Why the M needs IBIS

[84bravo]

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17 hours ago, Crem said:

 

 

Edited February 6 by 84bravo

[Crem]

18 hours ago, evikne said:

I really hope that this is not going to be the only option.

And what's the point of a rangefinder camera that is not simple? To me, it seems completely contradictory.

Because they don’t really want a rangefinder in the traditional sense. What they want is an hyper feature rich camera that looks like an M. They want the M to be the luxury Sony equivalent. 

The problem I see is… to what end does Leica focus on tech as the marketing hook? If the M had IBIS, hybrid EVF/OVF, 1TB internal storage, stacked sensor, no physical shutter, AI face/eye/object detection, flip screen, and every feature you can think of in a Sony… honestly would it take better photos? Do they want video too? People would take the same photos they take today and we would lose the soul of the M (simplicity).

Edited February 6 by Crem

[Ko.Fe.]

3 hours ago, 84bravo said:

When the M8 was introduced full frame was not possible in such a compact body. Since then the bodies are full frame, smaller, and significantly advanced. Maybe IBIS isn't possible in the current M11, but who knows what will come with the M12 or M13?

I'm not aware of this limitation back then. To me 2006 is the time of not wide spread of FF cameras. 

[DadDadDaddyo]

An analogy...

My daily driver (automobile) is a small two seater. It develops 181 horsepower and weighs about 2300 pounds. Power is transmitted to the rear wheels by a six-speed manual transmission. The vehicle is nimble and exhilaratingly responsive. Driving it on a twisty country road is one of the joys of my life. 

As a concession to the marketplace, the manufacturer offers an automatic transmission as an option in this vehicle, for people who can't, or don't want to, use a manual transmission. 

The wish for an automatic transmission in this vehicle is, at best, tangential to the set of characteristics motivating many of those who seek out a vehicle such as this. That said, I don't mind that they offer this option, for those who need it. 

But do I wish this vehicle also had an available option offering, for example, a heavy duty towing package? Towing a house trailer or a boat trailer is a good thing, right? Shouldn't all cars be able to tow a 30 foot sailboat?

Hmm. No. Not necessarily. Not for me. Maybe for someone else?

If your needs, your requirements, are such that you need automatic transmission, towng capacity, or seating room for the whole family plus the dogs, there are many excellent examples on the market of vehicles designed to meet those requirements.

I don't have those requirements. Why in the world would I even want those 'features' to be included in my lightweight two seat convertible? Indeed, the absence of those 'features' is a feature in and of itself. 

Do you see where I'm going with this analogy?

[SrMi]

7 hours ago, pegelli said:

The only reason one might "need" IBIS on a 60 MP camera and not on a 24 MP camera is for pixel peeping affectionadas. 

At a given output size camera shake is equally good or bad irrespective of sensor MP's.

Five stops of stabilization are five stops, independent of resolution. The difference is that a lower resolution (created in the post or from the sensor) can handle lower shutter speeds. 

[SrMi]

5 hours ago, 84bravo said:

It has been my experience that with the electronic shutter that rule is effectively doubled. IBIS would make a huge difference there. Even at high shutter speeds the electronic shutter exaggerates camera movement.

That does not make sense and is not my experience. An electronic shutter can reduce camera shake, though with Ms, that may be only noticeable when shooting on a tripod.

[SrMi]

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7 hours ago, Ko.Fe. said:

IBIS is cool, but realistically not possible in such compact FF body, where significant part is taken by the thing which makes M very special. A.k.a. rangefinder.

EVFs are much more compact, but still. Look at today's crappy release of OM-3. Tiny sensor, huge body for it and weight is not far from M11.

No difference between film M and digital M, I think is the key advantage. Rather than some weight adding, battery eating so-so alternative to the tripod, flash.

Leica said a while ago that they could add IBIS if they removed the mechanical shutter. The rangefinder mechanism does not seem to be an issue.

[SrMi]

3 hours ago, Crem said:

Because they don’t really want a rangefinder in the traditional sense. What they want is an hyper feature rich camera that looks like an M. They want the M to be the luxury Sony equivalent. 

That is a red herring. Who are they? I do not think any Leica M owner wants that, at least not on this forum.

[pegelli]

17 minutes ago, SrMi said:

Five stops of stabilization are five stops, independent of resolution. The difference is that a lower resolution (created in the post or from the sensor) can handle lower shutter speeds. 

I partly disagree, motion blur is independent from sensor MP and visibility of it only dependent on output size. Indeed if you blow up to 100% or even 50% a higher MP sensor will show more motion blur, but then you're comparing apples to oranges imho

[SrMi]

4 minutes ago, pegelli said:

I partly disagree, motion blur is independent from sensor MP and visibility of it only dependent on output size. Indeed if you blow up to 100% or even 50% a higher MP sensor will show more motion blur, but then you're comparing apples to oranges imho

I thought that was what I wrote :), but I was obviously unclear.

My addendum to your post #80 is that the benefit of five stops of stabilization is always five stops, regardless of the output size. The difference is the shutter speed, which produces a sharp image without stabilization (zero stops). That zero-stop-shutter-speed varies with the user and the output size.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

7 hours ago, Crem said:

Because they don’t really want a rangefinder in the traditional sense. What they want is an hyper feature rich camera that looks like an M. They want the M to be the luxury Sony equivalent. 

The problem I see is… to what end does Leica focus on tech as the marketing hook? If the M had IBIS, hybrid EVF/OVF, 1TB internal storage, stacked sensor, no physical shutter, AI face/eye/object detection, flip screen, and every feature you can think of in a Sony… honestly would it take better photos? Do they want video too? People would take the same photos they take today and we would lose the soul of the M (simplicity).

If the M had 1TB of storage, that would make it less simple? You’re actually complaining that internal storage is a bad thing? Hilarious. And btw. This is a Leica idea. They did it first in the T. The storage in the M11 is brilliant.

And say they can get hold of the 50MP A1 sensor and remove the shutter. That means the possibility of completely silent shooting. You don’t want a quieter M? Also removes shutter shock. And you can have IBIS isn the same sized camera. How does an electronic shutter change the shooting experience?

An M is a mechanical RF and manual focusing. That’s it. Pretty much anything else won’t change that. High speed stacked sensor with silent shooting and IBIS won’t make an M less M. That’s daft. It’ll just make the camera more capable. It’ll widen the usage envelope. Make the shooter less obvious and need a tripod less often..

The rest of the photography world think M shooters are a bunch of snobs and whingers. I’m starting to agree with them.

Gordon

[Crem]

3 hours ago, SrMi said:

That is a red herring. Who are they? I do not think any Leica M owner wants that, at least not on this forum.

"They" is a reference to one or more product design "personas" that desire an M that is the most technically advanced rangefinder they can buy. I believe there are a lot of M customers (and potential future ones) that are technology and spec driven. I'm sure if we did a survey we would get lots of checkmarks for any of the following to be added to the digital M: IBIS, global shutter sensor, stacked sensor, EVF only, EVF/OVF hybrid, 1TB internal storage, electronic first curtain shutter, more megapixels, flip screen, etc, etc. 

My point to all this is that the M is best when viewed as a simple photographic tool. Would IBIS be nice? yes, but it pushes the M further away from what it is best at. The minute the M has IBIS we'll see threads about the next game changing feature it needs. I really think the M is at a fork in the road from a product design point of view. We need really need two Ms (the uber tech one and the simple one).

Hopefully this clears up what I meant. 

[Smogg]

16 minutes ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

If the M had 1TB of storage, that would make it less simple? You’re actually complaining that internal storage is a bad thing? Hilarious. And btw. This is a Leica idea. They did it first in the T. The storage in the M11 is brilliant.

And say they can get hold of the 50MP A1 sensor and remove the shutter. That means the possibility of completely silent shooting. You don’t want a quieter M? Also removes shutter shock. And you can have IBIS isn the same sized camera. How does an electronic shutter change the shooting experience?

An M is a mechanical RF and manual focusing. That’s it. Pretty much anything else won’t change that. High speed stacked sensor with silent shooting and IBIS won’t make an M less M. That’s daft. It’ll just make the camera more capable. It’ll widen the usage envelope. Make the shooter less obvious and need a tripod less often..

The rest of the photography world think M shooters are a bunch of snobs and whingers. I’m starting to agree with them.

Gordon

Add to this the haptic engine and you have the perfect M.

[Crem]

27 minutes ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

If the M had 1TB of storage, that would make it less simple? You’re actually complaining that internal storage is a bad thing? Hilarious. And btw. This is a Leica idea. They did it first in the T. The storage in the M11 is brilliant.

And say they can get hold of the 50MP A1 sensor and remove the shutter. That means the possibility of completely silent shooting. You don’t want a quieter M? Also removes shutter shock. And you can have IBIS isn the same sized camera. How does an electronic shutter change the shooting experience?

An M is a mechanical RF and manual focusing. That’s it. Pretty much anything else won’t change that. High speed stacked sensor with silent shooting and IBIS won’t make an M less M. That’s daft. It’ll just make the camera more capable. It’ll widen the usage envelope. Make the shooter less obvious and need a tripod less often..

The rest of the photography world think M shooters are a bunch of snobs and whingers. I’m starting to agree with them.

Gordon

I think something is being lost here in writing. I genuinely believe Leica needs to push technology features in the digital M to sell cameras. The M11 proves that. It's not what I want the M to be at all and I'm clearly in a different camp from that crowd. I do not believe most of the tech advancements being pushed in cameras actually contribute much to taking better photos, but they do fuel the GAS cycle.

I have zero desire for 1TB storage in the M. Mostly because I never used the internal storage in the M11 as it as less convenient than putting the card in my MacBook Pro's built in card reader. If the internal storage was able to quickly and reliably transfer wirelessly to Lightroom Classic (read speeds as fast as a physical card) then internal storage would become very useful.

The M is whatever Leica decides it to be. I agree with you that means a mechanical OVF, but I'm not convinced that will always the case. I expect them to slap a M badge on a EVF only camera at some point as they push forward with technology.

I agree stacked sensor + IBIS will make the camera more capable... so then what's next? flip screen? EVF/OVF hybrid? How much more capable does it need to be? It would clearly be more capable if it was OVF/EVF hybrid with AI technology.

It reads like you're implying I'm a snob and a whinger? If so feel free to message me directly. I see zero point to name calling in public forums. I think there are a lot of us that value the M for being simple and not having too many techie features.

Edited February 6 by Crem

[lct]

Progress vs. Regress, old debate...

[DadDadDaddyo]

Nah, really, it's about horses for courses. 

Image Stabilization as a requirement on an SL?

Sure. 

Image Stabilization as a requirement on an M?

Teats on a boar.

 

 

Edited February 6 by DadDadDaddyo
Auto correct on a phone? No thank you.

[raizans]

On 2/6/2025 at 5:23 AM, Crem said:

Because they don’t really want a rangefinder in the traditional sense. What they want is an hyper feature rich camera that looks like an M. They want the M to be the luxury Sony equivalent.

That’s not always accurate. I want a digital rangefinder to be even more basic and simple. My ideal M12:

- 24-36mp

- No rear LCD

- ISO dial on the back

- No live view

- No Visoflex EVF

- Bring back the frameline illumination window

- No brightness sensor on the front

- Top plate engraving

- Bring back the removable baseplate for a clean look

 

A more sophisticated EVF-M would let the rangefinder M go back to basics, for M to stand for Messucher.

- 60-100mp (eventually)

- Rangefinder-style EVF

- IBIS

- Etc.

[SrMi]

19 hours ago, Crem said:

"They" is a reference to one or more product design "personas" that desire an M that is the most technically advanced rangefinder they can buy. I

That is different from what you wrote. Your original quote was, "They want the M to be the luxury Sony equivalent. "

[pgk]

Fascinating. The Leica M has a distinct envelope in which it operates extremely well. No amount of tinkering with it will increase this envelope anything other than marginally. So why not just make it in its most effective guise?

[Example; boosting its ISO sounds great but the rangefinder is not usable in low light and at low contrast levels].

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[Jeff S]

20 hours ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

That means the possibility of completely silent shooting. You don’t want a quieter M?

No, I like the click of my M10-M and M10-R (and SL2) mechanical shutter… perfect. I find silent shooting unnerving, and unnecessary for my usage. But I also like petrol engine noises, not piped in sound. 😉