New Leica M 240 follow-up in 2017 : The speculations.

[cirke]

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The reason you're not seeing answers that are coherent to you is that your question rests on a false premise.

 

For example, I have used M cameras since the early 1980s. In most respects they have been better suited to my needs than any other camera. But they have never been perfect and I don't think it is reasonable to expect any camera ever to be perfect.

 

So I talk about the things that would improve the camera for my purposes. Some of the things may be features that you consider have no place in an M camera, and that is an equally valid opinion. Some of those improvements may even materialise in a new version and spoil the camera for you, and then you may express your disappointment and a new wish-list might emerge, from you and other like-minded M enthusiasts..

 

This all happens because the M cameras suit us so well but are inevitably slightly imperfect for each of us in different ways. It is not simply a question of ditching them for a Nikon just because there's a Nikon feature we admire and might like to see adapted for use on an M .

 

I can't see what is incoherent about this. It all feels right and proper and entirely rational.

 

exactly what I  think ... but  in good English :-) 

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[Exodies]

If the framelines were accurately displayed they wouldn't be rectangles; would they have straight sides?

 

It would be handy if the new M ran Lightroom mobile.

 

ETA on second thoughts it would be impossible to display accurate framelines. Due to the different view points there are places in the sensor picture which don't exist in the viewfinder image.

[IkarusJohn]

...

It is perfectly reasonable to like something very much and to want improvements. What is wrong with that?

My point entirely.

 

If the M10 is intended to capture the legacy M, complete with improved viewfinder (again), it would be great to have an M mount camera, compact, manual everything with the clarity of thought of the original, which dealt with those legacy issues. Yes, yes, we all love the M camera (don't forget, I have 4, and I use them), but a $10,000 camera which has inaccurate frame lines and a fixed (and vague) focusing patch and centre weighted metering spot which does not adjust for focal length?

 

I think it's quite reasonable to ask Leica to address the limitations inherent in a 60 year old design before adding video (and before the dentist say they like video, that's not the point - it's having a camera boasting "the essentials" when they're adding incomplete festures, when the basics really need to be improved).

 

It is okay to love using a product, even if it's stupid expensive, and point out that some things could be better. The SL shows Leica is quite capable of producing a modern, well thought out digital camera that works very well out of the box.

[lct]

Show me such a limitation-less system in working condition and i buy it right now but so far i don't see anything new coming to replace the optical rangefinder.

[IkarusJohn]

Show me such a limitation-less system in working condition and i buy it right now but so far i don't see anything new coming to replace the optical rangefinder.

The EVF on the SL is fantastic; the optical viewfinder on the S is about as good as it gets. Yep, both ttl systems, which the M system is not. But to say "no system is perfect" is a poor excuse to do nothing. I thought your Kolari mods were perfect...

[lct]

Indeed neither SL nor A7 are rangefinders as you say John. I know what a mirrorless camera is i have three of them. They replace more or less brillantly the SLRs i was using in the past. But a TTL camera is a TTL camera and an RF camera is an RF camera. If i want a new M it is not for having another TTL camera, it is because i like rangefinders...

[IkarusJohn]

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Sorry, I don't follow your point - you said "Show me such a limitationless system ..."

 

Surely, the fact that it's a rangefinder (and the only proper rangefinder system in 35mm format) doesn't mean Leica should never improve it. I'm just suggesting we need a bit of honesty about the limits of a 60 year old design.

 

No one said "limitationless" - that was your misrepresentation of what I thought I has said reasonsbly clearly.

 

Meanwhile, people fret about critical issues like thickness, 50MP and video. This is a digital camera. Dropping a full frame sensor into a film body was quite a feat by Leica; but it is showing up some fundamental "limitations". To suggest perfection cannot be achieved as an excuse to do nothing to address those limitations is, at best, a strawman argument.

 

The strengths of the M system are its lenses and clarity of focus on direct control of aperture, shutter and ISO - even removing the LCD, menus and white balance worked - it showed that these core variables are as valid today as they were when Henry Fox-Talbot came up with the negative. As brillliant as the current optical-mechanical viewfinder is, it just maybe best relegated to a "traditionalist" M10, but it isn't really fit for purpose.

[lct]

Well i don't follow your point either but it does not mean that you are wrong of course, just that we don't see the same things in the same way. Let's forget your dear SL and my "perfect" A7s mod for a moment if you please and let's look at the M240. That camera is far from being perfect or course but it has the best optical rangefinder ever made since the M3. It is a fact, we all know this if we have any experience with rangefinders. Then show me the better system Leica is supposed to make to improve it and i will buy it right know as i suggested above.

[lucerne]

Jaap

Which lens was used for the group dancing video?

[otto.f]

I have a better idea: merge this topic with the 'Leica M10' topic, tie a ribbon around it and launch it into space. Someone will find it and will conclude that every opinion here has been said twice or thrice in different words

[IkarusJohn]

Well i don't follow your point either but it does not mean that you are wrong of course, just that we don't see the same things in the same way. Let's forget your dear SL and my "perfect" A7s mod for a moment if you please and let's look at the M240. That camera is far from being perfect or course but it has the best optical rangefinder ever made since the M3. It is a fact, we all know this if we have any experience with rangefinders. Then show me the better system Leica is supposed to make to improve it and i will buy it right know as i suggested above.

No idea - I'm not Leica. But my lack of technical solution is not, in all honesty, a reasonable test. It is pretty clear that the demands of digital photography are beyond what the current optical system can deliver (unless you want it trapped forever where it is). Perhaps the answer is an optical system can't. I would not complain if Leica released an M mount camera without the optical system, provided it deal with those limitations effectively and elegantly - they're good at that. The fact they're prepared to have 4 different versions of the current digital M on the market at once suggests Leica is open to new ideas.

 

You might not buy it, but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

 

The thought that the M camera will always be stuck with the current rangefinder mechanism is, at best, quaint.

[IkarusJohn]

I have a better idea: merge this topic with the 'Leica M10' topic, tie a ribbon around it and launch it into space. Someone will find it and will conclude that every opinion here has been said twice or thrice in different words

Remember the patronising "armchair ceo" comment of about 5 years ago? Discussions of what is possible, and what people might want and why are interesting, to me anyway. Whingeing about what a current camera is or is not, not so much. The camera and systems are what they are.

 

What posts like yours overlook is that Leica listens. We wouldn't have the SL or M-D (as just two cases in point) otherwise.

[lct]

[...] The thought that the M camera will always be stuck with the current rangefinder mechanism is, at best, quaint.

 

I won't bother you ad nauseam with my point of view but i honestly don't see anything quaint in the idea that an M is a rangefinder camera and that Leica did not find anything to replace the optical one so far. I would if anybody else had invented a working, say, laser based or electronic rangefinder but for now such a new system does simply not exist on cameras actually so i don't see any room to criticize Leica from this viewpoint. Design quality and sluggish performances are another story.

[IkarusJohn]

In that case, the M camera based on the optical rangefinder will always have a fixed focussing/metering patch, regardless of the focal length used, immovable focu/metering patch and inaccurate frame lines (to name the three core limitations - there are others). That's fine. That's the price you pay. Adding a clip-on EVF does address this, though rather poorly in my view.

 

Hence, my "quaint" comment. I'm not saying Leica should stop making the rangefinder M cameras. On the contrary, I love the fact they do. But, to pick up Peter's concern, do you think this is the flagship, state of all that is best in the world? With the limitations identified above?

 

I see no reason why Leica should not produce a further variant of the M mount camera which deals with these issues. If that means using the EVF built in from the SL, so be it. It works well on the SL. Alternatively, a hybrid system, or the optico-electronic rangefinder system discussed earlier (actually, not likely, I understand), then that's fine too.

 

But, the M isn't ever going to be a state of the art digital canera with the optical-mechanical rangefinder from the M3. It will be lots of things, and it will still be a rangefinder, but meanwhile the SL and the X1D will sell like hotcakes.

[otto.f]

Remember the patronising "armchair ceo" comment of about 5 years ago? Discussions of what is possible, and what people might want and why are interesting, to me anyway. Whingeing about what a current camera is or is not, not so much. The camera and systems are what they are.

What posts like yours overlook is that Leica listens. We wouldn't have the SL or M-D (as just two cases in point) otherwise.

I just posted this morning in one of the topics that I'm grateful that Leica is listening, if rumours are correct which is mostly the case. I just stated that everything has been said here over and over again, seems to me

[pgk]

As brillliant as the current optical-mechanical viewfinder is, it just maybe best relegated to a "traditionalist" M10, but it isn't really fit for purpose.

 

Ummmm. From my point of view you could not be more wrong. It works fine for me. I like using it, and after trying to get into evf I'm afraid that I find looking through the RF Viewfinder is simply the way I most like viewing the subject matter I am photographing. I'm afraid that fit for purpose means different things to different people. I am a traditionalist as far as RF photography goes and happy to be so. Its not that I don't use other gear, I do, nor that I can't adopt new ideas - I shot the vast majority of a tv program on the 5D2 which was probably a first when we did it. But the Leica RF is my preference over all other cameras - I quite simply enjoy using it as it is. Change it and you will lose may people like myself. As I've said before, why does nobody want a rangefinder fitted to the Leica T? It makes as much sense as an evf on a rangefinder to me .

[jaapv]

In that case, the M camera based on the optical rangefinder will always have a fixed focussing/metering patch, regardless of the focal length used, immovable focu/metering patch and inaccurate frame lines (to name the three core limitations - there are others). That's fine. That's the price you pay. Adding a clip-on EVF does address this, though rather poorly in my view.

 

Hence, my "quaint" comment. I'm not saying Leica should stop making the rangefinder M cameras. On the contrary, I love the fact they do. But, to pick up Peter's concern, do you think this is the flagship, state of all that is best in the world? With the limitations identified above?

 

I see no reason why Leica should not produce a further variant of the M mount camera which deals with these issues. If that means using the EVF built in from the SL, so be it. It works well on the SL. Alternatively, a hybrid system, or the optico-electronic rangefinder system discussed earlier (actually, not likely, I understand), then that's fine too.

 

But, the M isn't ever going to be a state of the art digital canera with the optical-mechanical rangefinder from the M3. It will be lots of things, and it will still be a rangefinder, but meanwhile the SL and the X1D will sell like hotcakes.

There is not one part in  the M240 rangefinder that is the same as in the M3...

[IkarusJohn]

There is not one part in  the M240 rangefinder that is the same as in the M3...

Another fine contribution to the discussion from the dentist (and people call lawyers pettifoggers).

 

Paul, at no stage have I suggested that Leica should stop making a traditionalist M. If you're saying that people will stop buying Leica cameras because they offer an alternative to the traditionalist M, I would say that is irrational to say the least.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[pgk]

 

If you're saying that people will stop buying Leica cameras because they offer an alternative to the traditionalist M, I would say that is irrational to say the least.

 

No I'm not, well not exactly. The problem faced by modifying an M Rangefinder is that you expose its limitations. Trying to get a camera which is hamstrung by its inherent ancestry to compete on unequal terms with other cameras incorporating the features which are added to it, is in my opinion untenable. The M's strength is that what it does it does differently. Damage its reputation by allowing other, similarly sized, far cheaper, cameras to produce better optimised images more easily, and the risk is that people will stop buying a modified M and/or any traditional version too. Irrational?

But, the M isn't ever going to be a state of the art digital canera with the optical-mechanical rangefinder from the M3.

 

And the M isn't ever going to be a state of the art digital camera with the M bayonet from the M3 either I'm afraid.

[Rick]

Hi John,

 

I know this is long but, I think there is some difference in what you and others see as the M system.  But, I know that you own and understand the M.  So, I am confused as to why you want to change the M to an EVF platform?  The M is an optical system and I'll explain why it is so - and I understand you know all of this, I guess.  

 

And, if Leica wants to make an EVF M, so be it.  Doesn't make sense to me because I'd just buy the SL or the Sony Alpha system and mod it like LCT did.  I suspect Leica couldn't make a better EVF M as the Sony Alpha with mod.

 

 

As brillliant as the current optical-mechanical viewfinder is, it just maybe best relegated to a "traditionalist" M10, but it isn't really fit for purpose.

 

The RF is fit to focus Leica manual RF lenses I must point out.  The lenses the Leica M is designed to focus are manual with helicoids.  Dismissing the helicoid, and removing the RF would mean that Leica would need to utilize an EVF to focus manual lenses.  

 

EVF is not completely suitable for manual lenses.  It may have some advantages for off center focus and low light focus, but it can't be as accurate as the RF because the RF is inherently a vernier alignment method and our eye can discern vernier alignment with much greater accuracy than any other manual focus method.  Any.  

 

The only way an EVF would be more accurate would be if the user engaged focus magnification which works well on tripod and can work well in some circumstances.  But a well trained RF user can compete with that method and may very well prefer it.

 

Focus peeking is too inaccurate.

 

So, the RF can be fit for purpose:  Ability to focus an extensive selection of the finest manual focus RF lenses.  That is all it has to be fit for duty.

 

But, the M isn't ever going to be a state of the art digital canera with the optical-mechanical rangefinder from the M3. It will be lots of things, and it will still be a rangefinder, but meanwhile the SL and the X1D will sell like hotcakes.

 

X1D?  Really.  This is a huge, by comparison, camera with huge lenses.  How is a MF camera relative  to this discussion?  

 

Do you think the archetypical M user going to run around with this camera that has a blackout time so long.  This is going to be a studio or landscape camera.  By the way, a better suited camera would be the S with an 80ms blackout (comparable to an optical DSLR) and the S has very comparable image quality, but I digress.

 

I know you know this.  I think you are trying to conflate the advanced technology of the X1D with the quaint Leica M technology.  But, they are entirely different concept cameras as is the SL you mention above.

 

The M is a street shooter.  A travel camera.  A sometime landscape tool.  A small take along camera.  Designed to shoot small manual lenses.  It is not a Medium format or a AF SL.  

 

No idea - I'm not Leica. But my lack of technical solution is not, in all honesty, a reasonable test. It is pretty clear that the demands of digital photography are beyond what the current optical system can deliver (unless you want it trapped forever where it is). Perhaps the answer is an optical system can't. I would not complain if Leica released an M mount camera without the optical system, provided it deal with those limitations effectively and elegantly - they're good at that. The fact they're prepared to have 4 different versions of the current digital M on the market at once suggests Leica is open to new ideas.

You might not buy it, but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

The thought that the M camera will always be stuck with the current rangefinder mechanism is, at best, quaint.

 

I disagree that the demands of digital photography are beyond the optical system of the M.  The optical system of the M is ideal suited for the purpose of shooting the manual focus line of M lenses.  

 

Obviously, an updated EVF will be helpful for some situations and will extend the usefulness of the M for some users that want to use the M in expanded ways.  For some it will not be useful because they use the camera in other ways. Personally, I'll welcome the new EVF and will have some limited use for it as I do now with the crappy M240 EVF.  

 

But, I don't want an EVF in the current M if it means the exclusion of the excellent optical RF/VF.  

 

 

In that case, the M camera based on the optical rangefinder will always have a fixed focussing/metering patch, regardless of the focal length used, immovable focu/metering patch and inaccurate frame lines (to name the three core limitations - there are others). That's fine. That's the price you pay. Adding a clip-on EVF does address this, though rather poorly in my view.

Hence, my "quaint" comment. I'm not saying Leica should stop making the rangefinder M cameras. On the contrary, I love the fact they do. But, to pick up Peter's concern, do you think this is the flagship, state of all that is best in the world? With the limitations identified above?

I see no reason why Leica should not produce a further variant of the M mount camera which deals with these issues. If that means using the EVF built in from the SL, so be it. It works well on the SL. Alternatively, a hybrid system, or the optico-electronic rangefinder system discussed earlier (actually, not likely, I understand), then that's fine too.

 

 

Again, you continue to want the focus patch to be movable and feel the metering is inaccurate which I don't seem to have a problem with.  I understand the limitations you describe but they don't have a practical liability in the way I use the camera... as a compact fast camera.  

 

I do agree that the EVF should have a movable focus point and maybe we will see that.  Mostly, I just look forward to a visually useable EVF without all of the rolling shutter.  But, for adapting long lenses the camera really needs some sort of IS.  But, all of these things are outside the original purpose of the M.  But, I agree they should be included and I hope they will be.  I agree that Leica can and should continue to provide up to date quality of features... not necessarily more.

 

I also agree that Leica could make an M with an EVF in the body.  I think that we are seeing Leica move exactly in that direction.  This rumored M seems to be drawing a distinction between the RF M and "something else."  But, I imagine that "something else" is already here - it is the venerable SL.

 

I think that your suggestions are well thought out but, should be directed towards the new SL.  Leave the new compact M10 alone and let Leica make it the fast little street shooter it once was.  I can't wait and I hope they focus on that essence of the M and make everything about it better not more.  I'd even give up video even though personally I don't completely agree with that omission but, I do understand it.

 

If, Leica delivers a technologically current little M I think they won't be able to make them fast enough to keep up with initial demand.  I'd suggest everyone get on their dealer's order list now.  We are all going to want one.   

 

RickM