Leica CM / ML?/ New Leica Mirrorless Announcement

[Exodies]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Yes and sometimes the engineers and designers are flawed and can’t see the beautiful dream of an enthusiast which should inspire them. Circular sensor with hexagonal cels.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[dkCambridgeshire]

There are those on this forum whose personal mission, judging by their past criticisms, is to 'poo poo' every new camera announced by Leica … just for the sake of trying to find fault. And in addition to finding fault, they then announce their unjustified predictions of low sales, and how, in their biased and usual dogmatic opinion, 'no professional is ever going to buy this camera'. They know little about what constitutes a camera capable of professional use … and are ignorant of the actual reasons why seasoned professionals, including professional users who are forum members, do in fact buy the camera. 

 

dunk 

[jonatdonuts]

I think the reaction to the X-Vario was, on the whole, quite understandable, questionable marketing strategy aside. The images were great, and the handling fantastic, but the aperture range was very restricting for a fixed lens camera. Evidently, many thought it was impractical for their uses. I stress the word many, which would suggest that their criticism is not unfair, but rather quite valid. 

 

Rather than defensively rejecting the criticism, Leica seemed to listen and very quickly addressed the issue with the X113. I loved that camera. My only regret was that they never updated it, or used it as the foundation for the CL, which has, at least in my book, a more finicky method of operation. But that's just me, and it would seem that I am in a minority, so I would not expect Leica to revive the X anytime soon. 

 

In regards to the M10, I think the vast majority of us agree that it's fantastic. Even outside the Leica school of thought, the general reaction was rather positive. Of course, there will always be a few people who will criticise and (as you say in a very authoritarian tone) "get away with it", but each to their own. While obnoxious and unfounded criticism is annoying, it can be easily recognised and effortlessly discarded from one's mind, along with the opinions of those who feel that everyone should think as they do.

 

I remember all the unfair criticisms of the X Vario by those on this forum who have never used the camera or any other modern Leica digital camera for any length of time … and who did not have a clue about the XV's  imaging potential …

 

And similarly recall the unfair criticism of the SL 601 .. and its EVF … when forum critics categorically stated it would never be accepted as a professional camera ... whereas now there are many professionals using it and pro workshops organised by Leica Camera AG.  

 

 And some forum members criticised the M10 … quite unfairly . They seem to want to criticise new Leica camera releases just for the sake of criticising … and they continue criticising repeatedly … and they get away with it. And they also put forward ridiculous ideas for old fashioned camera designs which they expect Leica Camera AG to listen to and implement.  

 

dunk 

Edited July 28, 2018 by jonatdonuts

[adan]

Yes and sometimes the engineers and designers are flawed and can’t see the beautiful dream of an enthusiast which should inspire them. Circular sensor with hexagonal cels.

 

That's unfair. I imagine virtually every single sensor engineer or designer has thought about how to make a circular sensor, or hexagonal pixels (Fuji made octagonal photosites for a while - didn't survive in the marketplace).

 

But photography, and chip manufacture, and the tooling for chip manufacture, and software writing, and computer engineering, and the mathematics underlying all of them, are an "ecosystem" of a million interrelated parts and industries.

 

The engineer does have to find someone to produce the sensor (who has to find someone to build the tools used in making chips), and write the software to read out the data and process it, and put the data into a format that can be passed around and understood across billions of existing computers and users world-wide (jpeg, TIFF (which includes most RAW formats, with add-ons), .bmp, .png, etc.) The raw output from Fuji's octagonal pixels came out tilted 45° and had to be digitally transformed for anyone to actually use (as square, rectilinear pixels).

 

Or - build her own chip-making tools, and build her own chips (and clean-room manufacturing space), and write all the software himself, from data capture to final picture format. And either get a research grant to buy all the materials and support herself for the months or years to complete the process, or persuade her employer to provide the money, on the basis that it will result in a large-enough benefit to enough people to make it a worthwhile investment. And then persuade Adobe, PhaseOne, Bibble, and a host of other image-software companies to spend time and money rewriting their own algorithms to handle the math of hexagonal grids.

 

For better or worse, computing and its mathematics has been based on rectilinear, integral, Cartesian coordinates for 70 years. Starting with the arrays of magnets that were the first memory storage, and were "addressed" in a Cartesian plane ("up/down 312, right/left 2431"). Or even the ancient abacus. Rows and columns of units, not half-units. Beads or magnets or transistors or pixels or anything else. It is how the core mathematics works.

 

The tech industry functions efficiently because parts and tools and everything else (mostly) are based, interchangeably and universally, on left/right/up/down. You want to open a chip factory? Fine. You buy stepper motors (maybe from Nikon, maybe from someone else). They move left/right/up/down. Maybe you can persuade Nikon to build one that can step in 6 directions in hexagonal coordinates - it will be vastly more expensive than their stock, off-the-shelf Cartesian steppers, that they sell by the thousands. Maybe Nikon doesn't want to be bothered, so you (a sensor designer) put aside work on the sensor, to go back to university to learn how to design and build your own "Hex" stepper motor.

 

And again to learn the math of hexagonal arrays - you are now measuring and defining location either in 3 axes (1,0,1 - 50% more data required) or in non-units (you can address a pixel as "1,1" - but it is not halfway, or in a straight line, between pixel "0,0" and pixel "2,2").

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=hexagonal+coordinates&client=firefox-b-1&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=XiBpZgw7FjYsSM%253A%252C_WsYT5gL8gOOLM%252C_&usg=__A0xwH416ZqdHAmp6LviI8lJU7xs%3D&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGuMKukcLcAhWIiVQKHbzlBqUQ9QEwA3oECAYQBg#imgrc=_

 

By the way, circular sensors would not tile as efficiently as rectangular ones, on a silicon wafer - expensive, inefficient (costly) waste. Nor are they as easy to cut out ,with a few straight saw-cuts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_packing#/media/File:Triangular_tiling_circle_packing.png

 

Thomas Edison said that "Genius is 1% inspiration (dreaming) and 99% perspiration (actually making a dream come true)."

 

I'm not overly impressed by people who are happy to do 1% of the work, and then expect someone else to do the other 99%.

 

Now, when it comes to something simple, like carving a camera out of a solid block of aluminum, that's obviously easier. I don't see any point to it, except as an exercise in making "male jewelry." Whenever I hear about it, I always see a picture of W.C. Fields, drawling his line in Mississippi, about an imaginary escape from Native Americans: "I unsheathed my Bowie knife, and carved my way out through this wall of human flesh, dragging my canoe behind me!"

 

Edited July 28, 2018 by adan

[Exodies]

You’re quite right, ideas are a dime a dozen. Maybe the robots will take up the project sometime soon.

[bags27]

That's unfair. I imagine virtually every single sensor engineer or designer has thought about how to make a circular sensor, or hexagonal pixels (Fuji made octagonal photosites for a while - didn't survive in the marketplace).

 

But photography, and chip manufacture, and the tooling for chip manufacture, and software writing, and computer engineering, and the mathematics underlying all of them, are an "ecosystem" of a million interrelated parts and industries.

 

The engineer does have to find someone to produce the sensor (who has to find someone to build the tools used in making chips), and write the software to read out the data and process it, and put the data into a format that can be passed around and understood across billions of existing computers and users world-wide (jpeg, TIFF (which includes most RAW formats, with add-ons), .bmp, .png, etc.) The raw output from Fuji's octagonal pixels came out tilted 45° and had to be digitally transformed for anyone to actually use (as square, rectilinear pixels).

 

Or - build her own chip-making tools, and build her own chips (and clean-room manufacturing space), and write all the software himself, from data capture to final picture format. And either get a research grant to buy all the materials and support herself for the months or years to complete the process, or persuade her employer to provide the money, on the basis that it will result in a large-enough benefit to enough people to make it a worthwhile investment. And then persuade Adobe, PhaseOne, Bibble, and a host of other image-software companies to spend time and money rewriting their own algorithms to handle the math of hexagonal grids.

 

For better or worse, computing and its mathematics has been based on rectilinear, integral, Cartesian coordinates for 70 years. Starting with the arrays of magnets that were the first memory storage, and were "addressed" in a Cartesian plane ("up/down 312, right/left 2431"). Or even the ancient abacus. Rows and columns of units, not half-units. Beads or magnets or transistors or pixels or anything else. It is how the core mathematics works.

 

The tech industry functions efficiently because parts and tools and everything else (mostly) are based, interchangeably and universally, on left/right/up/down. You want to open a chip factory? Fine. You buy stepper motors (maybe from Nikon, maybe from someone else). They move left/right/up/down. Maybe you can persuade Nikon to build one that can step in 6 directions in hexagonal coordinates - it will be vastly more expensive than their stock, off-the-shelf Cartesian steppers, that they sell by the thousands. Maybe Nikon doesn't want to be bothered, so you (a sensor designer) put aside work on the sensor, to go back to university to learn how to design and build your own "Hex" stepper motor.

 

And again to learn the math of hexagonal arrays - you are now measuring and defining location either in 3 axes (1,0,1 - 50% more data required) or in non-units (you can address a pixel as "1,1" - but it is not halfway, or in a straight line, between pixel "0,0" and pixel "2,2").

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=hexagonal+coordinates&client=firefox-b-1&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=XiBpZgw7FjYsSM%253A%252C_WsYT5gL8gOOLM%252C_&usg=__A0xwH416ZqdHAmp6LviI8lJU7xs%3D&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGuMKukcLcAhWIiVQKHbzlBqUQ9QEwA3oECAYQBg#imgrc=_

 

By the way, circular sensors would not tile as efficiently as rectangular ones, on a silicon wafer - expensive, inefficient (costly) waste. Nor are they as easy to cut out ,with a few straight saw-cuts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_packing#/media/File:Triangular_tiling_circle_packing.png

 

Thomas Edison said that "Genius is 1% inspiration (dreaming) and 99% perspiration (actually making a dream come true)."

 

I'm not overly impressed by people who are happy to do 1% of the work, and then expect someone else to do the other 99%.

 

Now, when it comes to something simple, like carving a camera out of a solid block of aluminum, that's obviously easier. I don't see any point to it, except as an exercise in making "male jewelry." Whenever I hear about it, I always see a picture of W.C. Fields, drawling his line in Mississippi, about an imaginary escape from Native Americans: "I unsheathed my Bowie knife, and carved my way out through this wall of human flesh, dragging my canoe behind me!"

 

well, this has to be one of the most impressive posts I've ever read.... thank you so very much this. I'm a ton smarter (which makes me merely one ton less stupid) for having read it.

[bags27]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Peter today continued to state his belief in some sort of a C-M. also he's hearing a bit of noise about a Q2....

 

https://leicarumors.com/2018/08/06/updated-list-of-upcoming-rumored-leica-cameras-and-lenses-6.aspx/

 

he absolutely nailed the new Nikon mirrorless cameras, but, of course, Nikon has been actively feeding that story.

[dkCambridgeshire]

Peter today continued to state his belief in some sort of a C-M. also he's hearing a bit of noise about a Q2....

 

https://leicarumors.com/2018/08/06/updated-list-of-upcoming-rumored-leica-cameras-and-lenses-6.aspx/

 

he absolutely nailed the new Nikon mirrorless cameras, but, of course, Nikon has been actively feeding that story.

 

 

… based on what??   And as for publishing the  'macro filter' rumour … Leica Rumours should use the correct terminology in its original rumour if it wants 'credibility'  … nobody achieves close-up or macro images with a 'filter' … photographic filters are polarising, and colour correction, and ND tools.  Leica design and market Elpro supplementary close-up lenses … not c/u filters. 

 

And as for 'original Leitz Macrotars being very rare Leica accessories' .. they are not … I see them advertised regularly and use several myself … and after buying same for c. £5 each (at MW Classic) have given them away to friends and U3A colleagues.  

 

Nikon and Canon FF mirrorless have been in development for years … common knowledge. 

 

But Leica Rumours has to write / publish something to justify its existence. 

 

I prefer to believe e.g. Stefan Daniel's facts. 

 

dunk 

Edited August 7, 2018 by dkCambridgeshire

[bags27]

… based on what??   And as for publishing the  'macro filter' rumour … Leica Rumours should use the correct terminology in its original rumour if it wants 'credibility'  … nobody achieves close-up or macro images with a 'filter' … photographic filters are polarising, and colour correction, and ND tools.  Leica design and market Elpro supplementary close-up lenses … not c/u filters. 

 

And as for 'original Leitz Macrotars being very rare Leica accessories' .. they are not … I see them advertised regularly and use several myself … and after buying same for c. £5 each (at MW Classic) have given them away to friends and U3A colleagues.  

 

Nikon and Canon FF mirrorless have been in development for years … common knowledge. 

 

But Leica Rumours has to write / publish something to justify its existence. 

 

I prefer to believe e.g. Stefan Daniel's facts. 

 

dunk 

Jeez, Dunk. Fake News is all the rage. Gotta go with the flow. 

[dkCambridgeshire]

Jeez, Dunk. Fake News is all the rage. Gotta go with the flow. 

 

 

Yes …getting contagious … highly contagious 

 

Problem is, some people continue to believe whatever is published  … as if it's gospel. 

 

But I guess someone has to 'try and make Nikon and Canon cameras great again ' … after they've lost market share to Sony.

 

dunk 

Edited August 7, 2018 by dkCambridgeshire

[Guest]

I must admit a lot on my Leica Frinds in Malaysia are excited about the new Nikon mirror less camera coming out at photokeeper later in the year.....me I'm happy with what I have got

Neil

[bags27]

I must admit a lot on my Leica Frinds in Malaysia are excited about the new Nikon mirror less camera coming out at photokeeper later in the year.....me I'm happy with what I have got

Neil

well, the one with the bigger sensor is roughly equal to the A7riii, and both dynamic range and low light capability are being whispered about (by Nikon) as extremely impressive. It will certainly fit all legacy Nikon lenses with adapter. If the sensor isn't the thick Sony kind, also better for M lenses. Have to admit, on what it's said to have, I'd be really tempted, but then I look at the leaked photos of it, and it sort of looks like a Sony. ugh....

[lct]

Yes interesting indeed. I will possibly order a mirrorless Nikon for my Nikon glass but i fear that the sensor stack will be the thick kind as usual so modded Sony's could stay the reference for M lenses aside from Leica bodies.

[Guest]

Yes interesting indeed. I will possibly order a mirrorless Nikon for my Nikon glass but i fear that the sensor stack will be the thick kind as usual so modded Sony's could stay the reference for M lenses aside from Leica bodies.

The Nikon gear I have is for sports and wildlife so no need For a little dinky mirror less body for that

Neil

[strohscw]

My C-M:

 

Size: like M10

Battery: the same as in M10

Lens bayonet: M with 6 bit lens detection

Viewer: EVF from SL, no back side monitor 

Shutter: from M10 plus Electronic shutter

 

That would be my perfect companion for the M10, which I would use for 21 to 50mm and above the C-M.  

[bags27]

The Nikon gear I have is for sports and wildlife so no need For a little dinky mirror less body for that

Neil

well, that's a consideration.

 

I've been planning to pair the new Nikon 300 f4 with a CL. If I were to get the FF Nikon instead, I'd be short on reach unless I went with the teleconverter, with its usual pluses and minuses.. OTOH, with a massive sensor, I'd have greater opportunity for cropping, and even with a Nikon adaptor I'd have more control over the lens. But have to wait and see. The CL is just a lot more fun than a Sony-like camera....

[kaisernchen]

I think a M mount Q will be quite nice, as 2nd body for those already have M cameras, or for the first M mount user. 

[ramarren]

I bought the CL after I sold my SL for lack of use because I still needed a TTL capable body for my R lenses and I was convinced by my experience using them on the M-P that fitting them to an M10 wasn't the answer, for me. (I bought an M-D after I had the M-P and later sold the M-P because I prefer the simpler, easier use of the M-D.)

 

The SL is brilliant, the perfect camera for the work I used to do, but I'm retired now and don't do that work anymore... and just won't carry the SL lenses due to their size and weight. I ride a bicycle now rather than use a car or motorbike 90% of the time, so the aggregate load of what I'm willing to carry has shrunk by 80%. Having that valuable a kit of gear just sitting unused is too wasteful of resources for my bank account...

 

The CL turns out to be ideal for the specific niche work I bought it for because of the smaller format and is actually more ergonomic with the R lenses than even the SL was. The small/Light body fitted with any of my R lenses from 19/2.8 to 180/4 nets a total size, weight, and handling ease that is just remarkably good. And the smaller format means I can do high magnification, small object capture with less optical magnification and more DoF, producing better 24Mpixel results.

 

When I heard about the CM rumor I immediately thought of it as a CL with a FF sensor and thought I'd buy that. I bought the CL when it didn't materialize, and have zero regrets from doing so.. But I think a CM of that concept is a good 'next product' for Leica and hope they move forward with it. For me it wouldn't have to be anything more than the CL with a bigger sensor format at all, I don't need more pixels, even more stratospheric ISO, more speed, or any of the more and more features I hear bandied about as desireable. I like my cameras simple and easy to use so I can forget about them and concentrate on making photos rather than celebrating the technology.

 

I'm not at all averse to new technology, indeed I've always been eager to try new stuff and see whether is was useful, but I don't get into the technology for its own sake thing other than when exploring. It's fun then, but not when I'm actually making photos... then whatever I end up,with just has to work and stay out of the way.

 

I hope Leica does release a CM in the concept I've described with whatever other minor, incremental development improvements are appropriate. It would be a fine camera.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Ouroboros]

....me I'm happy with what I have got

Neil

Oh the many lies you tell, this is your best.

[dkCambridgeshire]

Seems like we're discussing the CM all over again … even after Stefan Daniel has categorically denied its existence

 

So … not looking forward to another wild CM chase within this thread … once was enough 

 

dunk