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A new land for Leica


Stefanomattia

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Hi everyone,
yesterday I was thinking about the fact that LEICA has a potential Best Seller not yet realized, which could potentially have a very strong impact on the market.
Everyone knows the legendary M series, which is surely fantastic but that also follows a specific philosophy (not the subject of this discussion) that can scare or not be interesting for all that photographers who are looking for autofucus and big Mega Pixel.
On the other hand it produces the fantastic Q line (of which I am a very happy owner) which has excellent performance in terms of autofocus, stabilization and Mega Pixel, but which is specifically design for photographers not looking for the interchangeability of the optics.
There is certainly the SL series, that anyhow sacrifices one of the most beautiful characteristic of Leica, namely the compactness of body and optics.
Wouldn't it be great to have a LEICA with body and characteristics of the Q, but with compact interchangeable M-style lenses? Price permitting, I would be the first to be interested.
What do you think is the potential difficulty of this approach? Probablement it would be necessary to motorize the optics of the M series, but given the experience with the summilux 28 1.7 of the Q I think that LEICA has all the skills to do it.
I'm curious to know your opinions.

Regards
Stefano

 
 
 
 
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  • 1 month later...

The  only reason the Q is the size it is , is that  lens, sensor and shutter were conceived as an integrated unit with a hybrid optical-digital design . As soon as the lens becomes detachable the design falls apart, leading to a significant increase in size, AKA SL. If you wish to shrink such a camera, you'll have to reduce sensor size, which leads to the CL. The potential best-sellers are already on the market - have been for a number of years.

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27 minutes ago, jaapv said:

The  only reason the Q is the size it is , is that  lens, sensor and shutter were conceived as an integrated unit with a hybrid optical-digital design . As soon as the lens becomes detachable the design falls apart, leading to a significant increase in size, AKA SL. If you wish to shrink such a camera, you'll have to reduce sensor size, which leads to the CL. The potential best-sellers are already on the market - have been for a number of years.

I fear this won’t be the last time you’ll have to repeat that.

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Leica Rumors is still reeling from the blowback following their year long prediction(s) for the C-M, a supposed full frame body, with interchangeable lenses in L mount, apparently linking the CL and SL in an M sized package.  Good luck with that.

Jeff

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On 7/10/2020 at 1:11 AM, jaapv said:

The  only reason the Q is the size it is , is that  lens, sensor and shutter were conceived as an integrated unit with a hybrid optical-digital design . As soon as the lens becomes detachable the design falls apart, leading to a significant increase in size, AKA SL. If you wish to shrink such a camera, you'll have to reduce sensor size, which leads to the CL. The potential best-sellers are already on the market - have been for a number of years.

While I agree with you that a "QM" camera size would increase for the reasons mentioned above, other brands manage to produce full frame cameras with only very little bulk added (compared to a Q) and without ending up on the gigantic size of the SL. I'm sure many people would appreciate an ILCE smaller than the SL2.

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It is all in the lens: It can be of high quality, it can be small, it can be cheap. But the parameters are basically exclusive and there will always be a compromise. So small and Leica quality will make it prohibitively expensive, Affordable and high quality will make it large, and the combinations for low quality are out of the question for Leica. Objectively, BTW, the SL(2) is not that large, but the lenses are huge.

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50 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Objectively, BTW, the SL(2) is not that large, but the lenses are huge.

I saw them in the Leica Store in Wetzlar last year as I wandered around with my Leica III and 1932 3.5cm Elmar. I know the latter is a bit small, but I couldn't believe how huge they were in comparison even with R glass! 

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The next big step ( 'new land' if you wish) has to be a camera without interchangeable lenses but with multiple focal lengths available. I know the Q has a number of 'focal lengths' using a crop method, but something better has to be possible. The real problem for a company like Leica is that it might not survive the loss of lens sales. While I am mainly a fan of older film cameras, it strikes me that the benefits of digital technology have not been fully utilised and that digital cameras still have too many of the features of their film forebears. Digital zoom used to be of very poor quality, but surely the technology has moved on during the past 20 years. Some surveillance satellites and drones must have some of this type of technology already. https://www.cnet.com/how-to/turns-out-satellite-surveillance-only-sounds-like-a-major-privacy-concern/  I'll leave it at that as I would not be in the market for such a camera. What I am making here is just an observation.

William

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Interesting thought, William.  I am also not very interested in such a camera, but it does raise some curious possibilities, if you discard the legacy of film based photography and form factor.

If sensors allow for a fixed ISO setting (with no loss in image quality in adjusting exposure in post), is also adjusting depth of field in post becoming possible?  How far can this go?  Does future technology allow for a variable focus image?  We all prioritise achieving the best framing, focusing, exposure and aperture, but what if we had a lens and sensor combination which captured the ideal combination of all parameters, save composition and perspective, with a single variable lens and sensor?

I wonder if it would have a baseplate ...

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1 hour ago, willeica said:

The next big step ( 'new land' if you wish) has to be a camera without interchangeable lenses but with multiple focal lengths available. I know the Q has a number of 'focal lengths' using a crop method, but something better has to be possible. The real problem for a company like Leica is that it might not survive the loss of lens sales. While I am mainly a fan of older film cameras, it strikes me that the benefits of digital technology have not been fully utilised and that digital cameras still have too many of the features of their film forebears. Digital zoom used to be of very poor quality, but surely the technology has moved on during the past 20 years. Some surveillance satellites and drones must have some of this type of technology already. https://www.cnet.com/how-to/turns-out-satellite-surveillance-only-sounds-like-a-major-privacy-concern/  I'll leave it at that as I would not be in the market for such a camera. What I am making here is just an observation.

William

Well, they could make something like the Q2 crossed with an X-vario. The issue would be that the lens would either be very large or very slow.

Gordon

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45 minutes ago, IkarusJohn said:

 

I wonder if it would have a baseplate ...

Or a wet plate? I am looking at the advances that have happened with smartphones and comparing those with DSLRs and EVF cameras and I don't see the same level of progress with the latter two. Digital rangefinders are different as they are intended for those deliberately going in a different direction with a lot of manual features, but some of the auto everything cameras have restricted features such as the need to change lenses, including putting on massive lenses for longer reach. Everything else has gone automatic including exposure and focus with framing the main task left to the photographer. Carrying around cases full of massive lenses would appear to come from a different era and fly in a different direction to the rest of the 'progress'. As I said earlier I am just making observations as I would not be the target market, nor am I particularly interested in digital cameras, but this has struck me for some time as being the case. Maybe the industry does not want to think outside the box as it would cost it too much in lost lens sales.

William

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1 hour ago, willeica said:

The next big step ( 'new land' if you wish) has to be a camera without interchangeable lenses but with multiple focal lengths available.

Every camera manufacturer during the past forty years made cameras like that until they realised no one wanted them any more.

:D

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4 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

Every camera manufacturer during the past forty years made cameras like that until they realised no one wanted them any more.

:D

So guys like walking around with big lenses? The vast majority of people, who previously had cameras made by the major camera manufacturers, are now using smartphones made by a different group of manufacturers. If that second group of manufacturers move into the space, then the camera manufacturers will have to jump in line. Or is it just that some guys just like to have big cameras and big lenses to prove that they are serious photographers? Also having a bagful of lenses leads to 'serious' decisions like which lens will I use for the next shot? Golfers (or 'serious' ones anyway) seem to have caddies for that kind of thing.

William 

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On 7/10/2020 at 10:11 AM, jaapv said:

The  only reason the Q is the size it is , is that  lens, sensor and shutter were conceived as an integrated unit with a hybrid optical-digital design . As soon as the lens becomes detachable the design falls apart, leading to a significant increase in size, AKA SL. If you wish to shrink such a camera, you'll have to reduce sensor size, which leads to the CL. The potential best-sellers are already on the market - have been for a number of years.

To a certain extent, the camera would be bigger. But SL size? No, I don't think it would need to be.

1. There's a big difference between a CL, Q and SL in size. The CL is truly tiny. And the body section of the Q is smaller than an M10. Somewhere in-between the CL and the SL is room for an AF camera. Some of the lenses would be larger but they don't need to be SL sized. Most of the SL summicrons are they size they are as a design decision to keep them the same size not because they have to be that big.

2. It's already been done. The original Sony A7 is smaller tan an M in every dimension. If you jump to the A7R3 you get a camera the same size, except for the grip, which now houses a battery good for 600+ shots. IBIS, flippy screen, joystick... And we're still thinner than an M10 or SL. You could take out the flippy screen in Leica style, remove half the buttons and still have a camera the size of an M10. With no RF you open up a LOT of space for an SL battery and an EVF.

3. Lenses. Yep. Some of them would be big. Physics and all that. But if Leica wanted to they could have made the SL 50 Summicron half the size. Just have a look at Sony's 55mm 1.8 FE. It's a genuinely brilliant lens. A 28, 35 and 50 would be possible in a compact. The 90mm would be around the same as the SL 90. The Sigma 45mm 2.8 is small. Not optically brilliant but that's not because of it's size. That's because it's cheap. Leica could make a range of Elmarit primes up to 135mm and keep them reasonable in size. And for the big lenses there's always the over priced grip that doesn't allow easy access to the battery available at only one kidney or a small child in price.....

Leica don't do it because they don't want to. They don't want to cannibalise SL2 sales. Same as they do with the CL, which could be 10% thicker and have IBIS or even lenses with IS. or lenses longer than 135mm (200eqiv). Leica's choice. Personally something 10-15% bigger than an M that could take SL lenses and a set of tiny Elmarit primes and I'd be a buyer.

Gordon

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15 minutes ago, willeica said:

So guys like walking around with big lenses? The vast majority of people, who previously had cameras made by the major camera manufacturers, are now using smartphones made by a different group of manufacturers. If that second group of manufacturers move into the space, then the camera manufacturers will have to jump in line. Or is it just that some guys just like to have big cameras and big lenses to prove that they are serious photographers? Also having a bagful of lenses leads to 'serious' decisions like which lens will I use for the next shot? Golfers (or 'serious' ones anyway) seem to have caddies for that kind of thing.

William 

Lenses don't have to be big. There are plenty of examples where they're not. It's a trend at the moment to make huge lenses that cover giant image circles so the corners can be as sharp as the centre with no vignetting and super fast. My Sigma 85mm 1.4 covers a full 33x44 sensor with almost no vignetting. Making M Summicron APO lenses that are small and perfect is expensive. But you could look at the Sony/Zeiss 55mm 1.8 or 35mm 2.8 for great and small lenses. The Fujifilm 56mm 1.2 could be scaled to an 85mm f2 and be about the same size. Canon have a few as well..

Gordon

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49 minutes ago, IkarusJohn said:

 How far can this go?  Does future technology allow for a variable focus image?

 We may have already move past that with the use of  post processing technology  where the camera and lenses used have less influence for adapting what is seen to what PP can produce.

 Why would anyone even buy a Q2 when they may be able to achieve the same perceived results  with the next generations of iPhone and PP software?

Those looking for easier, smaller, better will have it and  no doubt a mini drone which will be controlled from the comfort of their armchair without wandering in the street, country side or attending a social gathering.

There will also be those who see the different quality of engagement  between cooking a meal and buying a supermarket readymade, developing a craft and be given a freebie, where what you know and see  is far more important than what you have to use.

 

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