take the photographic world by storm. From 2002 to now there have been merely 15 FF models, compared to about 100 APS-C models and 26 models with a FourThirds sensor. In the FF world, things are developing at a rather slow pace. 2007 had brought 2 new FF cameras, there were 4 new models in 2008, 2 in 2009, and none so far in 2010.

[pico]

If you look at the 4/3 rumors site, I think it likely that there will be a proper m4/3 version of the 25/1.4 in due course.

 

Gerry

 

Voigtlander has been shipping 25mm f/.95 lenses in 4/3 mount for three months. There is quite a queue for the next batch. That big auction site has a seller who has a dozen or so for sale.

 

I agree with those who posit that 4/3 is dead. I've been working with the Panasonic G1 for a long time, and I am not impressed.

 

.

[jrc]

In a way it is astonishing to see how FF sensors have failed to take the photographic world by storm. From 2002 to now there have been merely 15 FF models, compared to about 100 APS-C models and 26 models with a FourThirds sensor. In the FF world, things are developing at a rather slow pace. 2007 had brought 2 new FF cameras, there were 4 new models in 2008, 2 in 2009, and none so far in 2010.

 

I think there are several reasons for this -- price, for one, and the fact that both 4/3 and APS-C are "good enough" for almost all uses except very large prints and some specialty uses (like architectural work, where tilt and shift is desirable.) In other words, they succeed for the same reason that the early Leicas led the charge against the higher-quality 4x5 cameras -- because the results were "good enough" for most professional uses in a package that was small enough to be easily handled and discreet. The fact is, the fully-pro D3 series and 1Ds series cameras are virtually as big as the old Speed Graphics in terms of weight and frontal area (conspicuousness.)

 

I think that the separate problems of noise and diffraction limitation mean that full-frame DSLRs are probably not going to get many more megapixels than they have right now -- some changes will be made in lenses, and in-camera processing, etc., just as they were with film, but improvements will be marginal, unless there's some big unknown breakthrough lurking offstage. At the same time, the new Pentax K-5 and Nikon D7000 have shown what can be done with a ~16 - ~18mp APS-C sensor. I have the K-5, and its low-light performance is astonishing...and I own a D3.

 

The problem with the APS-C sensors is that while they may be "good enough" for virtually everything that a FF camera does, the equipment is still quite large. Even with the NEX, we see a small body attached to what's really a pretty big lens. The m4/3 system, on the other hand, enables a substantial step down in size, especially in zoom lenses. My K-5 feels like a metal brick in my hand, while the m4/3 Pannys (I have the GF1 and GH1) feel more like plastic, but high quality plastic...a feel I don't mind at all.

 

I've pretty much decided to leave Nikon behind - it's just too big, and I don't need that huge panoply of capabilities built into a D3 or D3x. I prefer the compact size of the Pentax, and the range of lenses and accessories is good enough for what I do. But I prefer the m4/3 to the Pentax when that quality is "good enough," as it is most of the time, for my kind of shooting. The fact is, m4/3 in most ways is better than film, and only ten years ago, film was really good enough for us all.

 

I'd add that there are other things that will pull or push you away from certain systems. I *really* like the flexible LCD on the back of the GH1, and use it a lot, and for different kinds of things. I don't understand why the big DSLRs don't have them...but given the choice between two systems of roughly the same price and capability, I would choose the one with the flexible LCD, for that one feature alone. So I think non-lens, non-sensor features may become more important in the future than in the past.

 

JC