Hey, it's September, where are our M grips?

[marknorton]

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As I was passing Solms this morning, I thought I would stop and rattle the factory shop's cage. I had it in mind that when I mention "Multifunktionshandgriff M", his face would light up and he would point to a box on the floor of freshly delivered stock.

 

Fat chance! He pulled a face when I said they were announced a year ago and said they had been promised in August but nothing happened and there was nothing reliable he could tell me.

 

It's clearly a shambles rivalling the S-lens central shutter farce.

[photolandscape]

One of the leading dealers told me Friday that there is no delivery in sight. All of the indicators as to when one might expect a shipment aren't there--no advance notices from reps or Leica itself at this point.

 

He also told me, not surprisingly, that they have quite a few orders on hand for M grips, and just like the cameras themselves, they will go down the list as they receive and begin to ship them. I don't have one pre-ordered, so as this point I think I would be "lucky" to receive the basic grip before 2014.

 

This is not just disappointing, it is truly unbelievable.

[barjohn]

What reason other than finances could explain Leica's inability to deliver simple accessories, that in all likelihood are contracted out items, a year after announcement?

[marknorton]

Well the factory certainly seemed busy, the car park full with an overflow one opposite and people, me included, parked on the street outside. Inside reception, which doubles as an exhibition area (currently a rather uninspiring repetitive series of trees silhouetted against building backgrounds) and the Leica shop, lots of products on display with a solitary black M all by itself in a display case, presumably waiting to be joined by the long-awaited accessories.

 

Over in Wetzlar, I took a quick look at the new HQ which seems to be inching forwards though I'd hardly believe it is 4 months since I was last here. At this rate, it's going to be a while. As I drove past and did a U-turn in Am Leitzpark, I saw two workers, one carrying a ladder, the other scraping mud off his boots on a kerb-stone. Maybe they are all busy fitting out the interior but it was hardly a scene of feverish activity.

[jaques]

On the flip side - they are a small company in a niche space that almost went broke a few years back. Now they can't keep up with demand. This is good news for all of us - just need to be patient. My M9 still works, and I bet you can still grip your M in your hands!

 

whilst it is true that - quite a few years back now- Leica was verging on collapse: since that time many of us have contributed substantial sums to the Leica coffers... and they turned a cool 42.4 MILLION EURO operating profit in 2011... not to be sneezed at. I had though the M camera year would be the year they finally caught up with demand- but it seems they simply cannot do that- not for love nor money.

[wattsy]

As others have said, the non-appearance of the standard grip is particularly puzzling. Leica managed to get the grip for the M8 available pretty much as soon as the camera was released (as they did with the slightly restyled grips for M8.2/M9, etc.) so it seems odd if the current non-show is a supplier related problem.

 

Thinking off the top of my head, is it possible that Leica have discovered a problem with having a grip per se fitted to the new M? Could the presence of either grip make the camera less efficient at dissipating internal heat, perhaps enough of a difference to give Leica cause for concern?

[andybarton]

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Interesting idea

 

Do M240s get hotter in the hand than M9s?

[algrove]

Frankly, I have used mine only in pretty hot weather. Like the M9 the body seems to hold lots of heat, but hotter than M9's is a hard one for me since I have not used an M9 since late last year. That being said I do not notice my MM being as hot to the touch in hot weather as the M 240. But these are only guesses and not hard evidence.

[george +]

In the meantime there is the RRS grip. Yes, it is a bit of a handful and I wish they would come out with a slimmer profile. But it is beautifully made, fits well and the baseplate is a full width quick release plate. And the service is fantastic.

[UliWer]

What reason other than finances could explain Leica's inability to deliver simple accessories, that in all likelihood are contracted out items, a year after announcement?

 

I don't know the reasons.

 

If you interested you might ask here:

 

Leica Camera integriert GPS von u-blox in die legendären Leica M-Kameras | Moneycab

 

It may be just incidence, though it seems strange that the cooperation of u-blox with Leica for the grip's gps-functions were only published some weeks ago. It sounds as if they just started it. Perhaps the orginal partner for the grip's electronics didn't deliver well and they had to find a new one.

[gravastar]

This could be old news, the article uses both present and past text. "...Leica Camera uses u-blox GPS for geotagging ..." and "...has been selected by Leica Camera as a supplier of GPS technology..."

 

Didn't Jono Slack's (M240 beta tester) skiing pictures contain GPS data in the EXIFs? If so, GPS was working long before this announcement which would tend to indicate Leica has changed partners and a possible explanation of the delay.

 

Bob.

[barjohn]

I have the grip for the XV and just want the finger loop. How hard can that be?

[algrove]

Don't ask for you may get disappointing news.

[Guest NEIL-D-WILLIAMS]

I thought that part of the idea of having a Leica M system was to have a small camera. Why would you want to add that monstrosity of a grip to the M anyway...............

[algrove]

I thought that part of the idea of having a Leica M system was to have a small camera. Why would you want to add that monstrosity of a grip to the M anyway...............

 

If you must ask you do not understand.

[Guest NEIL-D-WILLIAMS]

If you must ask you do not understand.

I fully understand that they are ugly and that they will make the camera more like a DSLR with all the rest of the BS that comes with it

And wanting GPS data on a picture is beyond me, if you take a picture of the London bridge it's easy enough to remember where you took the picture ...........right:D

[beewee]

This could be old news, the article uses both present and past text. "...Leica Camera uses u-blox GPS for geotagging ..." and "...has been selected by Leica Camera as a supplier of GPS technology..."

 

Didn't Jono Slack's (M240 beta tester) skiing pictures contain GPS data in the EXIFs? If so, GPS was working long before this announcement which would tend to indicate Leica has changed partners and a possible explanation of the delay.

 

Bob.

 

 

This is definitely old news. I recall reading this in some GPS industry publication in Oct. of last year.

 

Regarding the technical challenges, when I first saw the grip, my first thought was actually: "What the hell was Leica thinking when they decided to put a GPS antenna on the hand grip???"

 

Being someone who actually designs GPS receivers, this is one of the worst ideas that I've ever seen for the following reasons:

 

1) GPS signals are extremely weak - picture a 50 watt light bulb shining at the earth from 20,000km away. That's how strong the signal is when it gets here.

 

2) Water is extremely good at absorbing/shielding 1+ GHz RF signals (GPS L1 signal sits on 1.57542 GHz). Remember Apples' Antenna-gate problem? Studies have shown that it only takes a few mm of water on top of an antenna to make your GPS receiver completely useless. This was done for the FAA many years ago to determine how rain and ice build up on antenna enclosures may affect GPS reference stations used for WAAS/EGNOS for which aviation applications depend on.

 

3) Your hand/fingers/flesh is mostly made of water - this is not good for GPS performance if it's wrapped around a GPS antenna.

 

4) Even if your hand/finger was not directly covering the antenna, the performance of a GPS antenna can be affected by nearby conductive material (i.e. hands, fingers, camera body)

 

5) The type of GPS antenna used can greatly influence the performance of the GPS receiver. The shape of the grip limits the antenna options to a helical antenna which is highly directional with decent sensitivity (see 6 for the problem when using this type of antenna) or a ceramic antenna which is omnidirectional but have much lower sensitivity (bad when the signal is weak such as in urban environments, under trees, etc).

 

6) Based on the design of the handgrip, the only logical place to put the antenna would be at the top of the finger grip. The problem with this location is that the camera body (made of brass) shields half the sky while the fingers shield the other half. This means that only satellites with a very high elevation gain (assuming the camera is pointed horizontally in landscape compositions) will be track able. As soon a the camera is tilted into portrait mode, the directionality of the GPS receiver changes drastically and the receiver will lose lock on most of the satellites being tracked. Not only that, the GPS receiver can't instantly reacquire satellites, it may take several seconds, at which point, you've already taken the photo. Moreover, if the top of the camera happens to face a big building nearby which is blocking most of the sky, you just won't be able to acquire satellites. Even when the camera is simply hung around your neck, your torso will be blocking satellites from half the sky.

 

In summary, based on Leica's design, you'd be lucky if you can get a GPS position in portrait mode reliably.

 

There are other problems with this design from a GPS positioning standpoint such as the slow time to first position needed for the receiver to acquire the signal, get the satellite position via the ephemeris (taking 30+ seconds without AGPS), and then ensuring that this is done for at least 4 satellites before it can actually get a position. And this is assuming that the satellites are tracked for 30+ seconds without any loss of signal lock (i.e. happens when you drive under a bridge, walk inside, walk under trees, etc...).

 

All of these challenges combined with a poor antenna placement make for a really horrible GPS receiver grip - probably why Leica decided not to release it until it can guaranty that it will actually perform halfway up to expectations (which I can bet it will never).

[beewee]

And wanting GPS data on a picture is beyond me, if you take a picture of the London bridge it's easy enough to remember where you took the picture ...........right:D

 

That's true, but if you took a photo from the top of a mountain in China (or France, Switzerland, Italy, Nepal, etc...l) and you can't read Chinese (or French, German, Italian, Nepalese, etc...), how do you know which mountain top you took those photos from?

 

For that matter, if you took a photo of some really interesting trees in the middle of an oasis that is in a giant desert, how do you know which oasis it was? Or where it was?

[k-hawinkler]

Beewee,

 

Many thanks. Very interesting.

I guess I won't be waiting so anxiously for the GPS hand grip any more.

Except that grip is also to provide other functionalities.

Luckily there is an iPhone GPS App that works very well with a camera.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[ahkai]

...... and you can't read Chinese (or French, German, Italian, Nepalese, etc...), how do you know which mountain top you took those photos from?

 

Apart from Chinese, can always try Google Translator.....