colonel Posted January 13, 2015 Share #581 Posted January 13, 2015 Advertisement (gone after registration) I didn't realize how much heaver the M7 was then the M9 to be honest. I forgot to measure them loaded. M9 Weight 952 g (33.6 oz) 1,162 g (41.0 oz) loaded Length 217 mm (8.5 in) Barrel length 125 mm (4.9 in) M7. The "Priest" Weight: 26.0 US Short Tons (23,586 kg; 51,998 lb) Overall Length: 19.75 ft (6.02 m) Width: 9.42 ft (2.87 m) Height: 9.68 ft (2.95 m) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 13, 2015 Posted January 13, 2015 Hi colonel, Take a look here What do you want in the next digital M?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted January 13, 2015 Share #582 Posted January 13, 2015 Does that mean that you want to return to the M8/9 battery? That is the main cause of the weight increase. What I would like next: #1 hands down - self-cleaning sensor. Less weight - getting it back to what the M9 weighs would be great. More dynamic range. The ability to shoot 1/6400 and 1/8000. Customizable frame lines... like 16:9 or 2.35:1 Less lag when using LV/EVF. What I DON'T want changed: the rangefinder. I find the rangefinder to be an amazing way to manually focus. Far easier than manually focusing a DSLR. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Lowe Posted January 13, 2015 Share #583 Posted January 13, 2015 Does that mean that you want to return to the M8/9 battery? That is the main cause of the weight increase. Definitely not, but perhaps there are opportunities to use lightweight materials. It's a fantasy list, anyhow. I am just a big believer in "adding lightness" as Colin Chapman once said. I'm also completely nonplussed by the movie mode and wouldn't miss it if it were dumped. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted January 14, 2015 Share #584 Posted January 14, 2015 Does that mean that you want to return to the M8/9 battery? That is the main cause of the weight increase. I'm not saying I want this but...if Leica reverted to the non-LED frame line illumination (but kept the other rangefinder improvements) and deleted LV and movie mode, I'm wondering if the M9 battery might be sufficient. Even better if they could up the capacity say 25-30% without increasing the thickness...this has been done numerous times with other batteries. Given Leica managed to get the double-thickness M240 battery in without increasing the camera's thickness, maybe reverting to a thinner battery would then let them put in a second card slot, as seems to be the trend with pro-level cameras these days. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 14, 2015 Share #585 Posted January 14, 2015 If you take a digital M camera apart, the main weight turns out to be the brass top. Without it it feels surprisingly light. I am not quite sure that I would appreciate a thinned-down top, getting the weight down would probably entail using something like carbonfiber. I was a bit surprised to be honest that Leica did not make that switch with the M8. On the other hand, having a light camera with a couple of Kg lens hanging in front does not do much for stability. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted January 14, 2015 Share #586 Posted January 14, 2015 perhaps there are opportunities to use lightweight materials. This may be seen as heresy by some or many, but if they went to a magnesium case (with or without polycarbonate cladding) they could save weight. And I really doubt anyone including Leica really expects people be using these cameras 50 years from now, so I'm not entirely sure there's a reason for them to be built with that in mind. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 14, 2015 Share #587 Posted January 14, 2015 Advertisement (gone after registration) It would be nothing new - they have been fiddling with other materials on the R8/9 series and I guess the zinc of the M6 was a bit lighter too - but nobody would want that back... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted January 14, 2015 Share #588 Posted January 14, 2015 If you take a digital M camera apart, the main weight turns out to be the brass top. Without it it feels surprisingly light. I am not quite sure that I would appreciate a thinned-down top, getting the weight down would probably entail using something like carbonfiber. I was a bit surprised to be honest that Leica did not make that switch with the M8. On the other hand, having a light camera with a couple of Kg lens hanging in front does not do much for stability. But don't most of us support the lens with the left hand under it and/or the body @ it's center of gravity while shooting? Seems to me as long as they didn't weaken the body-lens mount interface there wouldn't be a big problem. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 14, 2015 Share #589 Posted January 14, 2015 Yes, but the centre of gravity shifts forward in that case, extending the arm and losing stability as a result. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted January 14, 2015 Share #590 Posted January 14, 2015 Not sure I agree with that for a couple of reasons. One being that long heavy lenses often outweigh whatever camera body it's attached to by half a kilo or more, so I can't imagine stability would be reduced in any signficiant amount if the M were made 100g lighter. Another thing is that when shooting the camera is pressed against the photographer's face which is where the bulk of the stability comes from. I just mounted my 400/6.8 and 70-210/4 on my M4 with a shoe-mount finder to simulate the shooting position with EVF and honestly I can't feel there is a loss of stability. I even tried holding it away from me as though viewing on the LCD. Stability definitely suffers, but indistinguishably between the two cameras. (I'm sure though, if it was a problem, the Leicagoodies dude would mate a $0.25 100g metal weight and a $0.10 1/4x20 screw, give it a cute name and sell it for $50 ) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimKasson Posted January 14, 2015 Share #591 Posted January 14, 2015 Yes, but the centre of gravity shifts forward in that case, extending the arm and losing stability as a result. Not if you use the Pete Souza grip, with left palm under the camera base, fingers supporting the front of the lens. PBS Documentary About White House Photographer Pete Souza Jim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BerndReini Posted January 14, 2015 Share #592 Posted January 14, 2015 I recently talked to a photographer that the shutter slap that plagues the Sony A7R is mainly a result of the camera being too light, so he uses a battery grip to add weight to the camera. A camera that is too light for a lens is not a good thing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted January 14, 2015 Share #593 Posted January 14, 2015 I recently talked to a photographer that the shutter slap that plagues the Sony A7R is mainly a result of the camera being too light, so he uses a battery grip to add weight to the camera. A camera that is too light for a lens is not a good thing. I would have to question that photographer's conclusion and therefore your logic that follows. My opinion is the shutter slap that plagues the A7R is entirely a result of the shutter design and insufficient damping. The battery grip helps because it attenuates vibration. So does a leather half-case which weighs practically nothing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rscheffler Posted January 14, 2015 Share #594 Posted January 14, 2015 Somewhat OT, but coincidentally I was reading a bit about that camera yesterday. One Leica tie-in is that the 14MP CMOS sensor used in the DCS-14 was supplied to Kodak by FillFactory... The guys who started CMOSIS - designers of the M240's CMOS sensor - were from FillFactory. A long time ago, I was one of the first purchasers of a Kodak CMOS FF camera. I believe it was Kodak's first FF CMOS camera. It was 14MP and had no AA filter, which turned out to be a bad combination: false color all over the place. I'd only had it for a day or so when I took it to Death Valley (yeah, I know; a classic dumb move). I was at Badwater making pictures of the sunset over the Panamints. The clouds were great, and I kept working well after sundown. It got darker and darker (no moon), the exposures got longer and longer, and I could see the camera less and less well. I made an exposure, and pressed the shutter release again. Nothing happened. After a few seconds, the camera started working again. That behavior kept up, and got worse as the exposures got longer. Back at Furnace Creek, I figured out what had happened and turned dark-frame subtraction off. Let's say that you and I are not clueless klutzes and there is no way to turn the feature off in the M240. This sounds like a camera manufacturer who thinks he knows better than the photographer what the right thing to do is. It does not sound like a camera designer what believes in minimal in-camera raw processing. The sad truth is that single shot black frame subtraction is a crude way to deal with dark current. It reduces frame-to-frame-invariant noise, but actually increases frame-to-frame-variant noise by a factor of 1.414. A better way is to make a series of 16 or so dark exposures and average them to produce a correcting image that can be subtracted from the real ones to reduce dark-current noise. An immense benefit in most circumstances is that the real exposures can be made with no delay in between. A disadvantage is the requirement to precede or follow the real exposures with the calibration exposures. There are several programs that automate the process. One is called Images Plus. Jim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted January 14, 2015 Share #595 Posted January 14, 2015 I recently talked to a photographer that the shutter slap that plagues the Sony A7R is mainly a result of the camera being too light, so he uses a battery grip to add weight to the camera. A camera that is too light for a lens is not a good thing. Naw, it happened when I had my A7r mounted on a heavy tripod. It is something else. Did you know that Leica saw a 25% increase in lenses returned for calibration when the A7r was introduced. According to my source, Leica concluded that the A7r mount + adaptors were so out of tolerance that Leica lenses often were not coincident at infinity with the A7r. So, customers were sending them back to Leica to be calibrated thinking that is was the lens. Rick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 14, 2015 Share #596 Posted January 14, 2015 Not if you use the Pete Souza grip, with left palm under the camera base, fingers supporting the front of the lens. PBS Documentary About White House Photographer Pete Souza Jim Any grip, especially a pistol grip, improves stability, that is undoubtedly true, but it cannot change the centre of gravity of the camera/lens combo. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exodies Posted January 14, 2015 Share #597 Posted January 14, 2015 It looks like Pete Souza isn't using his left hand to focus; I don't think his gesture is adaptable to M operation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted January 14, 2015 Share #598 Posted January 14, 2015 The M6 Classic, M6TTL and M7 thickness are the same (they fit the same ERC). The reason for the specs being thicker than an M4/M4-2/M4-P is due entirely to the protruding ISO dial of the metered models. The body castings themselves are identical in depth. OTOH the M8/M9 3.5mm depth increase over an M4 is the body casting itself. All anyone has to do to verify this is measure an M6/TTL/7/P baseplate against an M4-era baseplate (will be found to be the same); then measure that against an M8/9/240 baseplate. Exactly. I don't know where Harold was taking his measurements from but the M film bodies (not sure about the M5) are all the same thickness and are all thinner than the digital M bodies. The body casting thickness is the important dimension as it is that which determines how thick the camera feels. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 14, 2015 Share #599 Posted January 14, 2015 M5 is the same afaik. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
105012 Posted January 14, 2015 Share #600 Posted January 14, 2015 Exactly. I don't know where Harold was taking his measurements from but the M film bodies (not sure about the M5) are all the same thickness and are all thinner than the digital M bodies. The body casting thickness is the important dimension as it is that which determines how thick the camera feels. I just used a ruler to measure the thickness of my M3. I measured the top plate in three places and the base plate in two places. All five measurements were the same: 31mm. It is an individual preference, but for me this feels just right, I can carry the M3 all day in the hand with great comfort. A picture, just because Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/215101-what-do-you-want-in-the-next-digital-m/?do=findComment&comment=2746988'>More sharing options...
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