Why the M needs IBIS

[Steadimann]

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M does not need Ibis.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Almizilero]

While I'm not holding my breath for an IBIS-M, whenever these things come up I wonder why some people are so very much against it ( it being IBIS or basically any other technology that has not yet been implemented in the M).

Thought experiment: If there were two M12 versions, one without IBIS, one with IBIS and:

• it would not impact body size
• It would not impact weight (or let's say the black M12 with IBIS still weights less than the silver M12 without)
• it would have the same price
• IBIS could be turned of
• nobody ever reported any technical difficulties due to IBIS ()

Would you still buy the NO-IBIS version just because?
 

 

[Smudgerer]

40 minutes ago, _leicaguru said:

Yea personally I hardly ever shoot slower than 125s. There's no point in me shooting at less than 1/250th because I'm shooting people moving and I usually want to freeze their motion 1/500s if I'm also moving and 1/1000s if I'm shooting animals especially birds. I absolutely have 0 need for slow shutter speeds unless I want to see the motion blur. 

Also small imperfections just make the picture when you're shooting a rangefinder. It adds to the charm of it. I don't know why some M shooters here want to pursue absolute perfection. The M rangefinders were never about that. So what if a photo has a bit of shake? If it's good it's good. Sometimes a little shake makes the shot. 

I fully concur with the last paragraph........

[Lee S]

IBIS would be a welcome addition to the M, it could probably do full axis IBIS by inferring distance from the focus cam mechanism. 
 

[raizans]

Ok, maybe I should have added the words “to stay competitive” to the title, since all other mirrorless systems have both types of image stabilization at their disposal.

[Ecar]

1 hour ago, pippy said:

For an M? This is a matter which, it could be suggested, is open to much debate......😸......

The debate seems to have already started...🤣

[_leicaguru]

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4 minutes ago, raizans said:

Ok, maybe I should have added the words “to stay competitive” to the title, since all other mirrorless systems have both types of image stabilization at their disposal.

The M has no competition. This is the thing people get so wrong. There is no other digital rangefinder. The M is on its own island. Leica has the SL line that is competing with others. 

The M doesn't have to be anything other than a simple rangefinder. 

Edited February 5 by _leicaguru

[RF’sDelight]

vor 39 Minuten schrieb Smudgerer:

I fully concur with the last paragraph........

+1

I think there are improvements to the M that improve the typical M experience, like for example the brighter flare free viewfinder. But there are also these kind of demandings of things like EVF, IBIS etc. that would turn the M into something like a Semi-DSLR. I think if this is what you looking for, you better go full DSLR (Leica SL3) or change to Fuji. Both ways are also cheaper than a Leica M.

To my personal taste the M11 is almost to much of digital a camera in that direction – the missing baseplate, light metering from the sensor. I fully appreciate the improved connectivity and battery life though. But  I won’t let go my M10-R ever.  😎 

Edited February 5 by RF’sDelight

[Besprosvet]

1 hour ago, _leicaguru said:

Yea personally I hardly ever shoot slower than 125s. There's no point in me shooting at less than 1/250th because I'm shooting people moving and I usually want to freeze their motion 1/500s if I'm also moving and 1/1000s if I'm shooting animals especially birds. I absolutely have 0 need for slow shutter speeds unless I want to see the motion blur. 

Also small imperfections just make the picture when you're shooting a rangefinder. It adds to the charm of it. I don't know why some M shooters here want to pursue absolute perfection. The M rangefinders were never about that. So what if a photo has a bit of shake? If it's good it's good. Sometimes a little shake makes the shot. 

IBIS distracts me a lot because it makes me think about "perfection" in my shots, so I end up shooting less interesting things. It's purely psychological, sure, but I'd rather not having it to not be tempted. The M series forces me to keep things simple, and I love it.

[Derbyshire Man]

4 hours ago, _leicaguru said:

That's a self inflicted issue. It shows the M doesn't need IBIS. The M needs to go back to a 40MP sensor. 

Speak for yourself! indeed do it for yourself, you can already select 18, 36 or 60mb. Personally I don't have issues with camera shake with any of them. At standard reciprocal, camera shake even if present due to high resolution despite good technique is abolished by shrinking an 60mb images to an 36 or even 18 and printing from that.

[_leicaguru]

Just now, Derbyshire Man said:

Speak for yourself! indeed do it for yourself, you can already select 18, 36 or 60mb. Personally I don't have issues with camera shake with any of them. At standard reciprocal, camera shake even if present due to high resolution despite good technique is abolished by shrinking an 60mb images to an 36 or even 18 and printing from that.

For the future M, I would rather they do away with the Sony 60MP sensor. They're just in the MP race now. Just dump all that and get out of that lane. I would go back to Kodak and where they were going with the M8. I would, for the M12, develop a Kodak sensor at 40MP that basically gave colors like Kodak film stock. Could be baked into the raw. Maybe selectable in the menu for the jpegs. They can collaborate with Kodak and that new sensor to give us Kodachrome and a few other classic Kodak color presets. It would make the M so unique. Even just the Leica M default profile should give you really unique results from this new Kodak sensor. 

As it's going now, basically if you put a Leica lens on a A7RV they're basically identical. The M is turning into another generic high megapixel mirroless camera. 

[Derbyshire Man]

Not so sure, for me it's the user experience, small, light, inconspicuous, rangefinder, manual focus. I like that I can take either compact files for reportage or full mp for approaching medium format landscape and portraiture. All out of a single body. I'm not bothered about the off sensor colours as long as the files are malleable, which they are. I mean if they looked like the colours from Hasselblad that would be nice but no more than that.

Sony/Canon/Nikon/Fuji etc regardless of sensor and colour will always be different instruments to use.

[Markey]

16 minutes ago, _leicaguru said:

As it's going now, basically if you put a Leica lens on a A7RV they're basically identical. The M is turning into another generic high megapixel mirroless camera. 

I can see the logic in that.

The M as talked about here is going the same way as the Barnack line only its being done more slowly.

Its the old adage "How do you boil a frog " .

A sustainable market for the traditional M is probably no longer profitable without continually attracting new customers. .

[JNK100]

1 hour ago, Steadimann said:

M does not need Ibis.

Particularly with a name like 'Steadimann'!!😂

[lct]

1 hour ago, _leicaguru said:

[...] Shoot it at 1/250 if your hands can no longer handle the reciprocal 1/f rule. 

I'm fortunate enough to shoot the M11 at 1/(2f)s but i take my M240 or my Sony for slow shutter speeds. I expected the M12 to replace them all but what i read here makes me fear to have to wait for the M13.

[SrMi]

5 hours ago, _leicaguru said:

That's a self inflicted issue. It shows the M doesn't need IBIS. The M needs to go back to a 40MP sensor. 

What is so magical about 40MP? It is only about 20% less linear resolution than 60MP. In theory, it can handle only 20% slower handholding speeds. In practice, my slowest handholding shutter speed is the same for a 40MP and a 60MP sensor. The 5 or 4 stop of stabilization are independent of the sensor resolution.

[SrMi]

3 hours ago, _leicaguru said:

Not me thanks. 

90mm at 1/100s is called the reciprocal rule. Anyone who knows how to hold a camera properly can do this. Maybe because of your age your hands aren't steady. In that case maybe you should consider something other than rangefinders. I would stick to your Sony. It's good for bad eyes and shaky hands as you age. 

The reciprocal rule is the most bogus recipe for blurred images, even for 35mm film. However, technology is moving forward, and Leica must, too. If that bothers you, stay with an older M. They are still great cameras.

[SrMi]

I agree that Leica does not need an IBIS, especially for street photography in the style of Winogrand, where the shutter speed must be high anyway. However, if you shoot more in the style of Eggleston, an IBIS would expand the handholding possibilities of a Leica M and not push photographers to use a camera with IBIS instead.

I think the opposition to IBIS is mainly based on the fear that we will lose something by adding the IBIS. I think IBIS would be nice as long as the "soul" of M is not gone. If it cannot be done, I will happily shoot without IBIS and occasionally use a tripod.

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[pippy]

One of the chief difficulties (I suspect) for Leica is that many users of the M system want very different things from their camera.

It is understandable that many users would appreciate some form of IBIS. Similarly the 60Mp sensor is an attraction for another (sometimes overlapping) group of photographers. As has been mentioned by _Leicaguru (above) there are those who would wish for Leica to go back to using a 40Mp Kodak sensor and, in collaboration, work towards obtaining a 'Kodachrome'-esque colour palette. It has even been mooted by some traitorous, treacherous infiltrators that the M should be equipped with a television! an EVF............Heaven Forfend!

On the other side of the coin some users are more than content with a 24Mp sensor and an ISO high of 6400 and, in fact, numerous users say that there was nothing particularly lacking with the 18Mp files from the M9 series. On which note they might also ask "When are we going to go back to using a CCD sensor? CMOS is rubbish by comparison". We don't really need to debate the ludicrous idea to ditch the removable baseplate as EVERYONE knows that, as mistakes from Leica go, that idiocy really takes the biscuit...

My own views on what I require from  digi-M are, I freely admit, both highly archaic and somewhat Draconian. The M-D Typ-262 can't, in all honesty, be described as being a 'Feature Packed' product but even so; it has a number of features which - for my style of shooting - could easily have been omitted / deleted and I'd never once have noticed their absence.

So Leica will, to an extent, simply have to play the 'Specification-Race' game and offer a number of modern features for modern photographers scouting the modern marketplace in which they find themselves. Leica will have little choice. This wouldn't be the route which I, as an outsider, would wish them to pursue but people with my views are becoming akin to dinosaurs heading towards extinction.

Philip.

[charlesphoto99]

Even if Leica soldier on to essentially make a Sony in an M shell, what they really need to do is assure their user base that they will have the backs of those who prefer the simplicity of the older models. Better repair times, battery availability, parts availability (for third parties as well), and so on. Nobody really needs a new M every three to four years, esp when there are so many available on the used market (well at least there are when the new model comes around).