To Full Frame Or Not To Full Frame?

[Leitzmac]

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I must start by saying I don't, nor have I ever owned a digital rangefinder. That said, I find this discussion quite fascinating as there appear to be a number of people on here with vast knowledge of the workings of digital and the digital Leica in particular. It's a wonderful resource as I suspect if Leica produced a sequel to the M8/8.2 that possessed certain requisite qualities, I would be moved to buy one.

 

The majority of pictures I use my Ms to make require film with speeds between 400 and 3200 so a digital would have to have good performance at equivalent ISO.

 

The other thing of interest to me is dynamic range, I like to see progressive tonality across the zones - not these awful digital pictures where there seems to be banding leading from the brightest areas. The inability of digital sensors to deal with highlights is a big problem for me and the results are often very unsightly.

 

Just to add that I don't think it's just a problem with Leica's sensor, I believe most manufacturers experience similar shortcomings with their sensors.

 

It would be wonderful to use those new, fast, wide lenses on a full frame too - in the meantime I suppose that's one thing the film shooters should be thanking digital for - they get to use these incredible lenses at their stated focal length and coverage.

 

Thanks for your debate lads, I shall keep reading and see what is most important for those who actually own digital Ms.

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[AlanG]

Ideally, a digital M will be made with a full frame sensor that has enough pixels to record whatever the highest resolution Leica lens can produce at its best aperture and distance.

 

And since there are so many fast Leica lenses, it should also have excellent capability in low light.

 

So that is the target to aim for and it will be a challenge to achieve. The rest has to do with ergonomics and features which are much easier to design and implement.

[Fotobug]

We are not going to get a full-frame M tomorrow or the next day. So, I decided to see how I could get at least one of my M lenses (a 90mm Elmarit f2.8) on my new (to me) Kodak SLR/n full-frame 14mp camera. It has a Nikon F-mount. Using an adaptor from Fotodiox I was able to make it happen. Just cost $106 including shipping/handling. And I found that I could cobble up an arrangement with the Visoflex II and older bellows (but have not posted those pix yet). Here's a link to pix of the set up.

 

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