daveolson Posted September 25, 2011 Share #1 Posted September 25, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) I've been away from the Leica forums for the past several months, following surgery and removal of my entire left knee. OK, so much for that as I'm sure it would bore most of you. What I'd like to know is how strong is Leica in the playing field. I see they still produce one film camera, the MP. All the other are digital. All of my digital, are either Canon 40 and a 7D plus my little Leica C-2. All my other Leica equipment is film, both Ms and Rs with a nice assortment of lenses for both. What seems to be the prevailing winds from Leica and the industry in general? Is it time to dump one or the other mediums? Would appreciate any candid opinions based on fact. Thanks. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted September 25, 2011 Posted September 25, 2011 Hi daveolson, Take a look here Back after long injury, playing catch up. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
andybarton Posted September 25, 2011 Share #2 Posted September 25, 2011 Welcome to the forum They still produce the M7 too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted September 25, 2011 Share #3 Posted September 25, 2011 If you were a pro I don't think you'd be asking this question (but my answer would be to go all-digital except for a few specialist areas (high-end weddings, fine art...). If you don't take photographs for the money, the prevailing wind is strongly digital - but why should you care? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Henry Posted September 25, 2011 Share #4 Posted September 25, 2011 Welcome Dave, To tell you what I think of digital and not digital, it's easy : I keep the two systems : my M9 and M8 and my R cameras (3) with series of M (6)or R (5) lenses I never had other brands because I prefer to stay in Leica I have a slight preference for the film for the natural side Good recovery and show us soon your photos Best Henry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IkarusJohn Posted September 25, 2011 Share #5 Posted September 25, 2011 What seems to be the prevailing winds from Leica and the industry in general? Is it time to dump one or the other mediums? Would appreciate any candid opinions based on fact. Thanks. Well, I guess the starting point is that I'm sure all your cameras still work as well as they ever did, and film is still available. So, whatever is happening at Leica or elsewhere won't really change what you have, or your shooting style. In terms of trends, it seems that the R system is well and truly abandoned. Leica is focussed on providing the best quality lenses they can (mostly aspherical, some with floating elements). The drive to increased megapixels in sensors has probably plateaued, thought no one has told the manufacturers. Leica has stuck with minimal in camera interference with the raw picture data, which seems to have confused some people but pleased others. The current Leica line up is: Film - M7 & MP Digital - X1, M9, M9P, S2, S2P The S2, with its larger format, autofocus lenses and generally state of the art medium format product placement is the technology test bed for Leica, so it is a likely source for future development. There is an expectation of an EVIL system, using a APS-C (min) sensor, to take both M and R series lenses, but with its own autofocus lenses. This will be priced somewhere between the X1 (or whatever replaces it in 2012) and the M10 (which may come later than 2012). Leica lenses of any size or flavour are hard to come by. They are trying to double production over the next few years, and they are supposed to move back to Wetzlar in 2013. They are making a tidy profit for the first time in a generation. THe Leica User Forum continues to be entertaining, fractious and largely informative, with the usual suspects sometimes straying into arrogant, dismissive, sarcastic and generally unhelpful posts from time to time. Then again, you get some gems. That probably covers it. Cheers John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveolson Posted September 26, 2011 Author Share #6 Posted September 26, 2011 Thanks to all for the insight. In the world of digital cameras it changes as fast as iPod models, for example. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted September 26, 2011 Share #7 Posted September 26, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) I've been away from the Leica forums for the past several months, following surgery and removal of my entire left knee. OK, so much for that as I'm sure it would bore most of you.What I'd like to know is how strong is Leica in the playing field. I see they still produce one film camera, the MP. All the other are digital. All of my digital, are either Canon 40 and a 7D plus my little Leica C-2. All my other Leica equipment is film, both Ms and Rs with a nice assortment of lenses for both. What seems to be the prevailing winds from Leica and the industry in general? Is it time to dump one or the other mediums? Would appreciate any candid opinions based on fact. Thanks. If you already have Ms, then you can stick to them. There's plenty of film to shoot! The price of an M9 could be years of film. That said, I've been using Ms since 1965. Still have eight of them, but bought an M9 and it has spoiled me. It is all I use for 35mm today. It could do the same to you. Good luck on the knee. I hope they replaced it, or will. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
delander † Posted September 26, 2011 Share #8 Posted September 26, 2011 It is not time to 'dump' film, probably never will be, B&W will definitely continue. Leica's future is with digital. For the M8, M9 and S2 they use custom made CCD sensors from Kodak without anti-aliasing filters, unlike the CMOS sensors used by Canon which have anti-aliasing filters. The Kodak/Leica sensors along with the quality of Leica lenses give superb colour rendition and sharpness in the images. Now perhaps is the time to stump up for a Leica M9 to use with the lenses you already have. Hope the knee problem improves! Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Fluff Posted September 27, 2011 Share #9 Posted September 27, 2011 If you were a pro I don't think you'd be asking this question (but my answer would be to go all-digital except for a few specialist areas (high-end weddings, fine art...). Fine art maybe, but you'll struggle to find even the high-end wedding guys using film now. Jeff Ascough, who used to be Leica's poster-boy for film-based wedding shooting went over to (Canon) digital a few years back, complaining that even at his prices, decent film processing and printing had become just too expensive and hard to contend with. As a footnote, I shoot weddings on Canon digital and Leica M9, and the only camera I use for personal work is the M9. It's a tremendous camera, and while 'better' will surely follow, and spending that much on a digital camera seems counterintuitive, the rewards from it have been massive already. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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