M9 with 1.33x cropped sensor?

[dm1127]

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of course photography is always a compromise... for me i can forgo most improvements for a FF sensor.

 

a 35mm summilux wide open with a FF sensor is my dream.

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[lct]

...a 35mm summilux wide open with a FF sensor is my dream.

So is mine, among others (want a true 28/2 plse), but beware of vignetting and coding problems specially if your 'lux 35 is a pre-asph version.

[lars_bergquist]

For me to shell out for the M9 (and I do have the money in a special account) it must have...

 

-- Weather sealing

-- Better high ISO performance, and

-- a 24x36mm sensor

 

I don't care much about filters. If they risk producing reflections, off they go and the situations (candlelit interiors, night streets) do not really call for them. And the ability to use the M8 as an unsurpassed IR camera is fascinating.

 

The old man from the Age of Filters

[adan]

I want two more stops of wide-angle low-light performance. If I can get it through a better 1.33x crop sensor, that's fine. If I can get it through a full-frame sensor that lets me use my 21 f/2.8 in place of my 15 f/4.5, that's fine, too. (I'll keep the 15 for "15mm" shots - they're fun!)

 

On the whole, I think a full-frame sensor is more likely to show up - eventually - that a "better" 1.33-crop sensor. And will have the added benefits (all other things being equal) of either even better low-light performance, or more resolution, or both.

 

Put another way - it would take one heck of an improved 1.33-crop sensor to encourage me to trade "sideways", whereas a full-frame digital M (unless it runs into 5 figures, or can't shoot above ISO 320) would be a slam-dunk.

[Minos]

By itself, I don't really mind a 1.33 crop.

I mostly travel light, using two summicrons, a 35 and a 75.

It allows me to shoot just about anything.

If an FF M9 comes out, my set will be moved a bit towards the wide end, but won't affect what I shoot in the end.

When I travel heavy, I'd use the M9 with the 35 and the M8 with 75, avoiding lens swapping and dust collecting.

I also have an elmarit 28 for landscape and architecture. FF would improve that, so no complaints there.

I have owned a Nikon D700 in the past, and the big feature of FF is the fact that you have much less noise in the high ISO area, thanks to bigger pixels. How strongly things get miniaturized, physics (optics) don't change. And the bigger pixels would be a plus.

 

So if an M9 was cropped, I wouldn't lose hairs over it. (Don't have many left anyway...)

[ChrisC]

Richard - If it weren't for other threads keeping 'Full Frame obsessives' busy this would be a firework thread - i.e. light the blue touch-paper and retire to a safe distance. I refuse to subscribe to the notion that 35mm-film dimensions are indeed Full Frame [which is a term cleverly appropriated by Canon Marketing when Nikon were not making cameras with 35mm-film sized sensors], any more than the thousands of roll-film 6x9 images I made with lenses which covered 5[inch] x 4[inch] were lessened because more of my image circle wasn't being employed.

 

I'm lucky; because my M8 has a full frame sensor the size of an M8 sensor; it is the size it is for the camera it is in. I'm not in the market for an M9 [or whatever] but would I like a the advantages that a bigger sensor could afford me [but in an M8-sized package]? Yes of course. And whilst I sympathise with Andy desiring two more stops of low light capability for his work, I no longer do handheld low light photography so his need is not my priority. The image quality coming from my tiny M8 is the least of my problems with the M8, but what does drive me nuts is the heritage viewfinder with it's unacceptable half-century old poor approximation and presentation of what the camera is framing; that should have been retired from the M line long ago. Do I expect Leica to stick with their anachronistic heritage viewfinder with their next model? Absolutely.

 

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

[georg]

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There is one (although unlikely) feature that might be even more important than a 24x36mm-sensor:

 

Live-view!

 

Would make careful composition on a tripod much easier and allow R-users to use their lenses!

 

But wish-time is over, the M9 seems to come and the features are already set.

 

 

"I'm lucky; because my M8 has a full frame sensor the size of an M8 sensor"

Your M8 is made for 24x36mm-lenses, has a 24x36mm-shutter and a 24x36mm-body - so the 18x27mm-sensor is actually not "full-frame" at all.

[ChrisC]

......Your M8 is made for 24x36mm-lenses, has a 24x36mm-shutter and a 24x36mm-body - so the 18x27mm-sensor is actually not "full-frame" at all.

 

So the thousands of 6x9 images I shot using lenses with image circles big enough to cover 5x4 [at least] were lessened because the film I used was a 'crop factor' of 5x4 ? No, because I used 6x9 technology to get the best out of my 6x9 format. Similarly the M8 got the best out of [then] sensor and micro-lens technology and [like shooting 6x9 with large image-circle lenses] found an imaging advantage because image corners do not use the maximum of M lens' image circles.

 

The M8 sensor is a logical format in it's own right, it is as much a 'full frame' format as any other logical format. The design advantages of rangefinder camera lenses which served film cameras well, remain disadvantages for digital imaging. Until we see results there is no guarantee that a larger sensor in an M8 camera improves it's imaging in all areas [not just resolution], and neither can we presume that a larger sensor will fit in an M8-size shell.

 

Beware what we wish for. I've long had the suspicion that Leica listened to those bokeh obsessives who want to shoot their Noctiluxes wide open in bright sunshine; then gave us the the original M8 with a stupidly noisy un-Leica like shutter. Beware Frankenfinder design.

 

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