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Is it the IQ or the feel for you?


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Why can't one have both?

Horses for courses. There is nothing wrong with the image quality of the M and if one feels the need for a specialized high-pixel count camera there are other options. Personally I would skip things like A7R and go mid-format in that case to avoid the problems of a small 135 high-resolution  sensor.

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I have no doubt the Q is a wonderful tool, no doubt the fanboys are besides themselves with joy and admiration. Surely though after a short period of time the 1 fixed lens will become a limiting factor! Then it's onto either a Q Vario or the next piece of Bling with a Red Dot.. Carry on, Leica love you...

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Horses for courses. There is nothing wrong with the image quality of the M and if one feels the need for a specialized high-pixel count camera there are other options. Personally I would skip things like A7R and go mid-format in that case to avoid the problems of a small 135 high-resolution sensor.

This problems can be dealt with by scaling down the image or by having a medium resolution raw feature.

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I have no doubt the Q is a wonderful tool, no doubt the fanboys are besides themselves with joy and admiration. Surely though after a short period of time the 1 fixed lens will become a limiting factor! Then it's onto either a Q Vario or the next piece of Bling with a Red Dot.. Carry on, Leica love you...

 

I have no doubt people who buy Q have one or two M's or another interchangeable camera or another fixed-lens camera. In short, Q's fixed lens is very unlikely to become a limiting factor.

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Like others, this is not zealotry for me -- I shoot multiple brands, depending on the work. In the studio, when using strobes, or for anything moving, for me, it's Nikon.

 

My favorite in the Leica line is the M7. The closer any digital M can get to that body, the better for me. Pure feel. Looking through tens of thousands of photos in Lightroom, I can rarely tell, by IQ, which photo was shot with what camera or lens, save two that have a signature (anything shot on film and the Noctilux f/1). 

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This problems can be dealt with by scaling down the image or by having a medium resolution raw feature.

yes, but that will produce a lower resolution image, defeating the purpose of a high resolution image.
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Not much digital experience here but for me is more the fact to use a simple good tool. In the film era  M7 or Fm2, this latter even more oft than the F100! For this reason the only digital I use is still the old Leica X1 (GAS for upgrading it!)

robert

PS: this is because the IQ of most of actual cameras are ok with my expectations...

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But the option for the high resolution image will be there when you need it.

Yes, but then you will have the familiar problems again. Why not use medium format and have the best of both worlds?

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Yes, but then you will have the familiar problems again. Why not use medium format and have the best of both worlds?

 

Current medium format sensors are not the best of both worlds. There are always compromises.

It would be interesting to understand how well the new Leica S 007 (CMOS) perform at high ISO compared to the A7r-II.

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I'm not a brand loyal type, but I admire excellence.

 

The little digital Sonys, Nex-5 really opened the door to learning about and collecting some lenses. The rangefinder lenses gradually became most attractive to me because of the size, quality and history. I moved from Nex-5n, to A7r and then to plain A7 in 2013. By then I had quite few M and LTM lenses, like the 28 cron and ZM18.

 

In early January 14, I became convinced the stock A7 was never going to give film lenses justice 35mm and wider. Meanwhile M9 prices had dropped and I found a low count LN one, just back from NJ with a new sensor for 3500.

 

In my first days I was appalled by the "feel", the focus technique, the framing, and the mechanics of the camera. The act of shooting was strangely minimal. I had to laugh often using the camera it was so weird.

 

This was one of my first shots with the ZM18:

 

11864725336_5f328f4e66_b.jpg

Bus Stop by unoh7, M9 ZM 18 WO

 

I saw this shot and it trumped all that. My glass was set free. Really I saw many lenses for the first time in a near native state. So I just kept at it, and have shot over 100,000 frames with the M9 since then (had to get a new shutter LOL)

 

Now it's the A7 which feels weird. Literally nothing about it I prefer, but I had modded the camera with a thin filter cover just before my shutter went out last winter. So for six weeks I was back to the Sony.

 

16468105785_b35800495a_b.jpg

Thinkin by unoh7, A7.mod with Sonnetar

 

15832345104_186b657748_b.jpg

DSC00669 by unoh7, A7.mod 75 Lux

 

It's taken me some practice to learn to get the Sony RAWs, which are primitive compared to the M9, to look the way I like. But now, sometimes I need to check to see which camera I shot it with.

 

The Leica is my favorite, but I like the Sony again enough to often use it as mounted second body. :) The 50 cron is it's favorite lens.

 

17082205458_77c1b7acae_b.jpg

Mustang by unoh7, on Flickr

 

same subject M9 28 cron:

17062472647_44df1a2b8c_b.jpg

Mustangled by unoh7, on Flickr

 

So to the topic: it was IQ which made me try a Leica digital M body. Many thousands of frames later, I now love the feel :)

Edited by uhoh7
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Yes, but then you will have the familiar problems again. Why not use medium format and have the best of both worlds?

Because a high resolution Leica M will be a much more usable camera with fewer compromises to make for usability than a medium format.

Image quality does matter it's not just a marketing.

Edited by Mornnb
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I learnt from wiser people than myself that 24mp was as good as anything on film for a full frame 35mm camera. Should we ignore their advice?

 

A medium format camera can take a much higher number of megapixels. It is likely to be used in a studio on a tripod, or on a tripod outdoors. It would be heavy and expensive if you want quality.

That might have suited me if that was my requirement. It wasn't. However much I'd love to try out a Hasselblad it really isn't practical to carry around for very long.

 

Each to their own.

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I learnt from wiser people than myself that 24mp was as good as anything on film for a full frame 35mm camera. Should we ignore their advice?

 

A medium format camera can take a much higher number of megapixels. It is likely to be used in a studio on a tripod, or on a tripod outdoors. It would be heavy and expensive if you want quality.

That might have suited me if that was my requirement. It wasn't. However much I'd love to try out a Hasselblad it really isn't practical to carry around for very long.

 

Each to their own.

24MP is already more capable than the highest resolution small format film.

However this is the digital Leica, it is not limited by the abilities of film. It is the future of Leica that is the question, technology today allows for a better Leica than any in the past with higher image quality. With a high resolution 35mm sensor it is possible for a Leica to match the quality of medium format film. For Canon is already doing such with the 5Ds.

What one requires for ultra-resolution small format is incredibly sharp lenses. The M platform already has this.

To avoid the issues of shutter speed and stability that comes with high resolution it would be very easy to build a medium raw feature in the camera that would produce images of around 20MP. This is also what Canon is doing in the 5Ds.

Edited by Mornnb
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Canon does not make MF cameras. Leica does and will not mistake the M for a billboard camera hopefully. 

 

Some Canon cameras work great also as MF cameras, with ML firmware and a Zacuto finder.

 

Cameras with more MP than the M240 are not "billboard cameras", they just have better sensors that can take advantage of high resolution lenses.

Leica has designed newer M lenses to outresolve "billboard cameras", and it would not make sense to overengineer the lenses if they had no plans for higher resolution M bodies.

This means we will enjoy our M lenses also on newer high density sensors. That's good. Take a big breath and relax. Pixels are our friends.

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To avoid the issues of shutter speed and stability that comes with high resolution it would be very easy to build a medium raw feature in the camera that would produce images of around 20MP.

 

This is not the purpose of smaller raw formats.

The purpose is keeping the file size (and computational requirements) down in cases you don't need the extra resolution,

 

On the A7r-II 42MP sensor, you only need about 25% faster shutter speed than with the M240 sensor (24MP)... and that is without IBIS.

Edited by CheshireCat
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[...] Pixels are our friends.

 

They are not mine and neither are they for Leica hopefully. I suspect that the new M will have more pixels because it becomes difficult to ask a lot of money for a (now) mere 24MP sensor but IQ has nothing to do with quantity and my favorite cameras IQ wise remain the 15MP Sigma DP2M and the 10MP Leica M8.2. YMMV.

Edited by lct
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For me it's IQ and feel. I love the weight, the form factor, the build quality, the tiny lenses and the full manual experience.

 

I also derive enormous and perverse pleasure from seeing the expressions of friends who pick it up and try to lock focus with a half press of the shutter button. [emoji4]

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