Well thank god for Voigtlander and such...

[sean_reid]

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Jeff - The dots yes, the holes no?

 

................. Chris

 

 

Hi Chris,

 

All of the relevant players would know exactly why those holes were there. It wouldn't be professional, responsible, etc. for a company to take a half-measure like that. Either the coding is licensed or it isn't. I actually don't argue for the licensing but rather for the menu option. That would allow cyan drift correction for many lenses but would still preserve some advantages to factory coded lenses.

 

For those who haven't read the previous debates on this... My proposed lens menu system simply called for accessing the existing lens correction data for lenses that Leica has already chosen to code. Those correction routines are already in the M8's firmware but they're currently not manually accessible. So let's say, just as an example, that the M8 currently detects 50 different coded lenses. Those same 50 lens corrections would also be available for selection manually if the photographer chose to select them. Photographers who use only coded lenses could simply leave this feature turned off in their menus. It needn't affect them at all.

 

Leica cannot reasonably be expected to research proper coding for lenses from other makers. But they can make the corrections for, say, a 28 Summicron ASPH, available via a menu. Leica, naturally, would not recommend using any lens menu setting with a lens other than the one intended for those corrections. But if a given photographer chooses to use those settings for another lens, he or she could do so and Leica certainly would not be accountable for the results. And professionals photographers, in particular, who preferred to keep their most-used lenses close at hand could, if they chose, use the lens menu rather than having to send lenses in for coding.

 

For decades now, Leica has recommended that Leica lenses be used on their bodies (for best results, etc.). But, in fact, the LTM and M mount cameras have long been useable with other lenses as well. When Garry Winogrand used a Canon 28/2.8 on his M4, Leica certainly wasn't accountable for the results produced by that lens. But he certainly was able to use it. There is a long, long history of RF photographers mixing and matching lenses and bodies (old and new) from various makers.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Guest jimmy pro]

Anyone with one of them little electric scribing dodads that you use to ingrave your SS# on stuff could scribe the little pits and then paint them with model car paint. Or find someone to do it for them if they got ten thumbs, for way cheaper than buying a new Leica lens or even a used one of recent vintidge. Only the wide one's need codes, and there are plenty of them to choose from that one is bound to correct the green corner cast from the IR filter pretty darn completely. So IMHO if it was Leica's intention to close there system they wasted there money on patenting the little painted pits.

[sean_reid]

Anyone with one of them little electric scribing dodads that you use to ingrave your SS# on stuff could scribe the little pits and then paint them with model car paint. Or find someone to do it for them if they got ten thumbs, for way cheaper than buying a new Leica lens or even a used one of recent vintidge. Only the wide one's need codes, and there are plenty of them to choose from that one is bound to correct the green corner cast from the IR filter pretty darn completely. So IMHO if it was Leica's intention to close there system they wasted there money on patenting the little painted pits.

 

Hi Jimmy,

 

That's what some machinists have been doing but it does require some skill and the right equipment. I think a CNC lathe is what most people are using. Those pits need to be dead on the money.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[scott kirkpatrick]

I'm late to this discussion thanks to spending Internet-free time in the woods. But a few points:

 

Comments from photographers telling Leica how to make the camera more effective as an artistic and communications tools seem valuable. Sad to see any company that doesn't use these wisely. Comments from photographers telling Leica how to do better at making money are a waste of everybody's time, especially Leica's, since they are headed into private ownership. Comments from photographers who are also close to firmware development issues could be useful, although it is very hard for any of us to know the real story, and I don't know if any have been invited to consult. Here culture does appear to be an issue, but it appears that rapid feedback in the early days of the M8 was valuable to the engineering team in Solms, and perceived as a threat by the marketing and financial people.

 

The 6-bit codes drove two functions in the M8 as delivered before the IR filters became standard. They give accurate EXIF information, and they allow red-vignetting and luminance-vignetting corrections (written by Jenoptik, BTW) to be applied. Supplying a 6-bit code to lots of different lenses is made difficult by two of these three points. 6 bits allows only 64 possibilities and half of them are already claimed. Writing the vignetting corrections requires building complex tables that claim space in the firmware, so it is likely to be done only for lenses that are popular (and still in manufacture or famous like the Noctilux). Plus the mounting hardware for the oldest lenses may have gone out of stock. But if you factor out the EXIF value, that could be met by a lens table extension that is independent of or an extension of the 6-bit coding space. I beleive Nikon and Pentax are offering something like that.

 

I haven't seen any description of the role that Jenoptik expects to play in the future collaboration. They appeared to play no role for a considerable period (the IR-filter corrections work independently of the no-filter corrections, and are driven to different requirements). Perhaps this was a consequence of Mr. Lee's management and will be reversed by the owners.

 

Finally, I followed the lens acquisition track that Sean postulates. I bought the M8 with a mixed bag of older M-lenses, added several CV's on his recommendations, but am now shooting mostly with Leica Summicron-asph or Elmarit-asph (24) lenses.

 

scott

[Guest jimmy pro]

Hi Jimmy,

 

That's what some machinists have been doing but it does require some skill and the right equipment. I think a CNC lathe is what most people are using. Those pits need to be dead on the money.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

I took my wideangles to a guy I know who repairs jewelry, he did it by hand and they work perfect. But even takeing them to a machinist is still cheaper than buying a new Leica lens just to get one with pits.

[terrycioni]

Hi Chris,

 

All of the relevant players would know exactly why those holes were there. It wouldn't be professional, responsible, etc. for a company to take a half-measure like that. Either the coding is licensed or it isn't. I actually don't argue for the licensing but rather for the menu option. That would allow cyan drift correction for many lenses but would still preserve some advantages to factory coded lenses.

 

For those who haven't read the previous debates on this... My proposed lens menu system simply called for accessing the existing lens correction data for lenses that Leica has already chosen to code. Those correction routines are already in the M8's firmware but they're currently not manually accessible. So let's say, just as an example, that the M8 currently detects 50 different coded lenses. Those same 50 lens corrections would also be available for selection manually if the photographer chose to select them. Photographers who use only coded lenses could simply leave this feature turned off in their menus. It needn't affect them at all.

 

Leica cannot reasonably be expected to research proper coding for lenses from other makers. But they can make the corrections for, say, a 28 Summicron ASPH, available via a menu. Leica, naturally, would not recommend using any lens menu setting with a lens other than the one intended for those corrections. But if a given photographer chooses to use those settings for another lens, he or she could do so and Leica certainly would not be accountable for the results. And professionals photographers, in particular, who preferred to keep their most-used lenses close at hand could, if they chose, use the lens menu rather than having to send lenses in for coding.

 

For decades now, Leica has recommended that Leica lenses be used on their bodies (for best results, etc.). But, in fact, the LTM and M mount cameras have long been useable with other lenses as well. When Garry Winogrand used a Canon 28/2.8 on his M4, Leica certainly wasn't accountable for the results produced by that lens. But he certainly was able to use it. There is a long, long history of RF photographers mixing and matching lenses and bodies (old and new) from various makers.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

Sean, et al.

 

I am not asking Leica to support third party lenses in the menu, I am asking Leica to support their own lenses. My guess is that Leica decided coding pre M8 release lenses was another revenue stream when an additional revenue stream was all about survival. Thus no in menu coding.

 

If there is any doubt that Leica wants to protect the coding revenue stream why patent protect the process essentially making it difficult if not impossible for Zeiss or CV to include it in their lenses.

 

CV has acknowledge the M8 by re-issuing their LTM to M converters making them more suitable for hand coding. Indeed CV quickly revamped the NOKTON 35mm F1.2 so it better fits the M8 - and good for them. There is the JM efforts so their are options for third party lenses. Of course many ignore coding all together and do their level best to manage the drift in post processing. All of these choices make the M8 more affordable and came to the M8 before the SUMMARITS.

 

My concern is for Leica, they need to make the M8 more affordable, thus accessible if they hope to sustain sales. They are getting hammered on the net, some of it warranted some of it not. Most recently long time Leica pro and gentlemen Bill Pierce on his digital journalist blog has taken a shot at the M8. For me that is an ouch!

 

Right now they are the only <in production> DRF game in town, but who knows. If Zeiss makes a move that could change. The ZI viewfinder is amazing and will give the M8 viewfinder a run for the money.

 

I am an M8 believer so this is me hoping Leica makes it more accessible and affordable (the summarits are good start) for those wanting to get into the DFR.

 

Best to all. Terry

[sean_reid]

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Sean, et al.

 

I am not asking Leica to support third party lenses in the menu,

 

Hi Terry,

 

I hadn't thought you were. My comments were meant generally.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[sean_reid]

I took my wideangles to a guy I know who repairs jewelry, he did it by hand and they work perfect. But even takeing them to a machinist is still cheaper than buying a new Leica lens just to get one with pits.

 

That man has a steady hand. That's impressive.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Guest jimmy pro]

That man has a steady hand. That's impressive.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

Hehe, the guy prolly could of been a brainsurgeon, accept for he's gotta have a couple belts before his hands quit shaking

[SJP]

[marknorton]

Leaving aside the commercial pros and cons of Leica giving up some of the added value which coding their current and recent lenses brings, it's worth thinking about how a menu would work in practice.

 

If you have a WATE, you need (if you remember) to select the focal length from just the sort of menu Sean and others have been asking for. You could think of the lens detection menu having two additional entries for "manual" and "manual + UV/IR". The sub menu you'd then see would have dozens of entries from which you'd select your lens, being careful to distinguish, for example, between the different generations of 35mm Summicron. If the WATE menu is tedious when out shooting, this would be too, and error prone.

 

I wonder therefore whether a better solution would be to incorporate Sandy's cornerfix functionality into the camera to allow the camera to "learn" about a particular lens mounted. Slip on a diffuser (Expo-disc, for example), expose, and let the camera figure out the correction coefficients which should be applied. Provide the ability for the camera to store, say, 10 sets of coefficients and for the user to name the lens and the user would then only have to select from a restricted list of familiar lenses.

 

The engineering purist in me says this is better than "borrowing" a set of coefficients from a near-equivalent lens. However, even if Leica were minded to do this, one of the things we don't know about the M8 is how close they are to running out of processor and flash memory, so it might not even be technically possible [it may well be that this was what scuppered the attempts to correct the green streak problem in firmware].

[imported_reinierv]

voigtlander??? The only good thing are the wide-angle lenses 12 and 15...

 

I had the 28 Ultron for a week and ran back to the shop to return it, it was crap. I'm really happy now with my 28 elmarit

[stunsworth]

voigtlander??? The only good thing are the wide-angle lenses 12 and 15

 

Rubbish. You had a bad sample of the Ultron, that's all.

[scott kirkpatrick]

 

...one of the things we don't know about the M8 is how close they are to running out of processor and flash memory, so it might not even be technically possible [it may well be that this was what scuppered the attempts to correct the green streak problem in firmware].

 

Mark, is the camera's microcode stored on a single chip that has its capacity readable on the back, and thus checkable from your teardown photos? Or on two, still identifiable, next to the two microprocessors? I doubt that the FPGA is a good place to store code, although tables might have to be there. I'm asking because we know the length of the executable firmware and your teardown identifies the components used. And I'm curious to know how much more space remains.

 

scott

[sean_reid]

If you have a WATE, you need (if you remember) to select the focal length from just the sort of menu Sean and others have been asking for. You could think of the lens detection menu having two additional entries for "manual" and "manual + UV/IR". The sub menu you'd then see would have dozens of entries from which you'd select your lens, being careful to distinguish, for example, between the different generations of 35mm Summicron. If the WATE menu is tedious when out shooting, this would be too, and error prone.

 

One scenario might look like this. The lens detection menu could remain as is. A new menu item just below, on the first tier menu, (perhaps called "Lens Select") could allow one to either select "auto detect" or a focal length. Photographers who only use coded lenses could simply leave this setting at "auto-detect" and use the camera as they do now. They needn't be bothered by any additional menu complexity.

 

Photographers who wanted to manually specify their lenses would specify a focal length, using that new new menu option, and then, in a sub-menu, choose a given lens (among various 35 mm lenses, for example).

 

As many of us have said for the past two years, there's no question that auto-lens detection via the lens codes is a faster and more convenient system - especially if one frequently changes lenses. Factory coded lenses would retain that advantage. (In reality, so too would hand-coded lenses - so long as their codings were durable.) But one would have the *option*, if he or she so chose, to make these manual lens selections. For many photographers, the lens selection system (while not as fast and easy as auto lens detection) would be a real asset.

 

As for being error-prone, every manual setting on a camera is potentially error-prone. Changing a film holder in a view camera is much more error prone than manually selecting a lens would be. When we take manual control of any camera setting, we have the potential to make a mistake. C'est la vie...Those who fear making a mistake with their own choices tend to favor auto-everything cameras. The M8 is already not an auto-everything camera.

 

Nikon offers lens selection options on their higher-end cameras. I'm sure people sometimes make mistakes with that system but also are glad to have it. Adding this feature does not seem to have destroyed Nikon's sales of new lenses.

 

Even when one is using a factory coded Leica lens, the M8's corrections are only approximate. Because this is Leica, we like to imagine that the corrections are finely tuned to work perfectly for each Leica lens. That's an illusion. In actuality, they're approximate and in certain light they work better with lens A while in other light they work better with lens B, etc. Sometimes they over-correct for vignetting and sometimes they over-correct for cyan drift. Sometimes, the corrections end up working better on a Zeiss lens, for example, than on the actual coded Leica lens they were designed for. Leica has done the best they could with these corrections (for the most part) but, depending on the lens, lighting, aperture, etc. they sometimes hit and sometimes miss a little. There are just too many variables for the corrections to work exactly under every lighting condition, at every aperture, with every factory coded Leica lens. A good Cornerfix profile often corrects better than the M8 itself (when a factory coded lens is mounted).

 

As a professional who often works in fast-paced shoots, I personally would not use a lens selection menu very often. I prefer factory-coded lenses or what I'll call "Milich lenses". I often need speed.

 

But a photographer who mounts a given lens and uses it for hours (and I sometimes do this as well) should do just fine taking a couple of seconds to manually set that lens in the menu.

 

As I've told Leica for a long time now, they've given us the need (in essence) to use external IR-cut filters. The two free filters were a good idea and this lens selection menu would be another gesture to customers that says, in effect, "We want this camera to be as useable and flexible as possible for you. We realize that the need for external filters is an added expense and inconvenience and we're doing what we can to minimize the impact of that."

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[sean_reid]

voigtlander??? The only good thing are the wide-angle lenses 12 and 15...

 

Well...let's just say that this has not been my experience. Perhaps a bit more objective testing on your part might refine this perspective. The 12 and 15, though quite good, aren't even the strongest lenses in CV's line-up.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[stunsworth]

The 12 and 15, though quite good, aren't even the strongest lenses in CV's line-up

 

I was about to write that the 15 is probably the weakest of the Voigtlander lenses that I own - 15/21/25/28/90. That isn't to say that it's bad, but it's not up to the standard of the others IMHO.

[imported_reinierv]

I took the ultron to some nasty testing with subtile color differences and bright lights shinning directly into the lens...it failed on all accounts. The 28 elmarit was crisp everywhere needed, even wide open.

 

See my post "Hallerangerhouse in Karwendel" in the landscape forum, with the ultron that would have been flared flat I'm sure and the stitch would not have worked decently. With the elmarit I had no fear at all.

 

Any lens will perform nicely on f 5.6 or f8 in a bright, but not too contrasty environment so I'm sure you can make excellent pictures with it, because that is where one makes 99% of al pictures. It is the difficult situations that make it count.

[sean_reid]

Actually, a good copy of the 28/1.9 has excellent resolution even wide open. But is prone to veiling flare, as I've discussed in the past, and one does need to be careful shooting with it straight into a light source (especially with a filter) unless flare is the desired result (and it might be). But your generalization otherwise does not match my experience or testing.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[jlancasterd]

Actually, a good copy of the 28/1.9 has excellent resolution even wide open. But is prone to veiling flare, as I've discussed in the past, and one does need to be careful shooting with it straight into a light source (especially with a filter) unless flare is the desired result (and it might be). But your generalization otherwise does not match my experience or testing.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

I agree entirely - my copy of the 28mm Ultron is an excellent performer even wide open. My only complaints are that it intrudes into the M8 viewfinder rather more than I would like, and the lens cap is forever falling off...

 

For a walk-around lens in good light I therefore tend to use the CV 28/3.5, which is a real gem, especially for the price.