ljclark Posted August 25, 2009 Share #41 Posted August 25, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) Yes, just think how much I'd save from the Employee Discount program.... ...and access to all those parts bins. In the words of Homer Simpson: "Mmmmmmm. Leica parts." Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted August 25, 2009 Posted August 25, 2009 Hi ljclark, Take a look here Mark Norton and the FF m9. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jrc Posted August 25, 2009 Share #42 Posted August 25, 2009 Neville Shute, Trustee from the Toolroom. (Bonus points for the first person to explain why.) I remember the book quite well, but don't know why you refer to it...because the hero was a modest British engineer/writer specializing in building tiny engines as projects for people who like to do hobbyist machining, who traveled to the South Seas to recover a yacht engine stuffed with hidden diamonds, and on the way back through the US discovered a major fault in a proposed power plant and got somewhat rich from it? I agree it was a heck of a book, but don't remember any Leicas or any parts in Africa... JC Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted August 25, 2009 Share #43 Posted August 25, 2009 I remember the book quite well, but don't know why you refer to it...because the hero was a modest British engineer/writer specializing in building tiny engines as projects for people who like to do hobbyist machining, who traveled to the South Seas to recover a yacht engine stuffed with hidden diamonds, and on the way back through the US discovered a major fault in a proposed power plant and got somewhat rich from it? I agree it was a heck of a book, but don't remember any Leicas or any parts in Africa... It's the tiny engine and generator he took with him. Just right for charging M8 batteries. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
carstenw Posted August 25, 2009 Share #44 Posted August 25, 2009 Yes, just think how much I'd save from the Employee Discount program.... Yes, for an employee they might drop the entire profit of €250! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott kirkpatrick Posted August 26, 2009 Share #45 Posted August 26, 2009 There is no Moore's Law for batteries. There are improvements in chemistry periodically, but any increases in the Lithium batteries (whatever the flavor) have been incremental. What really makes the difference is consumption. .... Moore's Law in semiconductor memory is in fact the culmination of dozens of incremental improvements, including occasional major technology changes (from nMOS to CMOS, for example). It is driven by a business law -- to stay competitive you must achieve this rate of improvement. Batteries are not different, but change takes longer. Technologies like NiCd, NiMH, Li-metal, and Li-Ion have supplanted each other over the past 30 years, and within each technology, the practical, safe energy level that can be manufactured gets steadily closer to the theoretical limit given by the underlying chemistry. Plotting the manufactured state of the art in cellphone or camera batteries versus year of release shows exponential growth spanning several technologies, but with a 10-year time constant. I agree with the rest of your analysis. scott Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted August 26, 2009 Share #46 Posted August 26, 2009 Canon 5D battery 1390mAH, Canon 5D2 battery 1800mAH 30% increase in a very similar sized package - more than an incremental increase in my book;) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljclark Posted August 26, 2009 Share #47 Posted August 26, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) Canon 5D battery 1390mAH, Canon 5D2 battery 1800mAH 30% increase in a very similar sized package - more than an incremental increase in my book;) Kinda depends on how old the technology in the BP-511A was. Depending upon the answer to that question, the LP-E6 could just represent "catching up" -- packing 5, 7, or 10 years worth of increments into one product roll-out. (5 years would be about 5.4%/year, and 7 years would be about 3.8%/year.) Regardless, people tend to give credit to the battery chemistry in far too many situations where more efficient devices play a decisive role. While I appreciate advances in battery technology, I am much more interested in those technological advances which are true manifestations of Moore's Law (which, according to Moore, is going to hit the wall in the not-too-distant future). Use less power to begin with, and you have fewer battery problems. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted August 26, 2009 Share #48 Posted August 26, 2009 Canon 5D battery 1390mAH, Canon 5D2 battery 1800mAH So for the 5D, the capacity did increase by 9 percent per year (there were 3 years and one month between the EOS 5D and the Mark II). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljclark Posted August 26, 2009 Share #49 Posted August 26, 2009 So for the 5D, the capacity did increase by 9 percent per year (there were 3 years and one month between the EOS 5D and the Mark II). The time difference between the camera bodies matters not one bit (except for the possibility of circuit efficiency improvements.) What is the time difference between the battery chemistry in the BP-511A and LP-E6? (I'm assuming battery chemistry is a significant factor because the two batteries appear to weigh about the same, and appear to be of almost equal volume.) (Remember that the BP-511A drives about 20 Canon cameras, some of which pre-date the 5D. How far back into the past does that battery chemistry extend?) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted August 26, 2009 Share #50 Posted August 26, 2009 The BP-511 was used as early as March 2003 (EOS 10D) and the BP-511A is still used in the EOS 50D (October 2008). Assuming the BP-511A isn’t radically different from the BP-511, the same battery technology has been in use for six years now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted August 26, 2009 Share #51 Posted August 26, 2009 See: Apple (United Kingdom) - MacBook Pro - Battery - All about the breakthrough 8-hour battery Pure marketing hype....or? My point on the canon models was, and is, that the difference between the 5D and updated 5D2 was/is 30% more battery capacity. I assume that in real world terms (ie actuality) this indicates a substantial increase between the two models.. or am I missing something? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlatkob Posted August 26, 2009 Share #52 Posted August 26, 2009 pgk, I agree fully with your points about batteries. Canon has dramatically improved its battery life over the years, partly by improving batteries and partly by reducing camera power requirements. For their 1 series, they have also reduced battery size and weight (as well as the charger size). The battery on the original 1D was good for a few hundred photos. When photographing a wedding, this meant a battery change already by the time of the ceremony, and several battery changes throughout the day. And those were heavy batteries. By contrast, the smaller battery on the 1DIII is good for 2000+ photos, so I can shoot an entire day without a battery change. Likewise, the battery on the 5D2 lasts much longer than the battery on the original 5D. This means fewer battery changes, and fewer batteries to carry. When compared with a camera body or lenses, batteries are a minor expense, like a filter or a bag. When significantly better batteries become possible, I don't see the point of designing an expensive camera around an old battery. Designing a camera around an old battery is letting the tail wag the dog. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
markowich Posted August 26, 2009 Share #53 Posted August 26, 2009 simon, i totally agree on cour comments on the HCD lenses. i own both the 28mm and the new 35-90mm HCDs and both are excellent lenses, getting close to -maybe not there quite yet- the schneider digitars and the rodenstock sironars. in fact i hardly ever use the viewcamera anymore. but leica M hardliners might frown on a software solution as second class stuff. wasn't one of the main arguments on the S2 development exactly along those lines? 'finally a system which achieves optimal performance through optical design and not software correction like the hasselblad low-lifes'----))). maybe true as far as the S2 is concerned, but it may also true that the S system looses a lot of performance capabilities by foresaking system specific software corrections. curious about m9... peter Even now, a FF Digital M remains a significant technical challenge and we're all going to be interested to see how (assuming the "if") they've addressed the 3 issues on the "hope to do better next time" list: vignetting with wide-angles, IR sensitivity and sensor noise. Hello Mark, Yes I agree, that is and always has been the biggest hurdle for a FF RF. However I do believe it's a FF M9 that's coming on 09/09, I will tomorrow have my lenses back from being professionally coded, work that is not being carried out by Leica but someone here in The UK who is very much a Leica specialist and he again yesterday confirmed that he has held a "test camera" recently, it is being tested by someone he knows who is close to Leica here in UK. He agrees with me that if Leica have successfully conquered the problem of a FF sensor and RF in real hardware developments then he takes his hat off to them. Also like me, he believes it may also have been achieved via software, and to me as long as it works I see no problem in that although there are possibly some people who would frown at that option. But as I have already said, so what .... as long as it works, just take a look at Hasselblad, they knew that to bring the 28mm lens for the H3D to market in an acceptable time frame and within an acceptable R&D budget they would have to accept certain design limitations knowing full well these limitations could be fully corrected within the dedicated software ( Focus ). I defy anyone who has seen the results from this lens to say they are anything but astounding, I just wish I could use that lens on my H1 and P21 combo:rolleyes: Anyway back to the point, I for one will not mind if the problems have been overcome via software as its the end result that matters to me. Sadly I will not be an "early adopter" as I have already spent £12k on my Leica M kit in last ten months and now need to take a break so to speak:o Leica have rolled out several new lenses and concepts ( ie S2 ) in the past year and whilst their finances may be tight right now ( not much difference with most other companies there ) as long as they can weather this storm I am sure the future will indeed be bright for Leica. regards Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted August 26, 2009 Share #54 Posted August 26, 2009 The BP-511 was used as early as March 2003 (EOS 10D) and the BP-511A is still used in the EOS 50D (October 2008). Assuming the BP-511A isn’t radically different from the BP-511, the same battery technology has been in use for six years now. Correction: The EOS D30 (October 2000) was already powered by the BP-511, so we are now in the 9th year of Canon using the essentially same battery in their mid-range DSLRs. The only radical change happened when Canon switched from using NiMH to Lithium-Ion batteries in the EOS-1D/EOS-1Ds models in 2007. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljclark Posted August 26, 2009 Share #55 Posted August 26, 2009 The BP-511 was used as early as March 2003 (EOS 10D) and the BP-511A is still used in the EOS 50D (October 2008). Assuming the BP-511A isn’t radically different from the BP-511, the same battery technology has been in use for six years now. At least 6 years for the technology, which would put the improvement more along the lines of 4-1/2 % a year -- or less. I'd call that incremental, especially when compared to the much touted and misapplied Moore's Law. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljclark Posted August 26, 2009 Share #56 Posted August 26, 2009 The only radical change happened when Canon switched from using NiMH to Lithium-Ion batteries in the EOS-1D/EOS-1Ds models in 2007. That WAS a radical change. I remember the sucko performance the batteries in my D1x and D1h had. Going to Lithiums in the D200 and Oly DSLRs was wonderful. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olsen Posted August 26, 2009 Share #57 Posted August 26, 2009 You have only got to look at the latest Canons to see smaller batteries which carry more punch. Personally I fail to understand why the idea of retaining the M8/8-2 battery (an old design) to put into an 'M9' should be any sort of consideration. Its like handicapping a potential design before you start. I also not that Canon have redesigned the 1D series 3 times and this has been accepted (the changes between MkI and II were subtle - ~1mm dimensionally - but the MkIII is substantially different) and I don't see why the M8/8-2 bodyshell has to be retain exactly as is either. (My previous post on this suffered database crash deletion). I agree with this. When I sold my 1Ds and my 1Ds II, I sold them along with the two batteries I had bought for both of them. The new and smaller battery for the 1Ds III does not produce that many shots per charge -the way i shoot, as the latest battery for the 1Ds II. Regardless; Leica must concentrate on 'making the best camera' with ditto battery. Those of us with several old batteries with our M8; sell them along with the camera! That is what I plan to do. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jevidon Posted August 27, 2009 Share #58 Posted August 27, 2009 "....think the M9 is real, despite my skepticism, since my new copy of Capture One has a profile for it...." I think that the author of that Forum statement better re-read the Capture One data. It accommodates Leica Camera's M8 and digital backs for the R9 and not an M9. Source: the Capture One web site. There may well be an M9 in the offing, but Capture One's camera formats are not a very good information source to validate the rumor. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeanette Posted August 27, 2009 Share #59 Posted August 27, 2009 "....think the M9 is real, despite my skepticism, since my new copy of Capture One has a profile for it...."I think that the author of that Forum statement better re-read the Capture One data. It accommodates Leica Camera's M8 and digital backs for the R9 and not an M9. Source: the Capture One web site. There may well be an M9 in the offing, but Capture One's camera formats are not a very good information source to validate the rumor. As was explained on this forum a couple of times, the latest release (of the Windows version) of Capture One does indeed have an "M9" profile although except for the header its data seems to be identical with the M8 data. Why it is there of course nobody knows for sure, but there's ample evidence that there will be an M9 in the near future and likely the Phase One developers had a placeholder profile in there which they forgot to remove before they prepared the binary for download. Obviously, you won't find anything about this on the Capture One website before an M9 is released. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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