Leica M12 -- your next camera?

[Stevejack]

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35 minutes ago, Mr.Prime said:

With the risk of repeating myself somewhere, my dream M12 is that it’s like the film M cameras in feel and operation but saves me from developing and scanning film into my computer. Think of it as the M4 with a digital sensor squeezed in - same mechanical cloth shutter with the film-wind-on lever to cock said shutter. And 24Mp is enough if that helps at all. OK, more than 36 frames is nice to have and long battery life would be great. That’s it.

100%. A digital back on an analogue camera. No rear screen, just a visoflex if needed. I'm jealous of all the Hasselblad 500c/m owners who can just swap out a film back for a digital back and keep shooting (crazy cost aside of course).

The M-D comes pretty close, but I agree that having a cloth shutter and purely mechanical shutter speeds (with the snick-tick sound of the slower speeds)... heaven. Better yet if they somehow figured out a way to quickly swap out the film door on the MP with a digital sensor, and a battery which slides into where the film cassette goes... One camera for both film and digital. One can dream, right?

[jdlaing]

10 hours ago, SrMi said:

Leica and most owners disagree with your opinion about IBIS.
Example: X1D, without IBIS, is still a fantastic camera. However, nobody has complained about IBIS being added to X2D. On the contrary, IBIS has expanded the shooting envelope.

No they don’t. Only a small number compared to all the owners. And Leica M is not X1D.

[lct]

It is amazing that high resolution cameras like the M11 need tripods to be used at slow shutter speeds. Any digital M should be able to do it handheld in the same way as all film Ms since the M3 let alone Barnack cameras. The fact that people like me can live with such a limit does not make it any more acceptable in the long run. In this respect, Stefan Daniel is not just anyone. He is executive vice president of technology & operations at Leica, responsible for product development, from idea to production and from quality management to customer service, as he himself said in an interview quoted above. To the question "One wish is the image stabilizer. Why doesn't the M11 have this?" his reply below is self explanatory:

Quote

I would like to have that as well, but space is the limit here, because one of the specifications, even with the M10, was that the housing depth of the analogue M cameras should be retained. Because that's what makes the camera so handy. But it isn't ruled out that the image stabilizer could be integrated into the M at some point, for example, if we would do without the mechanical shutter and so the necessary space would be available again.

 

[Herr Barnack]

Here's an idea - Leica makes the M12 body 39mm wide and installs EBIS (external body image stabilization) rather than bloating the camera dimensions with IBIS:

 

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Edited November 24, 2022 by Herr Barnack

[lct]

Haha why not that?

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[Tailwagger]

10 hours ago, Stevejack said:

What you're saying makes complete sense and I'm sure you're correct. It's just in my head that with most mirrorless cameras the focus is determined directly by the sensor, so it doesn't really matter about exact distances because the focus by wire setup can accomodate easily for a small distance change (using an adapter which changes that distance, for example). Whereas with the rangefinder + Leica's mechanical focus lenses, the focus is tuned to the rangefinder itself so that sensor/lens distance can't be out by even a small amount. 

Time to clear your head 😃

Yes, for mirrorless cameras figuring out when the image is in focus is a function of the sensor...  sorta.  What's really happening is that the processor is analyzing what the sensor is reporting. This is what we know as either PDAF (Phase Detect Auto Focus) or CDAF (Contrast Detect Auto Focus) systems.  But the sensor doesn't move with respect to the lens to achieve focus on the target, rather the lens barrel rotates and in doing so moves the lens elements nearer or further way from the sensor, shuffling the elements closer to the sensor as we approach infinity and further away as we head to the minimum focus distance. 

Forgetting about specialized focusing modes (eye detect, fast moving objects), what's happening with any AF camera is that you first tell the camera what the target is by moving your joy stick around to select it and when you half press, the camera goes into action. Simplistically, the processor sends a command to the electric motors in the lens to move in or out and when the sensor reports that the target has achieved maximum contrast, the processor moves on to taking the shot, assuming you've decided to press the shutter button. 

With an M, when you can focus via the RF, you are  in essence using the same principles the AF camera does, just via a completely different mechanism, substituting our little gray cells for those made of silicon to determine when max contrast is achieved.  With a Visoflex, you can get closer to how a standard MILC does things by using the 4 way to select a point in the EVF frame and then adjust focus straight off the image coming from the sensor by moving the lens in or out.  Yet again, the processor on the M is out of the way and you are responsible for determining when the image is in focus or not. 

In fact, if Leica cared to, it could make the M mimic the MILC AF process even more closely, the only real difference being you have to move the lens elements and make the final decision as to when to stop doing that. It has been suggested by myself and others over the years that the M could incorporate some form of AF algorithm in its firmware and tell you, say via a flashing red led in the VF, when the processor believes the image is in focus. Likely this is quite tricky without PD sites, as most CD systems (like the SL) are forced to home in on that point by moving past the point of focus and moving back to it to find the point of max contrast. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Tailwagger

[lct]

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As far as IBIS is concerned, it is not the lens or any part of it but the sensor itself which moves AFAIK. At least it is the way it works with M lenses on my Sony A7r2 mod. Then with thin bodies like the Sony, the lens stands on a protruding mount and/or adapter to comply with the registration distance required. The same on M camera would imply the use of a longer arm for the roller cam i guess but i'm no techie. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by lct

[Tailwagger]

4 hours ago, lct said:

As far as IBIS is concerned, it is not the lens or any part of it but the sensor itself which moves AFAIK.

Yup!  If it's in the lens, it's termed OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) as opposed to IBIS which of course stands for In Body.  The Q has OIS, the SL2 IBIS, for example. 

[Jeff S]

And the SL 24-90 and 90-280 have OIS, which works in conjunction with IBIS.

Jeff

[lct]

Little chance that M lenses have ever OIS but i may be wrong. 

[Mr.Prime]

3 minutes ago, lct said:

Little chance that M lenses have ever OIS but i may be wrong. 

Go and wash your mouth out right this instant! 🙂

[lct]

I will say zero chance then .

[Tailwagger]

3 hours ago, lct said:

I will say zero chance then .

No IBIS.  No OIS. No Problem.

There is a third option, albeit perhaps not quite as convenient. Viola... err... Voila!

http://www.bonevphotography.com/Articles/leica-m-gimbal/

 

 

[lct]

Simply IBIS. No need to change anything in lenses.

[Stevejack]

3 hours ago, Artin said:

For all those that say IBIS is not necessary or not a good enough feature to trade off for 3mm of fat,  well I can put a 50mm Summilux in front of my SL2. And shoot a perfect tac sharp image at 1/4  of a second wide open in candle light at ISO 800.  That’s low light performance that no current M camera can come remotely close to.  

I know, and I think you're probably part of a much larger crowd than those of us who don't care about IBIS. For the way I currently shoot I prefer low light images to look like they were shot in low light, with a slow shutter speed and some resulting blur, so I'd happily keep a thinner body and sacrifice IBIS. 

But I'll back your camp 100% if the M12 ends up slightly thicker to accomodate it - it's an important feature to a lot of people, and to leave it out for another generation would surely upset more people than not. Plus it gives Leica an excuse to flog an M13 with a thinner body if/when the tech shrinks enough.

[Tailwagger]

On 11/24/2022 at 9:48 PM, Artin said:

For all those that say IBIS is not necessary or not a good enough feature to trade off for 3mm of fat,  well I can put a 50mm Summilux in front of my SL2. And shoot a perfect tac sharp image at 1/4  of a second wide open in candle light at ISO 800.  That’s low light performance that no current M camera can come remotely close to.  

I, and others, have shot upwards of two seconds and beyond with the SL2.  I'm sure similar speeds would be attainable with an M.  A lot depends on the subject distance, but it's perfectly doable with good technique. Great for shooting night scenes with blurred head/taillights whizzing by. I suspect that what many who've yet to explore IBIS's capabilities tend to miss the fact that its uses go far beyond simply getting sharp images at what traditionally would have been marginal shutter speeds. As you imply, you also gain the ability to shoot at far lower ISO to avoid excess noise.  But beyond the more obvious use cases, you can hand hold in situations which under any other circumstance would have required you were lugging a tripod along, which most of us never do and thus lose the shot.  Luck plays a huge part in my world. When I run into something I see as special, its nice having every advantage you can to pull it off. 

My canonical example below.  The heron remained so still that I was able to stop down sufficiently at base iso and slow shutter speed sufficiently to fully blur the water movement (1/6") despite being outdoors in relatively strong daylight.  The blur of the water against the tack sharp huron... very cooperative subject as she was focused on lunch... makes the shot AFAIC. Taken with the 75mm, without IBIS (or a tripod) this capture would have been completely impossible.  While IBIS has its limitations, it's hard to argue against its utility, both for conventional and more imaginative use cases.

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[thrid]

Here's an idea... how about cheaper?

 

 

[Jeff S]

9 hours ago, Tailwagger said:

My canonical example below. 

Sorry, Leica shots only.

Jeff

[Kwesi]

On 11/26/2022 at 1:36 PM, thrid said:

Here's an idea... how about cheaper?

 

 

Sacrilege!

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[Herr Barnack]

On 11/26/2022 at 1:36 PM, thrid said:

Here's an idea... how about cheaper?

 

 

[humor]  Due to the global economic "slump," (yeah, that's what we'll call it) these are hard times for Leica.  Effective Jan. 1, 2023, the new pricing strategy will be as follows:

M10:  $10,000

M11:  $11,000

M12:  $12,000

M13:  $13,000

And so on.

 

Fortunately for corporations and governments around the globe, the rest of us are apparently thought to be immune to the effects of the global economic "slump."  [/humor] 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Herr Barnack