EVF M rumoured

[jaapv]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Technically it should not be too difficult to build such a camera. Maybe eliminating the RF optics would even create enough space for IBIS The real problem will be whether the group of photographers who would shell out a not insignificant amount of money for a camera of limited functionality is large enough to make it viable commercially  

A vocal group of M lens lovers who struggle with RF focusing in a nerdy forum is a very narrow customer base, especially in a time that AF lens systems -not only by Leica- have equalled or surpassed the optical quality of M lenses  

Let’s wait and see whether Leica can  make such a commercial gamble work

[T25UFO]

8 hours ago, jpark114 said:

Of course, I'm no expert in marketing strategy...

Sadly, neither is Leica if the recent M11 100 Year is anything to go by.

[jaapv]

Umm. What has a bit of commemorative drum beating to do with marketing?  Not everything has to be Barnum and Bailey style. 

[jaapv]

Even Leica acknowledges that the field of lens design has equalled by making the bulk of their new L releases leicafied reissues of Sigma and Panasonic lenses. Nothing new there, Leica has used outside designs occasionally in the past , but I am missing the Leica touch over the last years. 

[jgeenen]

The story of Leica M has been told, the now 70+ years concept reached its limits. The range finder has no potential for improvement - be it field of view or improved eye sight support. The M bayonet has no flexibility for lens-to-camera communication or modern lens designs. The body design is iconic but responsible for the limitations for further technology improvements like IBIS.

Leica has a successor already - the SL system. But as long as the M system is selling, Leica needs to split it‘s limited capacity in R&D and production between the two lines.

I may be wrong of course, but the future of Leica is a basically technology frozen M system and an SL system with smaller bodies. May be we will see a rebirth of the CL with a bigger sensor?

[3D-Kraft.com]

vor 19 Minuten schrieb jgeenen:

The story of Leica M has been told, the now 70+ years concept reached its limits. The range finder has no potential for improvement - be it field of view or improved eye sight support. The M bayonet has no flexibility for lens-to-camera communication or modern lens designs. The body design is iconic but responsible for the limitations for further technology improvements like IBIS.

I think there are some ways to breathe new life into the system while still preserving its DNA.

Meanwhile, an EVF outperforms the OVF in almost every way. There is no limitation to a particular focal range, there is no blocking by the lens barrel, meanwhile there is almost no latency and no blackout anymore. But focus peaking and magnification is not enough. Leica would have the opportunity to incorporate the special feature of manual RF coupling of their M lenses, which would give the system an unique advantage over all other EVF solutions for manual lenses. It is still no AF (an AF adapter like we have it for Sony E-mount and Nikon Z-mount would be an option for the SL system).

The missing space for contacts for a lens to body communication could be solved by incorporating it into the support surface of the bayonet, like they have done it 20 years ago with the 6-bit coding.

An IBIS would also fit into the body if you are willing to forego the mechanical shutter.

[pgk]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

56 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

Wise words. Many, if not all "big three" AF mirrorless lens systems have surpassed optical quality of virtually all (bar 3 or 4) M lenses. It is a very unpopular fact, but nevertheless it is 100% true.

The constraints imposed by having to build such small (jewell-like) lenses means that they have to be optically superlative simply to compete with unrestrained (larger) designs. Add the lack of information exchange with the camera body and it is clear the M lenses are compromised if compared to those from other makers.

All that said, this all depends where you are coming from. If you insist of using a 60MPixel camera and wringing every last drop of technical excellence out of it then you will probably find more effective alternatives. If you enjoy the RF (not EVF) experience and the whole concept and use of the Leica M system and are happy with half the number of MPixels or less then the M can be a great way of taking photos. IMO Leica lost the plot with the M11 .....

I can see uses for an evfM but probably not for general photography and undoubtedly it would be too costly for the uses I would put it too.

Edited February 9 by pgk

[wattsy]

7 hours ago, jaapv said:

How do you visualize that? . Both the focal plane and IBIS are tied to the position of the sensor. 

Maybe Leica could use a very large gravitational force to compress the distance the light needs to travel? 😂 (More seriously, they could probably use some optics to do the same thing but, presumably, only at some cost to the image quality.)

A more realistic option is to have the lens mount protruding by a few mm from the body. That idea has supposedly been a problem in the past because of the RF mechanism (roller cam etc.) needing to go where it does but that is not an issue for an EVF-M camera.

[lct]

3 hours ago, Stevejack said:

Leica needs to give us a new way to use manual focus lenses on an EVF camera. It's not enough just to miniaturise the SL and give it an M mount...  they need to work on making manual focus a pleasure when using an EVF. No-one else has solved this yet.  

What new way would you envision if i may ask? Any improvement is welcome, but aside from more speed i don't need more than the current Visoflex 2 personally. BTW the spirit of the EVF-M, the way it was imagined here at least, was not a miniature SL but an M-mount camera similar to the M11 with an EVF replacing simply the RF. We shall see... or not...

Edited February 9 by lct

[pgk]

Just now, Al Brown said:

There are uses of everything for everybody. Leica should split the M way into tech obsessed line and traditional, conservative line tho. This is the way.

Indeed. As long as people realise that the rfM is a mature system which is unlikely to significantly change whilst the evfM will be compromised. Unfortunately realities such as the difficulty of making electronic M lenses don't seem to impinge on many.

[pgk]

2 hours ago, Stevejack said:

Leica needs to give us a new way to use manual focus lenses on an EVF camera.

Well they do - its called a rangefinder and they incorporate it into some M cameras which can already be used as evf cameras .......

[wattsy]

45 minutes ago, jgeenen said:

The story of Leica M has been told, the now 70+ years concept reached its limits. The range finder has no potential for improvement - be it field of view or improved eye sight support. The M bayonet has no flexibility for lens-to-camera communication or modern lens designs. The body design is iconic but responsible for the limitations for further technology improvements like IBIS.

Leica has a successor already - the SL system....

I reckon you are right. The advent of a digital version of the M was quite exciting back in the day but it has always had the whiff of those cars stylistically modelled on horse drawn carriages and we have to move on (break out of the old paradigm) at some point. I will likely always keep at least one film M camera (even if I have had the same roll of film in it for over a year🤣) but I've now moved on completely from the digital M bodies.

[lct]

Not sure whom would want or need electronic lenses actually. I don't recall having read anything like such an idea so far. The EVF-M was supposed to simply be an M-mount camera working the same way as a RF-M so to speak i.e. with the exact same M lenses are they are without the least modification to them. Again we shall see or not...

Edited February 9 by lct

[jaapv]

28 minutes ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

I think there are some ways to breathe new life into the system while still preserving its DNA.

Meanwhile, an EVF outperforms the OVF in almost every way. There is no limitation to a particular focal range, there is no blocking by the lens barrel, meanwhile there is almost no latency and no blackout anymore. But focus peaking and magnification is not enough. Leica would have the opportunity to incorporate the special feature of manual RF coupling of their M lenses, which would give the system an unique advantage over all other EVF solutions for manual lenses. It is still no AF (an AF adapter like we have it for Sony E-mount and Nikon Z-mount would be an option for the SL system).

The missing space for contacts for a lens to body communication could be solved by incorporating it into the support surface of the bayonet, like they have done it 20 years ago with the 6-bit coding.

An IBIS would also fit into the body if you are willing to forego the mechanical shutter.

You could have contacts in the flange but what would they transmit from a lens that has no electronics inside? 

[Smudgerer]

45 minutes ago, pgk said:

Indeed. As long as people realise that the rfM is a mature system which is unlikely to significantly change whilst the evfM will be compromised. Unfortunately realities such as the difficulty of making electronic M lenses don't seem to impinge on many.

Yes interesting, reading your post here pgk gave me the thought that perhaps a EVF range of M mount cameras might not be a bad thing after all, what could happen with Leica introducing an "electronic EVF/ M" would be that the pressure to continually upgrade the existing digital RF M line with more and more electronic features, bling and "aids" that are proving to be more and more problematical to squeeze into that small box would go away and allow a possible return to a more "analogue" approach again with their RF Digital line and allow the EVF M to sail onto wherever they want it to go with it's electronic "featuring".

Edited February 9 by Smudgerer
Added

[T25UFO]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

Umm. What has a bit of commemorative drum beating to do with marketing?  Not everything has to be Barnum and Bailey style. 

I wasn't suggesting Barnum & Bailey razzmatazz - quite the opposite.  Just disappointed that such an important photographic milestone was recognised by a parts bin camera, a £520 teddy bear, a £425 pencil and a few useless trinkets.  This was a marketing led initiative as evidenced by a reply I received from Leica Mayfair:

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I’m sorry to hear about your disappointment with the M11 100 Year edition and the way this milestone was celebrated. Please know that I have already shared your comments with our marketing team, which will soon be escalated to our headquarters for consideration.

At least it shows that Leica listens . . . 

[Alberti]

An old thought of mine: it is possible to digitize the movement of the roller cam, and then, having some full view video screen: 

1. present a distance scale (my wife has that on her camera, but I'm sure she never even sees it)
2. present accurate framelines as the focus is turned - not having to rely on inside/outside of the line at closer-further away (that is, framelines that are digitally re-created on the screen used for the EVF/review and visible through a transparent mirror); and match the distance.
3. also show framelines of e.g. the 75mm/90mm/135mm fully, not just corners - possible because by now the camera knows a lot of the lens, because of coding.

[pgk]

6 minutes ago, Smudgerer said:

..... allow a possible return to a more "analogue" approach again with their RF Digital line.

The M1, MD, MDA and MD2 were all 'specialist' cameras and I could see using an M shaped camera with evf and shutter speed and nothing much more, on various set-ups for a variety of technical applications. I currently use a Sony A7 series for these. But its not going to happen because the buyer base would be too small and any vable price way too high. And in any case the Sony delivers perfectly viable results. The Achillies' Heel of the M is paradoxically, its lenses. Any evfM will work in a similar way to a Sony with M lenses fitted. Sure it might be possible to modify it to operate with M lenses like a Sony does with Loxia lenses but then the Sony fills this niche alread and will remain a far cheaper option for sure.

The problem Leica have is that some want an SL type camera in an M type body but haven't thought through the consequences of building such a camera. If it takes only M lenses it is compromised in that it is a niche product within a niche. If it can take anything else or requires a new series of electronically controlled lenses (with M mount) then it is never going to be an economic proposition as its appeal has to compete against a lot of existing, highly competent system from other makers (and there are numerous technical issues which would compromise its functionality too).

[Derbyshire Man]

2 hours ago, jaapv said:

Technically it should not be too difficult to build such a camera. Maybe eliminating the RF optics would even create enough space for IBIS The real problem will be whether the group of photographers who would shell out a not insignificant amount of money for a camera of limited functionality is large enough to make it viable commercially  

A vocal group of M lens lovers who struggle with RF focusing in a nerdy forum is a very narrow customer base, especially in a time that AF lens systems -not only by Leica- have equalled or surpassed the optical quality of M lenses  

Let’s wait and see whether Leica can  make such a commercial gamble work

Every time I pick up my Canon R5 with enormous lenses I thank goodness I also own M series cameras. I’ll take the tiny quality hit all day long. The only reason for me for picking up the bigger systems is when accurate highly dynamic, focus critical shots are needed. Otherwise they are a literal millstone around the neck and not worth it. While I don’t mind M advancement I don’t want M bloat to pay for it. 

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[elmars]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb jgeenen:

The story of Leica M has been told, the now 70+ years concept reached its limits. The range finder has no potential for improvement

That is the conventional wisdom. I'm not so sure. We all shy away from the rangefinder in an amateurish way, Leica looks at it with 70 years of engineering experience. Who knows what is possible, and who knows what imagination is fuelled by the need for change/improvement. I don't think the rangefinder story is over yet, as firmly as Stefan Daniel (‘Mr Leica’) clings to the mechanical system.

You shouldn't expect too much from an EVF-M in the first step. Leica will have carried out market studies, but will have limited the investment outlay. If it is a success, a successor model will be more innovative.