Leica M12 -- your next camera?

[Tailwagger]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

3 hours ago, Artin said:

I don’t understand the issue with the light metering, I think it is far more accurate then the M10R.  Or the 240.  

This is an often overlooked plus of the M11.  It's no longer necessary to guestimate and aggressively protect highlights.  While the 10-R provided a noticeable improvement over the 10/240 in this regard, so the 11 stepped considerably passed the R (at least for those who never took advantage of LV in the past).  I find it odd that so much bile has been spilt over the shutter sound and the couple of extra millis to capture, yet there's barely been the slightest acknowledgement that perhaps the improvements wrought by metering off the sensor M11 will save more shots than it costs. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Tailwagger

[Stevejack]

5 minutes ago, Tailwagger said:

This is an often overlooked plus of the M11.  It's no longer necessary to guestimate and aggressively protect highlights.  While the 10-R provided a noticeable improvement over the 10/240 in this regard, so the 11 stepped considerably passed the R (at least for those who never took advantage of LV in the past).  I find it odd that so much bile has been spilt over the shutter sound and the couple of extra millis to capture, yet there's barely been the slightest acknowledgement that perhaps the improvements wrought by metering off the sensor M11 will save more shots than it costs. 

Well put. I think it depends a lot on how you shoot as well, I'm never using auto ISO or anything similar, just completely manual exposure so I'm not relying on the internal meter as much. Those using any of the auto modes would absolutely benefit by metering straight from the sensor.

[jdlaing]

4 hours ago, SrMi said:

Stefan Daniel said that there will be enough room if the mechanical shutter will be removed. Why do you disagree?

For image stabilizer the sensor package would have to be moved forward and the mount to “film plane” or sensor in this case is pretty finite. Move the sensor package forward and you have to move the mount out either until it protrudes way more than it does now or the body becomes thicker.

Edited November 24, 2022 by jdlaing

[Stevejack]

2 minutes ago, jdlaing said:

For image stabilizer the sensor package would have to be moved forward and the mount to “film plane” or sensor in this case I’d finite. Move the sensor package forward and you have to move the mount out either until it protrudes way more than it does now or the body becomes thicker.

Right. This would be a non-issue with anything other than a rangefinder camera right? For the rangefinder to work properly with all existing lenses, it needs to be using that same set distance between sensor + lens mount. If I'm understanding how it works correctly, any other non-rangefinder mirrorless camera would be able to compensate easily if the sensor was moved forwards to accomodate IBIS yeah?

[SrMi]

3 minutes ago, jdlaing said:

For image stabilizer the sensor package would have to be moved forward and the mount to “film plane” or sensor in this case is pretty finite. Move the sensor package forward and you have to move the mount out either until it protrudes way more than it does now or the body becomes thicker.

I do not think that is the only approach, otherwise Stefan Daniel would not have mentioned it.

[jdlaing]

1 minute ago, Stevejack said:

Right. This would be a non-issue with anything other than a rangefinder camera right? For the rangefinder to work properly with all existing lenses, it needs to be using that same set distance between sensor + lens mount. If I'm understanding how it works correctly, any other non-rangefinder mirrorless camera would be able to compensate easily if the sensor was moved forwards to accomodate IBIS yeah?

Correct. The sensor package, as it is now in an M body is fixed tight to a heat sink up tight to the back of the body. To use 5 axis ibis it would need 3-5mm to operate including the mechanism. 

[jdlaing]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

3 minutes ago, SrMi said:

I do not think that is the only approach, otherwise Stefan Daniel would not have mentioned it.

This is why Stefan Daniel is not a design engineer. 😃

[jdlaing]

2 minutes ago, Artin said:

If it’s only a matter of 3 to 5 mm then it’s a simple solution, move the mount 1 to 1.5 mm forward make the body 2 to 3.5 mm thicker and there we go. 
it will piss off a few puritans and eventually they will get over it. 

Fat chance of that after all the hue and cry and re-design. Ibis is a needless crutch to begin with. 

[SrMi]

1 minute ago, Artin said:

If it’s only a matter of 3 to 5 mm then it’s a simple solution, move the mount 1 to 1.5 mm forward make the body 2 to 3.5 mm thicker and there we go. 
it will piss off a few puritans and eventually they will get over it. 

If you remove the mechanical shutter, you may not need to make the body thicker. However, moving the lens mount forward is possible as it does not make the main body thicker, where the thickness is most important (users holding the camera).
Leica has repeatedly said that making the body thicker is not an option.

 

[SrMi]

2 minutes ago, jdlaing said:

Fat chance of that after all the hue and cry and re-design. Ibis is a needless crutch to begin with. 

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.

[Herr Barnack]

15 minutes ago, Artin said:

If it’s only a matter of 3 to 5 mm then it’s a simple solution, move the mount 1 to 1.5 mm forward make the body 2 to 3.5 mm thicker and there we go. 
it will piss off a few puritans and eventually they will get over it. 

Remember the hell that was raised over the thicker bodied M240?

I cannot speak for everyone in the Leicaverse, but I have an M-P 240, an M4-P and an M10 Monochrom.  JMHO, but I much prefer the dimensions of the M4-P and M10 Monnochrom.  When I first got my M-P 240, I thought the extra thickness wasn't an issue - but as time  passed, it lost its charm.  

If I have to choose between the traditional M camera dimensions and no IBIS or a thicker M camera with IBIS, the non-IBIS traditional M camera wins hands down.  Make the M bigger, add more and more non-essential features that people "just can't live without" (🙄) and it is no longer an M camera.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Herr Barnack

[Stevejack]

9 minutes ago, jdlaing said:

Fat chance of that after all the hue and cry and re-design. Ibis is a needless crutch to begin with. 

I think IBIS opens up creative potentials and this day and age it should be on all mirrorless cameras. And I say that as someone who never really uses it on any of my cameras, and I would be personally fine if it's not on the M12. 

[jakontil]

Whatever leica is doing, please dont lose its traditional dimension

[Stevejack]

I wonder - if they make the sensor oversized, they could possibly make use of on-sensor stabilisation yeah? Something like how go-pro and some phones do it? That would solve the thickness issue at least, but I'm not sure whether it would work well enough to warrant it.

[SrMi]

21 minutes ago, Stevejack said:

I wonder - if they make the sensor oversized, they could possibly make use of on-sensor stabilisation yeah? Something like how go-pro and some phones do it? That would solve the thickness issue at least, but I'm not sure whether it would work well enough to warrant it.

On sensor-stabilization with an immobile sensor works only for video.

[SrMi]

Leica M body thickness:

M4: 33.5mm

M5: 36mm

M6: 33.5mm

M8: 37mm

M240: 42mm

M11 & M10: 39mm

[Tailwagger]

45 minutes ago, Stevejack said:

Right. This would be a non-issue with anything other than a rangefinder camera right? For the rangefinder to work properly with all existing lenses, it needs to be using that same set distance between sensor + lens mount. If I'm understanding how it works correctly, any other non-rangefinder mirrorless camera would be able to compensate easily if the sensor was moved forwards to accomodate IBIS yeah?

Perhaps, I'm misunderstanding supposition or responses, but lenses, regardless of manufacturer, are designed to project the image a specific distance. So everyone's in the same boat. ie, the difficulty has nothing to do with being an RF per se, but everything to do with being a Leica RF.  MILCs from Canon and Nikon, for example provide adapters that increased the distance to the sensor from the mount to accommodate owners of legacy SLR lenses.  This, by the way, is why you don't see these same manufacturers providing adapters in the opposite direction to mount their new mirrorless lenses on legacy DSLRs.  You can add depth via a mount, but, of course, you can't subtract it.

When Fuji adopted IBIS on the X series they just increased size of the XT body. The difference being that whereas Fuji shooters are reasonably pragmatic, most Leica folk are rabid traditionalists. As mentioned above there were near riots over the increased thickness of the M240 which seemingly left an extremely bitter taste in Wetzlar's mouth.  A key change from the 240 to M10 was slimming things back down to a more traditional thickness which largely restored order to the Leicaverse. Since then Leica has been steadfast, at least publicly, about not crossing that line again. So as there no stomach for altering the camera's dimensions, even though we're taking only a few mm, there's no easy way to accommodate the thicker sensor stack required by current gen IBIS sensors. 

As Artin suggests, one possibility would be, similar to the notion of the adapters above, to have the mount protrude further out of the body.  But the aesthetics no doubt would meet with strong resistance, perhaps equal to that met by the 240.  Fancifully, it occurs to me that they might be able to split the difference by pushing the mount a less obvious mm or two and losing the rear display, ala the 10-D, to gain a few mm from the rear.  Certainly a screen-less M would delight all the purists out there so much that they might be able to accept the fact that there's an IBIS sensor in there. 😉  The downside, of course, is that we'd all have to use Fotos and the Visoflex to deal with menus, config or shot review.  Regardless of whether something along these lines is feasible, I find it an interesting thought experiment as to whether or not losing the convenience of a built in screen is a reasonable tradeoff to gain IBIS as opposed to just going back to the 240 sized body... or just forgetting about an M with IBIS all together. In my current world, if I require IBIS, I just shoot with the SL2.

 

 

[Stevejack]

13 minutes ago, Tailwagger said:

Perhaps, I'm misunderstanding supposition or responses, but lenses, regardless of manufacturer, are designed to project the image a specific distance. So everyone's in the same boat. ie, the difficulty has nothing to do with being an RF per se, but everything to do with being a Leica RF. 

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. 

[jakontil]

1 hour ago, SrMi said:

Leica M body thickness:

M4: 33.5mm

M5: 36mm

M6: 33.5mm

M8: 37mm

M240: 42mm

M11 & M10: 39mm

MP & MA: 38mm

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Mr.Prime]

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.