Survey: Leica M EV1 – Future or mistake?

[FrozenInTime]

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3 minutes ago, SrMi said:

I doubt you can form an opinion in 48 hours ownership. My opinion on best techniques has certainly changed within a week and may continue to change.

All those YouTube influencers Leica loves did !

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[Eoin]

18 minutes ago, FrozenInTime said:

All those YouTube influencers Leica loves did !

I noticed all the Leica love, marketing dept did a wonderful job on them. The M-EVF launch seems to have had good exposure, plenty of YouTube content.

[jonoslack]

49 minutes ago, FrozenInTime said:

Perhaps Leica could run a 48 hour loan program, for current M owners, with a survey to be completed on return. 

Interesting how opinions on the beta forum changed over 6 months - 48 hours really isn't time to get your head around it. 

[Alexander108]

vor 33 Minuten schrieb Eoin:

The M-EVF launch seems to have had good exposure, plenty of YouTube content.

Plenty of YT content that practically did not differ. Most of them boring, self-flattering, nothing noteworthy or helpful at all. Statements like "this is the first time that M users can use an EVF" are plain wrong given that Visoflex 020 and 2 are out for a while.

Maybe this is just me. But after watching the 10th video with almost identical content I was rather frustrated to see 10x the very same story with very little differences. Only heads were different. 

[Edward Schwartzreich]

It is a pleasant camera and some will find it fits their needs.  It is exactly what was asked for.  I was not at all surprised by it when it arrived on my doorstep for testing.

[lykaman]

1 hour ago, Edward Schwartzreich said:

It is a pleasant camera and some will find it fits their needs.  It is exactly what was asked for.  I was not at all surprised by it when it arrived on my doorstep for testing.

How did you get on the List of testers? 

[elmars]

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You can tell in Your forum profile. 

[Derbyshire Man]

16 hours ago, Anonautico said:

First of all, this does not increase the number of photographers, but only the number of snapshots. I understand photography to be something different from what I do with my pixel smartphone.

Unfortunately, I haven't had that experience. Many people in my community who had a camera with interchangeable lenses just a few years ago have completely switched to smartphones because they are now more than satisfied with the quality of the results.

Unfortunately, local developments in my city do not reflect this trend. Thirty years ago, we had five or six photo shops in the city. Sadly, none of them have survived and this has nothing to do with people only buying online, because two of these photo retailers also had a thriving online business years ago, which no longer exists either.

I also don't believe that cameras in the price range we're talking about are something you just order online. New customers certainly don't do that. At least, I don't know anyone who would just order a Leica M with two lenses for €15,000 to €20,000 online without seeing it first, unless they do so from the Leica store they have known and trusted for years. But then these are not new customers who are switching from smartphones to ILCs.

On my last vacation, as someone interested in photography, I paid attention to what other people were using to take pictures. It was the usual smartphone snapping, and I saw a Canon, Sony, or Nikon, which I could count on one hand. I was the only one with a Leica.

And unfortunately, I had a very annoying experience just a few days ago: I wanted to sell one of my Leicas to help finance the purchase of a Hasselblad X2D II, but unfortunately, my dealer told me that he wasn't buying any cameras at the moment because his warehouse was full and sales hadn't been going so well for months. Oops.

Of course, he only told me this because we've known each other privately for a few years.

I don’t think that snapshots is a phone thing, it’s obviously about intention. Probably 90%+ of the example shots on here fit into the same bracket! Similarly I know people who pride themselves on a well executed landscape or portrait on their phone and how they can demonstrate that the SLR they have in their cupboard is now unnecessary. There’s also a trend for people to buy expensive P&S cameras like the Fuji X100 to allow greater creativity. In part this things are cyclical but it seems to me there is little doubt that mobile phones have replaced a huge number of camera sales as they are just so competent and you have it with you anyway, no one is carrying the modern version of Olympus trip/instamagics/olympus mju’s, cameras have become and are going to stay niche. To compete with phones you are going to need to be very pleasurable to use or do things a phone cannot do like sport or decent rapid manual control for creativity.

[3D-Kraft.com]

vor 12 Stunden schrieb jonoslack:

I doubt this conversation will be very helpful (lots of ideas from people who never touched the camera!). But I’m certain that feedback from actual users will be extremely valuable.

Of course, I will look out for a chance to get hands on the M EV1 but I do not agree that only input from people, who already used it, will be helpful. I shoot M lenses (Leica, Voigtländer and in newer days Thypoch) since 2009 on lots of EVF equipped cameras and I owned the M9 (twice, the second one still in my hands) and the M240.

So I am pretty sure, that I have a good idea, what it means to shoot manual lenses on EVF (in comparison to optical RF) and I am pretty sure, I will see nothing new or different, when testing the M EV1 - and that is exactly the problem: Leica did not add any magic sauce that you cannot find on any other EVF camera with the option to adapt M lenses since many years (and that usually offers much more features and several of them in a smaller package).

On the contrary: I consider feedback from "hands-on" users of the M EV1, who otherwise only move within the Leica bubble, to be less meaningful than feedback from users who are active in multiple systems and therefore have the corresponding comparison opportunities - especially when we talk about the question "Future or mistake" (which is the topic of this thread).

Edited 2 hours ago by 3D-Kraft.com

[pgk]

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

Leica did not add any magic sauce that you cannot find on any other EVF camera with the option to adapt M lenses since many years (and that usually offers much more features and several of them in a smaller package).

And the M mount hampers the EV1 from being anywhere near as versatile as most other EVF cameras because the narrow throat diameter and relatvely long flange to sensor distance exclude many lenses from being adapted to it. One of the absolute benefits of most EVF cameras is their ability to use state-of-the-art AF lenses AND be adapted to use a vast array of manual lenses. I use both*. The EF1 does neither.

* I spent three days completing a shoot for a large (3.25m long at 1:1) montaged display recently copy a huge artwork on an old repro lens using a Sony A7II. This might have been possible with a dSLR but probably not due to the long flange to sensor distance which would almost certainly have caused too much vignetting (I didn't bother to try one). So EVF cameras are very versatile but to be versatile they need to be designed appropriately. The Nikons have the shortest flange to sensor distance and are on my list to try out. As I have said before the EV1 is looking backwars not forwards. As such it satisfies a concept not a reality.

[willeica]

2 hours ago, Derbyshire Man said:

I don’t think that snapshots is a phone thing, it’s obviously about intention. Probably 90%+ of the example shots on here fit into the same bracket! Similarly I know people who pride themselves on a well executed landscape or portrait on their phone and how they can demonstrate that the SLR they have in their cupboard is now unnecessary. There’s also a trend for people to buy expensive P&S cameras like the Fuji X100 to allow greater creativity. In part this things are cyclical but it seems to me there is little doubt that mobile phones have replaced a huge number of camera sales as they are just so competent and you have it with you anyway, no one is carrying the modern version of Olympus trip/instamagics/olympus mju’s, cameras have become and are going to stay niche. To compete with phones you are going to need to be very pleasurable to use or do things a phone cannot do like sport or decent rapid manual control for creativity.

I know quite a few young and not so young people who are using old Trips and Mjus etc because they want to use film and cannot afford an expensive camera. As for photographers' intentions a lot of people use their smartphones exactly the same way that HCB used his Leicas. The biggest issue in the photographic world today is that digitisation has led to a huge increase in the number of photographs being created and the quantity v quality paradigm is being strained. I chair a museum/gallery where we empty 3 curators and a lot of the work we show is film based, often because the artist has slowed down to use film. Another issue today is that many people confuse technical image quality with artistic image quality. This is particularly the case on gear-focussed forums such as this one. A 'better' camera does not necessarily guarantee 'better' images. Thankfully, a lot still depends on the photographer. Going back to the M EV1 there are some photographic tasks for which it is suitable, but there are others for which it would be unsuitable. Ultimately, it is all about photographers' choices and their skills.

10 hours ago, lykaman said:

How did you get on the List of testers? 

Ed has been writing about Leica cameras and lenses for many years. He has also been a member of LSI/LHSA for a long time and a number of LSI members were involved in testing the camera. I did not volunteer myself, even though I had been involved in the organisation and running of the discussion at the Dublin LSI meeting in 2022. I have had a cataract operation on my focussing eye since then and I would not regard myself as a reliable tester.

William 

Edited 37 minutes ago by willeica

[jonoslack]

1 hour ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

Of course, I will look out for a chance to get hands on the M EV1 but I do not agree that only input from people, who already used it, will be helpful. I shoot M lenses (Leica, Voigtländer and in newer days Thypoch) since 2009 on lots of EVF equipped cameras and I owned the M9 (twice, the second one still in my hands) and the M240.

So I am pretty sure, that I have a good idea, what it means to shoot manual lenses on EVF (in comparison to optical RF) and I am pretty sure, I will see nothing new or different, when testing the M EV1 - and that is exactly the problem: Leica did not add any magic sauce that you cannot find on any other EVF camera with the option to adapt M lenses since many years (and that usually offers much more features and several of them in a smaller package).

On the contrary: I consider feedback from "hands-on" users of the M EV1, who otherwise only move within the Leica bubble, to be less meaningful than feedback from users who are active in multiple systems and therefore have the corresponding comparison opportunities - especially when we talk about the question "Future or mistake" (which is the topic of this thread).

You are still assuming that people will buy this camera on the basis of its technical prowess (or not as it hasn’t much-I don’t disagree). 
I’m maintaining that nobody ever bought a Leica camera on the basis of its technical prowess (at least since 1960 - (how could they have done). 
So that saying this camera is doomed for its lack of technical prowess is missing the point!

The M EV1 has lots going for it: it has a fantastic interface, great image quality, a beautiful body and a wonderful selection of lenses for which it is specifically designed. There is all that Leica history, It’s lovely to shoot with and it makes a great consistent companion for an M11. 
 

Those are the reasons people will buy it! 
I would suggest that those who are saying they won’t buy it because of its technical shortcomings wouldn’t have bought it anyway (because Sony make smaller, cheaper more technically advanced bodies)

[sebben]

12 hours ago, Alexander108 said:

Plenty of YT content that practically did not differ. Most of them boring, self-flattering, nothing noteworthy or helpful at all. Statements like "this is the first time that M users can use an EVF" are plain wrong given that Visoflex 020 and 2 are out for a while.

Maybe this is just me. But after watching the 10th video with almost identical content I was rather frustrated to see 10x the very same story with very little differences. Only heads were different. 

It's because they are not allowed to say anything that goes off script, otherwise they won't get a camera to "review" and generate advertising revenue next time...