PDAF likely to replace DFD-CDAF on SL3

[BernardC]

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21 minutes ago, sillbeers15 said:

Limited edition Leica SL2S V-Spec or Type R?

Exactly! An architect friend pointed this out, back in the early days of the carbon fiber craze. Carbon-fiber "racing parts" for motorcycles weighed the same as the plastic fenders, seat units, fairings, etc. that they replaced. As he used to say: "your bike weighs the same, but your wallet is lighter."

CF and other composites have advantages for structural parts, but they can't be machined to the same accuracy as metals, so they aren't a great solution for cameras.

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[John Smith]

12 hours ago, Planetwide said:

I agree it's PDAF time for Leica, anything less and they will fall further behind. I am glad to hear that they have received the message. Personally, I am also hoping for a flip screen, preferably identical in movements to the current S1r. Leica also needs to play to their strengths, the body should be carbon fibre, or some sort of carbon matrix, with metal as needed - lens mount etc... It needs to be light, and maintain the Leica minimalistic interface. Given the price, I feel that it needs to be more than just a rebadge from Panasonic.

Lastly, the bottom should be Arca Swiss compatible - built in.

IMHO

I believe Stefan Daniel said the SL3 will weigh pretty much the same as the SL2. Photographers can switch to Canon, Nikon, etc. who use plastics in their bodies and lenses if weight is such a problem. 

[Simone_DF]

1 hour ago, John Smith said:

I believe Stefan Daniel said the SL3 will weigh pretty much the same as the SL2. Photographers can switch to Canon, Nikon, etc. who use plastics in their bodies and lenses if weight is such a problem. 

And what is going to happen to the SL line if a substantial amount of photographers switch to the S5II or to other brands?

[John Smith]

39 minutes ago, Simone_DF said:

And what is going to happen to the SL line if a substantial amount of photographers switch to the S5II or to other brands?

So Leica should start employing plastics in its SL bodies and lenses? Is that what you're saying?

[Simone_DF]

12 minutes ago, John Smith said:

So Leica should start employing plastics in its SL bodies and lenses? Is that what you're saying?

I'm saying be careful what you wish for.

[Planetwide]

25 minutes ago, John Smith said:

So Leica should start employing plastics in its SL bodies and lenses? Is that what you're saying?

Carbon is not plastic. It is strong, light weight, and durable. It is used in Cars, Aircraft, and many other high utilization applications. It is certainly capable of yielding a robust camera body. The SL system has rightly been criticized for its excessive weight. This is supposed to be a pro system, and as such, reduced weight camera bodies allow for extra lenses to be carried. Leica is supposed to be cutting edge in the technology dept... Heck, even Titanium would be better.

[LocalHero1953]

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17 hours ago, sillbeers15 said:

Granted Leica is the leader in optics.

And interfaces/ergonomics/haptics - in fact everything that makes you want to use a camera - and its mainly amateurs that will buy it (as with all brands). And you can add colour. AF speed, while important for some (and especially for headline specs and mass marketing) is just one element. Leica is not out to compete with Canon etc. As has been often said, they will lose out in the sports market and for BIF, but will win out elsewhere. FTAOD AF speed and face recognition/tracking is important to me as well - but it is just one element - and Leica is a leader in other areas I value more.

Edited January 3, 2023 by LocalHero1953

[BernardC]

1 hour ago, Simone_DF said:

And what is going to happen to the SL line if a substantial amount of photographers switch to the S5II or to other brands?

My guess is that they will eventually release a smaller camera line to replace the APS-C models (albeit with a full-frame sensor), and keep the SL line as-is. There's a reason why every "advanced amateur" camera since the Exacta is more-or-less the same size. The S5 is only 1cm smaller in two dimensions (depth is the same, because of the hand grip).

 

On a less serious note, what is going to happen to the Sony line if a substantial amount of photographers switch to well-designed menu systems?

[LocalHero1953]

25 minutes ago, BernardC said:

On a less serious note, what is going to happen to the Sony line if a substantial amount of photographers switch to well-designed menu systems?

It will only happen when there is an objective scoring system for menus. "A substantial amount of photographers" only choose cameras based on numerical specs. The moment someone produces a single number to sum up a menu, Sony are lost. 

It's a serious point though. Most people do not trust their own judgement of qualitative matters, such as colour, ease of use, practicality. They are only happy when someone defines image quality in terms of the number of pixels. This is a problem for Leica, whose virtues are mainly qualitative.

Edited January 3, 2023 by LocalHero1953

[John Smith]

52 minutes ago, Simone_DF said:

I'm saying be careful what you wish for.

I guess I could say the same thing to you.

[hansvons]

4 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

It's a serious point though. Most people do not trust their own judgement of qualitative matters, such as colour, ease of use, practicality. They are only happy when someone defines image quality in terms of the number of pixels. This is a problem for Leica, whose virtues are mainly qualitative.

Agreed. Colour is subjective and needs quite some training to work with it, let alone discuss the different manufacturers' colour science approaches. Canon, for instance, makes skin tones look as healthy as possible without sacrificing natural colour reproduction too much. They even design their lens coatings to that goal (I know that from the horse's mouth). And that's precisely what most professional photographers want: pleasing colours for their client's pleasure, eg the editors of local newspapers or the marriage-paying fathers-in-law.

You cannot quantify colour and attach numbers and specs to it. You have to judge it for yourself. This is an impossible task for most camera buyers. Likewise, Leica is an impossible choice for most potential buyers because the math (specs vs price) needs to add up, and Leica's way of colour rendition doesn't influence the calculation. In the cinema camera market, that's different. Price has little importance, as do MPs, but colour counts the most because the manufacturer's clients are complicated, demanding, and highly trained (directors, producers and cinematographers).

[sillbeers15]

12 hours ago, BernardC said:

Exactly! An architect friend pointed this out, back in the early days of the carbon fiber craze. Carbon-fiber "racing parts" for motorcycles weighed the same as the plastic fenders, seat units, fairings, etc. that they replaced. As he used to say: "your bike weighs the same, but your wallet is lighter."

CF and other composites have advantages for structural parts, but they can't be machined to the same accuracy as metals, so they aren't a great solution for cameras.

To the layman, Carbon Fiber looks racy and it meets their desire. The real advantage of carbon fiber over steel and FRP is structural strength & weight savings. That requires a dry carbon fiber construction method employing an autoclave to form the parts instead of just a mold with epoxy resin over fiber. Obviously only aviation & motor racing can afford to pay for these bespoke manufactured parts. I call it the difference between boys & men.

[Planetwide]

As someone who rides a motorcycle with factory installed carbon components, it is lighter. Carbon has revolutionized the bicycle industry with significant weight reductions while maintaining strength. 

My suggestion was for Leica to lighten the camera significantly. The plastics/matrixes used by Canon, Nikon, Panasonic & Sony seem to hold up really well. Is this a case of using magnesium or aluminium to differentiate the product. If that is the reason, then let's lighten it as well - Titanium/ Carbon Matrix or whatever would further differentiate the system. My point was, Leica could be a leader here, and play to their strengths. 

The Leica SL series has the colour, menu, lenses, and weather sealing. All it needs is PDAF, a flip screen and quality with weight reduction, and it would be the reference system. IMHO

[beewee]

Believe it or not, moulded plastics are actually quite expensive for low volume production and it’s often cost prohibitive. It really only makes sense if you’re manufacturing tens if not hundreds of thousands of parts where injection molding becomes economical. The cost of tooling for the injection molds is extremely expensive and for smaller volume productions it’s more economical to use CNC, especially if you already have all the tooling capability in house that’s well amortized, which is the case for Leica. Tooling costs skyrocket when high precision becomes a requirement as the injection moulds will wear out overtime and you end up having to discard them sooner than if your precision requirements are less stringent.

Carbon layups can be economical to make for large parts that doesn’t require sub-millimeter precision but for very high precision parts like body housings where you have components that need to be screwed into place, it would be very costly to use carbon layups as your rejection rate would be very high. The only sensible composite option would be to use a carbon loaded injection plastic but then you run into very high cost of tooling. Plus even then, you are still stuck with having to mold in metal parts for things like tripod mounts and hotshoes which drives up the cost even further.

For SL bodies where Leica may sell <50k units over the life cycle of the product, CNC machined housing components is actually the most sensible and cost effective choice.

Edited January 4, 2023 by beewee

[FlashGordonPhotography]

Carbon Fibre in a camera body would save maybe a few grams. On my mountain bikes the savings are only around half a kilo for the carbon frame over a modern alloy one. Scale that down and the differences are minute. Scale it up to motorcycles and racing cars and the advantages are large. Also it’s ugly.

The SL body acts as a heat sync. Same as the X1D. You want decent video times you need metal exposed to the air. Sony found that out.

I like the heft of my SL2. If I’m going to save a bit of weight it’d be in the lenses, not the body. Canon seem to be doing some really good stuff in making the pro RF lenses like the 70-200 smaller and lighter. The 100-500 is nearly half as big as the Sigma 150-600 we have. But I’m OK with the primes. I can go all day with an SL2, 14-24, 28, 50 and 90 APO’s. Plus there are several lighter alternatives from Panasonic and Sigma. The solidity of the SL2 is one of the things I like about it the most.

I shot Canon professionally for nearly 20 years. Even then the skin tones made me want to puke. I like them less now. Every white person has hepatitis. I like Leica’s skin tones although Hasselblad’s are the best. And it depends on which raw processor you load them into. When I switched to the SL601 I got much better feedback on the skin tones. And I got 99% perfectly sharp images shooting weddings. I don’t need an A7RV to get my shots in focus.

Gordon

[hansvons]

58 minutes ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

I shot Canon professionally for nearly 20 years. Even then the skin tones made me want to puke. I like them less now. Every white person has hepatitis.

I wouldn’t hurl when seeing Canon skin tones, but I agree on hepatitis.  

Edited January 4, 2023 by hansvons

[proenca]

18 hours ago, Planetwide said:

Carbon is not plastic. It is strong, light weight, and durable. It is used in Cars, Aircraft, and many other high utilization applications. It is certainly capable of yielding a robust camera body. The SL system has rightly been criticized for its excessive weight. This is supposed to be a pro system, and as such, reduced weight camera bodies allow for extra lenses to be carried. Leica is supposed to be cutting edge in the technology dept... Heck, even Titanium would be better.

wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll... is polymer fibers.

and plastic is a different type of polymer.

so while its not plastic per so, its not far away from .) just different molecules arrangement  I do agree that they are vastly different , of course.

however, a SL2 in carbon fiber would be insanely expensive and yet, not a good idea.

body alone, would be 5-6k in materials only - and to be honest, while carbon is rigid and lightweight, its not the best thing ever on impact - so that means that a drop of the SL2 on the floor would be a very traumatic and very very costly and perhaps ( most likely ) not repairable.

Leica has NOT been in the cutting edge of technology dept EVER. as in never. 

Leica has been in the cutting edge of craftmanship and lens performance- on par ( sometimes better, sometimes worse )  with Hasselblad.

Leica has been slow to implement changes, slow to implement tech - and its not necessarily a bad thing.

Save weight, either use Magnesium or Titanium - again, prohibited expensive.

 

2 hours ago, hansvons said:

I wouldn’t hurl when seeing Canon skin tones, but I agree on hepatitis.  

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

 

3 hours ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

I like the heft of my SL2. If I’m going to save a bit of weight it’d be in the lenses, not the body. Canon seem to be doing some really good stuff in making the pro RF lenses like the 70-200 smaller and lighter. The 100-500 is nearly half as big as the Sigma 150-600 we have. But I’m OK with the primes. I can go all day with an SL2, 14-24, 28, 50 and 90 APO’s. Plus there are several lighter alternatives from Panasonic and Sigma. The solidity of the SL2 is one of the things I like about it the most.

 

Couldn't agree more. I love the SL2 factor : big viewfinder, crips and world class resolution, good heft and weight that balance very well with small and large lenses.



which boils down to : want a small, lighter alternative ? yeah, its starts with a M letter or Q...


 

[Simone_DF]

3 minutes ago, proenca said:

which boils down to : want a small, lighter alternative ? yeah, its starts with a M letter or Q...

I'd happily buy a Q with a 50mm. I'd buy a Q form factor camera with L mount even more. But 28mm? I'm not interested.

The M doesn't offer autofocus, IBIS, EVF and other useful tech. Apple and oranges. 

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[LBJ2]

D-Day ! In about 30 minutes.

But already the specs and pricing may have leaked.

https://www.l-rumors.com/s5ii-and-s5iix-pricing-leaked/#disqus_thread

[proenca]

1 hour ago, Simone_DF said:

I'd happily buy a Q with a 50mm. I'd buy a Q form factor camera with L mount even more. But 28mm? I'm not interested.

The M doesn't offer autofocus, IBIS, EVF and other useful tech. Apple and oranges. 

you can't have it all just smaller just because

the closest thing is the Q2 - altough its "beefy" enough in the mp department to accept a crop ( to emulate the 50mm ) and still be doable - I'm not a fan of doing that ( you can crop but you can't emulate compression of a longer lens ) and again, I'm quite happy with the SL2 size and weight. 

And yes, I'm one of those imbecieles that haul around a Sl2 on vacation with a SL lens and a Sigma 14-24.

so take my comments with a grain of salt