Pixii - complementary or competition? [Merged]

[loloboubou1]

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29 minutes ago, ramarren said:

Évidemment, ce ne peut pas être la version 2023 puisque ce n'est pas encore 2023, et la version 2023 vient d'être annoncée au cours du dernier mois environ de toute façon. J'ai reçu l'appareil photo Pixii au cours de la première semaine d'avril 2022, j'ai beaucoup travaillé avec lui pendant environ 3,5 semaines (y compris la mise à niveau vers le micrologiciel le plus récent après l'avoir reçu), et je l'ai renvoyé à la fin du mois d'avril 2022.

G

Hello...we are not talking about 2022 or 2023 version but about models at Pixii.

 If I say that I own the Pixii 1571 and that I have been testing for a month and a half (as a Pixii ambassador) the Pixii model 2572 with 64-bit processor you have to believe me ! Since April 2022, there has been development work with this new processor.

Edited December 21, 2022 by loloboubou1
error of traduction

[loloboubou1]

27 minutes ago, UliWer said:

Somewhere I read that some lenses with larger hoods block the rangefinder window. Is this true?

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[UliWer]

Thanks for the illustration. 

Am I right that a 35mm Summilux with the 12504 hood, which has an overall length of 45mm and a diameter of 56mm would interfere with the rangefinder window?

Another question:

Do the framelines for 28/35/40 and 50mm give the field of view if you use the corresponding focal lengthes, or do you have to mulitply by 1.5: 50mm framelines with a 35m lens, 35mm framelines with a 24mm lens etc? 

[ramarren]

51 minutes ago, UliWer said:

Somewhere I read that some lenses with larger hoods block the rangefinder window. Is this true?

loloboubou1's diagram is a decent guide.

I tested the Pixii with 

Voigtländer HyperWide 10; Color Skopar 21, 28, 50; Leica Summilux 35, Summicron-M 50, Summitar-M 75, M-Rokkor 90, and Hektor 13.5cm. All with both factory or aftermarket hoods fited. Only the 10mm occluded the rangefinder window, but it doesn't matter in that case since the HyperWide 10 is not a rangefinder coupled lens. 

My 1972 Summilux 35mm f/1.4 v2 with the mentioned correct 12504 hood did not occlude the rangefinder window. The 12504 hood has cutouts in the hood to minimize any such interference with viewfinder and rangefinder windows.

The frame lines for the provided focal lengths show the correct field of view for the focal length set. No juggling of numbers required ... that would be silly, I think. On APS-C, a 35mm lens is essentially equivalent to a 50mm lens field of view ... and the 35mm frame lines show that correctly as they ought to.

G

Edited December 21, 2022 by ramarren

[loloboubou1]

Sorry i forgot the author : thats not my diagram but that of JL Williams.

 

For ULIWER Pixii does not lie: the frames displayed correspond to the actual focal length (nothing to calculate) . We change the frame in the menu (28 35 40 50)

For me 35 lux without hood dont block (distagon 35V 1.4 blocks slightly) but 35 lux with hood can bother a little...(in the viewfinder but don't block the rangefinder like some M no ? )

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by loloboubou1
traduction

[loloboubou1]

12 minutes ago, UliWer said:

Thanks for the illustration. 

Am I right that a 35mm Summilux with the 12504 hood, which has an overall length of 45mm and a diameter of 56mm would interfere with the rangefinder window?

Another question:

Do the framelines for 28/35/40 and 50mm give the field of view if you use the corresponding focal lengthes, or do you have to mulitply by 1.5: 50mm framelines with a 35m lens, 35mm framelines with a 24mm lens etc? 

And, as I see your profile picture, I used with great pleasure a SBOOI 35 with an elmar 24 or a zeiss 25 on my pixiis. What a pleasure (since my Leica  couplex) to see the world through a SBOOI !

[UliWer]

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vor 10 Minuten schrieb loloboubou1:

but 35 lux with hood can bother a little...(in the viewfinder but don't block the rangefinder like some M no ? )

Well, its clear that many lenses with hoods appear in the viewfinder, but the crucial thing is the rangefinder window. If this is only partially blocked, you can't measure the distance. 

[loloboubou1]

You can trust Ramaren ...

 

28 minutes ago, ramarren said:

 

My 1972 Summilux 35mm f/1.4 v2 with the mentioned correct 12504 hood did not occlude the rangefinder window. The 12504 hood has cutouts in the hood to minimize any such interference with viewfinder and rangefinder windows.

The frame lines for the provided focal lengths show the correct field of view for the focal length set. No juggling of numbers required ... that would be silly, I think. On APS-C, a 35mm lens is essentially equivalent to a 50mm lens field of view ... and the 35mm frame lines show that correctly as they ought to.

G

 

[Keith (M)]

The rangefinder base length of a Leica is 68.5mm whereas on the Pixii it is only 49.2mm.  Have those who have used the Pixii found the shorter base length to present any problems with accuracy of focussing?

[ramarren]

53 minutes ago, Keith (M) said:

The rangefinder base length of a Leica is 68.5mm whereas on the Pixii it is only 49.2mm.  Have those who have used the Pixii found the shorter base length to present any problems with accuracy of focussing?

I had no problems with focusing any of my lenses accurately. For perspective, it must be remembered that Leica CL film camera had an RF baseline of only 31.5 mm and I never found that to have focusing issues either. My fastest M-mount lens is the 'Lux 35mm f/1.4 and that seemed to work just fine, as did my 'Cron 50mm f/2. 

Of course, I did not try focusing and shooting with a Summilux 75mm at f/1.4 ...

G

[lct]

50/1.4 lenses should focus fine too but 50/1 and 50/0.95 lenses would be out of the Pixii's RF capabilities i suspect unless the current model has a higher VF magnification than 0.67x. Such lenses would block the VF too much though i guess.

[loloboubou1]

I think that as long as we stay in the use of lenses that are not worth more than 2 to 3 times the price of the pixii it works 😉

 

[lct]

6 minutes ago, loloboubou1 said:

I think that as long as we stay in the use of lenses that are not worth more than 2 to 3 times the price of the pixii it works 😉

The 7artisans 50/1.1 is much less expensive than that. Do you think it would fit the Pixii? 

[loloboubou1]

Well done LCT!!! I had not planned the Chinese attacks! (and the CV 35 1.2 or 50 1.1)

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by loloboubou1
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[lct]

36 minutes ago, loloboubou1 said:

Well done LCT!!! I had not planned the Chinese attacks! (and the CV 35 1.2 or 50 1.1)

The CV 35/1.2 should focus accurately at full aperture but any 50/1.1 would not given the short EBL of the Pixii if it is closer to 33mm than the advertised 49mm as i suspect it. My R-D1 has a somewhat longer EBL but i never tried lenses that fast on it to be honest.

[loloboubou1]

Thx. I will try the 35 1.2 I thought that with the   hood  (even ventilated hood)it blocked the rangefinder window.

[ramarren]

It's an interesting thing: The reason for very fast lenses was, in the days of film cameras, because film speeds for reasonable quality imaging were somewhat limited. 400 was considered fast, 1600 was very grainy and lacking in dynamic range. An f/2 or f/1.4 lens made hand-held shooting without flash possible, so lots of manufacturers (Leica included) came up with ultra fast lenses to suit this need. 

Modern digital cameras have stratospheric sensitivity capabilities by comparison. I haven't needed to think twice about using ISO 3200, 6400, and with the M10-M, ISO 50,000 for high dynamic range, nearly noiseless imaging. With such incredible sensitivity at hand, I rarely find myself needed to set apertures faster than about f/4. 

"Ah, but what of bokeh? ..." or, more precisely, subject isolation via limiting depth of field? This is a matter of personal preference, I feel, and yes I recognize that there is a contingent of photographers who love to use razor-blade thin focus zones and make good photographs with that meme. I've personally found that there's rarely a need for a larger than f/2.8 lens opening even with a 28-35mm lens, and with most longer focal lengths larger than f/4 leaves too little focus depth to make a pleasing image ... eg: on APS-C format, a 50mm lens at f/4 and set to 8 foot, a typical portrait distance, nets about 1.25' depth of field, just about right to get a whole head from nose to ears in sharp focus and soften backgrounds pleasantly. f/1.4 nets something six inches, difficult to accurately get from nose to ears in focus...

But there are exceptions ... The major use of f/1.4 on my Summilux 35, for instance, is when I want less than perfect sharpness. This lens is a little soft wide open, producing the rendering effect of a #2 Zeiss Softar filter as well as shallow focus. There are those infrequent moments when that is a desirable rendering quality, and it's nice to have it to take advantage of. 

Anyway, just things to think about when considering the compatibility and/or need for ultra-fast lenses...  Most of my lenses are f/2.8 to f/4 max aperture, which nets more compact lenses with better performance wide open at far lower prices than the ultra fast class. 

G

Edited December 23, 2022 by ramarren

[lct]

What i like with APS-C is using fast lenses like Summilux or Nokton 35/1.4 and Sonnar 50/1.5 in a compact package but WA and UWA lenses are either big or slow on that format.

[ramarren]

49 minutes ago, lct said:

What i like with APS-C is using fast lenses like Summilux or Nokton 35/1.4 and Sonnar 50/1.5 in a compact package but WA and UWA lenses are either big or slow on that format.

Yes, it's hard to find WA or UWA lenses in M-mount that are fast and compact, because M-mount lenses are primarily designed for an FF sensor, and coverage for FF with an ultra fast WA or UWA requires a design with larger optics, in general. However, there are *some* options ... like the MS-Optical Aporia 24mm f/2, which is absolutely teensy ... but then I found that this lens was a relatively poor match to the Pixii sensor, with rather nasty color shifting and off-axis falloff/degradation. It does beautifully on the Leica CL (APS-C) and M10-M (FF) sensors, so it's definitely a Pixii sensor incompatibility. 

Nothing's perfect. I wonder how the CV 21mm f/1.8 would fare, and whether the RF window clears it. 

G

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[nicci78]

On 12/21/2022 at 11:31 PM, UliWer said:

Thanks for the illustration. 

Am I right that a 35mm Summilux with the 12504 hood, which has an overall length of 45mm and a diameter of 56mm would interfere with the rangefinder window?

Another question:

Do the framelines for 28/35/40 and 50mm give the field of view if you use the corresponding focal lengthes, or do you have to mulitply by 1.5: 50mm framelines with a 35m lens, 35mm framelines with a 24mm lens etc? 

You have to multiply by 1.5x

28mm is equivalent to 42mm.

35mm -> 53mm

40mm -> 60mm

50mm -> 75mm

Pixii VF is limited to a tiny range of 42mm to 75mm equivalent focal length. Only 1.78x

Digital Ms have 28mm to 135mm range. A more confortable 4.82x span. Even better since M typ 240, Leicas got access to live view and electronic viewfinder for precise focusing at any focal length. 

Therefore Pixii lacked of effectively wide angle lenses. 16mm for exemple are only 24mm equivalent in 24x36 world.