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Leica M Edition 60 - Your opinion


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Leica M Edition 60 - What's your opinion?  

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  1. 1. Leica M Edition 60 - What's your opinion?

    • Would have bought the special edition. Too bad it's sold out.
      22
    • As regular model for a reasonable price, please!
      181
    • Regular model, please. But with a slimmer housing.
      114
    • I like the approach but I'm not going to buy one.
      98
    • A digital camera without display doesn't make sense.
      212
    • Leica is completely mad if they offer such a camera.
      42


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As I've said in other circles, several very positive results occur from an LCD-less digital camera. Some results are directly related to the digital nature and some are advantages in film photography.

 

First, battery life extends dramatically without having to power an LCD. Laptop computers are still held hostage by the computer screen - SSD's and other advancements have dramatically reduced need for battery usage. Second, only storing in a DNG format means no writing a JPEG, which again saves battery life. Third, the back of the camera becomes much less to worry about scuffing, scraping or scratching without the LCD and the camera will function flawlessly.

 

From a film perspective, chimping is impossible! Many in the younger generation today have not used film cameras and are used to instant feedback. This is very good for learning photography. However, at some time, the photographer has to have enough confidence they can capture the image the way they want. That confidence provides the freedom to concentrate on surroundings and capture the images that truly mean something. Sure, pro-photographers already do this - they are pros and do this every day. However, my guess is there are many amateurs and very active hobby photographers that use the M system. Besides the rangefinder concept, the simple turning of an f/stop ring, shutter speed dial and focusing is the pleasure in my photography. The M does this extremely well and I love using film in my MP as a result.

 

The M60 or any similar M type camera brings the confidence of film photography to the digital age.

 

One consideration would be to allow a variation inside the camera. What if one could run a simple program to choose a few settings and write them to an SD card to load on the M60? The M-240 saves all settings to an SD card now. What if we could choose a simple JPEG mode and only a few JPEG type items? Then the journalistic photographers that need JPEGs could obtain those in an M60. It would all be transacted through software and the SD card into an existing M platform...

 

Responses?

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I would certainly purchase one to go along and eventually supplant my analog M's when film is no longer available.

I photograph people and do not stop to look and contemplate after each shot, people and action move and affter it's done, it's gone. This would be just the type of digital I would use.

I think the thought process that went into this camera is just short of brilliant.-Dick

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The idea of a 'basic' digital camera already exists in the ME. Having been around the brand a l o n g time as a user professionally and casually, Leica to me is simply a brand that is run by a Billionaire owner, or at least, largely so.

It's in an upmarket-upmarket now,and the 'design creativity' I expect from a company is lacking, and releasing a camera as an M60 falls flat. It seems pretty dang obvious that if I want to record images with-out the ability to instant review them on screen, I'll record on film.

What would have been nice would have been to see Leica redesign the eyepiece into a larger size thus improving the viewfinder, in other words, be bold forwards instead of backwards. Too, please realize Mr. Kaufmann, that you and your buddies at Audi are not camera designer's. Leica has done as much as it can with a 60 year-old design - keep the digital M as it is now, and truly reinvent it into another additional design - but have someone do it that knows what a camera is, other than an upmarket special edition.

I do like the idea of the Summilux on the X camera though. Remember, we all have opinions.....cheers.

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I'm not really sure I use my digital cameras for the LCD. It's really only a control interface. Provided I can control what I want, I don't really want an LCD. I never really objected to the LCD on my M9, and it is useful on the Monochrom. But I don't chimp. So the presence (or lack of it) doesn't really bother me. What appeals is the stripped down nature of this camera. If you remove the JPEG, then so much else falls away. For that reason alone, I think this camera is brilliant.

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This is the silliest thing I've ever seen come out of Leica. It strips out one of the biggest benefits to hit photography in decades and tries to sell it as a benefit. If people want nostalgia, then let them turn off the screen, or develop the willpower to not look. An alternative would be to add back the screen, but include an 'Hermes leather flap, edged with ermine to snap over the screen if you want to go 'old-school.' It could be called the 'King Ludwig Special Edition.' Don't forget the Lapis shutter release. :rolleyes:

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This is the silliest thing I've ever seen come out of Leica. It strips out one of the biggest benefits to hit photography in decades and tries to sell it as a benefit. If people want nostalgia, then let them turn off the screen, or develop the willpower to not look. An alternative would be to add back the screen, but include an 'Hermes leather flap, edged with ermine to snap over the screen if you want to go 'old-school.' It could be called the 'King Ludwig Special Edition.' Don't forget the Lapis shutter release. :rolleyes:

 

You would remove one of the biggest benefits of our age (choice), and sell that as progress?

 

This is a choice. If you like it (and have the money, yadda yadda), you can buy one. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

 

I think it is brilliant. Photography without distractions.

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I could care less about a display for preview. But how do you adjust parameters like manual lens selection, auto-ISO thresholds, exposure compensation, and advance mode?

 

Even if you dismiss the exposure-related parameters as unworthy of such a "purist" camera, certainly the ability to switch from standard to discrete advance or use an uncoded wide are valid?

 

Maybe it uses some sort of tethered programming like Canon did with certain parameters via 1894?

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Doesn't make sense to me in a digital camera, if you don't want to chimp then don't look at the screen. However I do like the idea of the ISO being accessible from the a dial/button on the camera body. It's one of my bug bears of the digital Ms to access the menu to change the ISO.

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Doesn't make sense to me in a digital camera, if you don't want to chimp then don't look at the screen. However I do like the idea of the ISO being accessible from the a dial/button on the camera body. It's one of my bug bears of the digital Ms to access the menu to change the ISO.

 

ISO is available from a button on the M-240. Very easy.

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Only 15% want a slimmer housing? Maybe people clicked the first 'Regular model' option before reading the next one. Why would people want to walk around with a brick like that?

 

I hope Leica develops this concept for people who actually would use the camera. I'm sure I don't need to remind the designers at Leica that it really does need.....

 

- strap lugs

- an M8 style battery indicator and shots-taken or shots-remaining

 

And why not a way to program certain options into the camera when it is tethered on the USB?

 

- oh, and SLIMMER HOUSING!

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But how do you adjust parameters like manual lens selection, auto-ISO thresholds, exposure compensation, and advance mode?

 

As no JPegs are generated, I'm assuming that if your lens is uncoded, nothing will be recorded in the EXIF and not adjustments will be made to the DNG file (colour shift and distortion) - these are relatively modest and can presumably be corrected in PP if required. You will be committed to PP with this camera in any event.

 

No auto-ISO.

 

No exposure compensation - you will do that with the shutter speed dial, and the exposure arrows in the viewfinder.

 

I assume that there will be no soft or discreet advance mode. They have been problematic with the M9, and apparently the shutter on the M(240) is the essence of quietness ...

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I am starting to feel the same way about Leica as I do about Apple

'Too little for far too much'……...Lenses excluded :)

 

And I just wish Leica would do away with senseless 'Bling' products……It's embarrassing !

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What's next ... a laptop without a screen?

  • Selling point: removes distraction, reflects radical concentration on the basic essentials required for writing, etc.
  • Motivational challenge: If you're really confident in your writing, why would you want to see it instantly?
  • Practical solution: attach your handy portable printer or download to a device with a screen when you want to see what you wrote.

;)

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I think a reverse concept makes much more sense; that is, a film camera with a digital display. So that you can instantly review the negative you have just exposed.

 

In the pre-digital era, that would have been brilliant. I think the closest we got to anything like that was a Nikon and/or Canon film camera that could record shooting data which you could download and review later.

 

The screen is what brought photography up to date with other arts. For 150 or so years, photography was technically limited in that it could not instantly show what you created. Polaroid cut the time dramatically, but wasn't quite instant. In other arts, you could instantly perceive and evaluate your creation and make modifications if desired:

Draw > see it

Paint > see it

Play an instrument > hear it

Sing > hear it

Dance > see it

Sculpt > see it

Write > read it

Photography was a little more like baking in that you had to mix ingredients and wait a while to taste the cake — not that there's anything wrong with that (if you're baking). I see the screen as removing a barrier that existed in photography but not in other arts. Happily, using it is still optional.

Edited by zlatkob
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In the pre-digital era, that would have been brilliant. I think the closest we got to anything like that was a Nikon and/or Canon film camera that could record shooting data which you could download and review later.

 

The screen is what brought photography up to date with other arts. For 150 or so years, photography was technically limited in that it could not instantly show what you created. Polaroid cut the time dramatically, but wasn't quite instant. In other arts, you could instantly perceive and evaluate your creation and make modifications if desired:

Draw > see it

Paint > see it

Play an instrument > hear it

Sing > hear it

Dance > see it

Sculpt > see it

Write > read it

Photography was a little more like baking in that you had to mix ingredients and wait a while to taste the cake — not that there's anything wrong with that (if you're baking). I see the screen as removing a barrier that existed in photography but not in other arts. Happily, using it is still optional.

Compose - read it.

Write a play - read it.

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