Anyone surprised the M8 isn't a 4/3's camera?

I expected APS or 4/3's. Instead, it appears to be a NEW format produced by Kodak especially for Leica. In effect, Leica said niether 4/3s or APS is good enough!

Up till now, I've been somewhat sanguine about the future of 4/3s, I like my Oly and I don't really care what the rest of the world buys. And for the most part, that's gonna hold true, I think. At least for me, though I admit, I'll think pretty hard before I buy any new attachments for the Oly. Let's just say, I'm in no rush to switch as long as my Oly keeps performing the way I want.

BUT I think this leica announcement might throw a new economic factor into the format 'wars'. Could this be the photographic equivalent of if IBM producing their first PC? Will we see other, manufacturers, (say, Pentax/Samsung, or Rollie. Or maybe even Concorde, Sigma, or even mainland Chinese manufacturers) adopt that 'standard' in order to pick up some free legitamacy and/or 'mind share'?

I mean the phrase, "it's got the SAME 10 meg chip in that Leica does!" is going to carry some serious weight with the great unwashed public. And since they are never going to do anything but snapshots anyway, they'l never know the difference. And if a GOOD manufacturer like Pentax or Rollie or Cosina builds a camera around it, who knows, the phrase may actually mean something.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.
--
Never trust a man who spells the word 'cheese' with a 'z'

All along, I was expecting Leica to introduce the M8 with the same sensor that they have in the DRM. For now, Panasonic is the only one producing a 4/3 camera beside Olympus. Sigma said they support the 4/3 but so far they only support it with lenses. The coming Sigma DSLR probably will use a 1.7 FOV sensor just like the older Sigma.

I doubt very much that this Kodak sensor will become something the mass market will adopt for several reasons, the primary one being cost [as Kodak sensors have a very high quality but seem to cost more than the Sony that mass market adopts - Nikon and Pentax (yet to be confirmed) are now using the Sony 10Mp].

Anybody has other thoughts?

--
Escaping (CT, USA) http://www.pbase.com/cvanlang
using the current DSLR's: D100 / D2H / *istDS / D50

I don't know why anyone would every think it would be 4/3rds or APS.

Leica has made it clear for a while it will be the sensor from the DMR or something better. They wanted FF, but it's just not feasible at this time.

4/3rds and Leica won't happen. Leica is 3/2rds They are very big about that. And aps and 4/3rds are too small of a sensor.

The only 4/3rds Leica stuff you will see will be a few lenses at best. Now leica can get to work on the R10.

Glen Barrington said:

I expected APS or 4/3's. Instead, it appears to be a NEW format
produced by Kodak especially for Leica.

Click to expand...

It's hardly new, the format has been around for a few years in the Leica DMR. The Canon 1D sensor is only slightly larger.

Besides rangefinders are all about wide angle. Do you really think Leica would totally mess up their wide angles with 4/3rds? 1.37x is bad enough.

Glen Barrington said:

BUT I think this leica announcement might throw a new economic
factor into the format 'wars'. Could this be the photographic
equivalent of if IBM producing their first PC?

Click to expand...

Leica is way too small to move the market. Has the vastly more popular 1D with 1.3x sensor launched a sensor war?

Glen Barrington said:

I mean the phrase, "it's got the SAME 10 meg chip in that Leica
does!" is going to carry some serious weight with the great
unwashed public.

Click to expand...

Oly fanboys like to tout this, as the E1 sensor is related (same supplier, same pixel pitch) to the DMR/M8 sensor.

Glen Barrington said:

And since they are never going to do anything but
snapshots anyway, they'l never know the difference.

Click to expand...

I see, so people who don't buy big-name brands must only take snapshots?

Glen Barrington said:

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

Click to expand...

It's a tiny blip in the market, its nothing new.

--
Seen in a fortune cookie:
Fear is the darkroom where negatives are developed

Escaping said:

All along, I was expecting Leica to introduce the M8 with the same
sensor that they have in the DRM.

Click to expand...

Three good reasons for Leica not to go the 4/3 route:

1. The M8 is made for use with existing Leica lenses

2. The M8 is a rangefinder camera, and rangefinders are at their best with wide angle lenses

3. 4/3 would mean a 2x crop factor, and that would cripple most of the existing Leica wide angles.

nickleback said:

nickleback said:

BUT I think this leica announcement might throw a new economic
factor into the format 'wars'. Could this be the photographic
equivalent of if IBM producing their first PC?

Click to expand...

Leica is way too small to move the market. Has the vastly more
popular 1D with 1.3x sensor launched a sensor war?

Click to expand...

Well, I have to respectfully disagree with both of you.

The M8 is not going to make a dent in the DSLR market, (and after all, it's Digital range-finder, not an SLR), it's price tag and the cost of lenses will preclude it influencing the average consumer.

However, the M8 will have an impact on the dentist/lawyer/CPA set that goes out and buys the newest most expensive toy they can get. Leica will bleed off a small but significant chunk of the D2xs and 5D and 1Dwhatever sales that this group accounts for. Nikon and Canon will loose some money there, but there's not much they can do about it either.

It may, however, influence the sensor tech of Canon and Nikon. If Nikon were to take the D2xs sensor up to 1.3, what would that look like?...

But really, until we see the true specs, and the real-world images, it's way to early to say what the influence will be.

Excuse me, but to my eyes there's hardly a single part of your post that makes sense...

Glen Barrington said:

I expected APS or 4/3's. Instead, it appears to be a NEW format
produced by Kodak especially for Leica. In effect, Leica said
niether 4/3s or APS is good enough!

Click to expand...

Well, most people expected a full frame sensor. A 1.3x crop still isn't good enough for most existing Leica users. The 1.3x crop BTW is also used in Canon.

Does Leica have any dealings with 4/3rds that I don't know of? Oh yes, they've rebranded a Panasonic 4/3rds camera. That's very different from them developing their own 4/3rds cameras...

Glen Barrington said:

BUT I think this leica announcement might throw a new economic
factor into the format 'wars'. Could this be the photographic
equivalent of if IBM producing their first PC?

Click to expand...

Try Non-Linear Systems releasing their first Kaypro II, or something even more obscure if you can think of one...
http://oldcomputers.net/kayproii.html

The IBMs of camera companies had released their first PC years ago...
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canond30/
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond1/

Glen Barrington said:

Will we see other,
manufacturers, (say, Pentax/Samsung, or Rollie. Or maybe even
Concorde, Sigma, or even mainland Chinese manufacturers) adopt that
'standard' in order to pick up some free legitamacy and/or 'mind
share'?

Click to expand...

All I see is Leica releasing their first digital camera for a lens mount that until now only had 35mm film cameras, and doing so with a sensor that is less than full frame. Same as Canon, Nikon and just about everybody else has already done years ago.

Glen Barrington said:

I mean the phrase, "it's got the SAME 10 meg chip in that Leica
does!" is going to carry some serious weight with the great
unwashed public. And since they are never going to do anything but
snapshots anyway, they'l never know the difference. And if a GOOD
manufacturer like Pentax or Rollie or Cosina builds a camera around
it, who knows, the phrase may actually mean something.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.
--
Never trust a man who spells the word 'cheese' with a 'z'

Click to expand...

There are dozens of 10mp sensors floating around, what makes the sensor that Leica uses special? And even the unwashed public knows Leica only for its lenses (featured prominently in Panasonic cameras), not sensors.

If somebody managed to start sourcing Canon CMOS sensors, I think you may really see the effect you're talking about.

a while back Leica and the Kodak sensor was talked about

Glen Barrington said:

I expected APS or 4/3's. Instead, it appears to be a NEW format
produced by Kodak especially for Leica. In effect, Leica said
niether 4/3s or APS is good enough!

Up till now, I've been somewhat sanguine about the future of 4/3s,
I like my Oly and I don't really care what the rest of the world
buys. And for the most part, that's gonna hold true, I think. At
least for me, though I admit, I'll think pretty hard before I buy
any new attachments for the Oly. Let's just say, I'm in no rush to
switch as long as my Oly keeps performing the way I want.

BUT I think this leica announcement might throw a new economic
factor into the format 'wars'. Could this be the photographic
equivalent of if IBM producing their first PC? Will we see other,
manufacturers, (say, Pentax/Samsung, or Rollie. Or maybe even
Concorde, Sigma, or even mainland Chinese manufacturers) adopt that
'standard' in order to pick up some free legitamacy and/or 'mind
share'?

I mean the phrase, "it's got the SAME 10 meg chip in that Leica
does!" is going to carry some serious weight with the great
unwashed public. And since they are never going to do anything but
snapshots anyway, they'l never know the difference. And if a GOOD
manufacturer like Pentax or Rollie or Cosina builds a camera around
it, who knows, the phrase may actually mean something.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.
--
Never trust a man who spells the word 'cheese' with a 'z'

Click to expand...

--
Comprehensive Photokina 2006 speculation: http://photographyetc.livejournal.com

Leica reusing most of the DMR anyway. But lets not get too excited about the issue. Even back in film days the M range is pretty much more niche and high end hobby instead of hardcore photographic tool. I can take both the Ricoh GR-1 and the Contax T-3 ( that give me the 35 & 28 ) and the whoel package is still smaller than the M with their 28 & 35 lens and I would not need to worry about the exposure, winding, and changing lens.

Similar case can be said for the Digital M. I have no doubt about the craftsmanship and the quality of the image, but at this price, they better be delivering. What really concern is the overall system cost. Unless I am already shooting leica and have ample experience with using RF ( which I am ) I would be seriously looking elsewhere instead. There are a lot of other Dc/DSLR that can do the job and if I am all for image quality, the overall system cost had pretty much driving into the Medium format digital arena

--

• Franka -

the text of your message

PhotoTraveler wrote:
Leica is 3/2rds

I'd be interested to hear how you pronounce that.
--
Laurie Strachan

Carefully

I can't find the earlier threads, but I recall that the Kodak sensor for Leica was to have a radially shifted lenslet configuration that avoided performance degradations near the edges when using existing Leica lenses. I assume the sensor was made as large as possible consistent with achieving that performance objective.

Maybe someone who contributed to that earlier thread will chime in.

Darrell
http://members.aol.com/pixbydg/look/Gallery.html
http://members.aol.com/pixbydg/Canon/Gallery.html

Glen Barrington said:

I expected APS or 4/3's. Instead, it appears to be a NEW format
produced by Kodak especially for Leica. In effect, Leica said
niether 4/3s or APS is good enough!

Click to expand...

It's one of the older formats, Canon has been using it since the 1D in 2001.

Leica stated (and I believe them) that they had Kodak use the 1.37x sensor for the digital back for the R8 and R9 because it's the largest sensor that fits through the film gate on an unmodified film camera. Because of the sensor's interconnect area, lead frame, and filter frame, the sensor has to be about 8mm smaller than the film gate.

Glen Barrington said:

Up till now, I've been somewhat sanguine about the future of 4/3s,
I like my Oly and I don't really care what the rest of the world
buys. And for the most part, that's gonna hold true, I think. At
least for me, though I admit, I'll think pretty hard before I buy
any new attachments for the Oly. Let's just say, I'm in no rush to
switch as long as my Oly keeps performing the way I want.

BUT I think this leica announcement might throw a new economic
factor into the format 'wars'. Could this be the photographic
equivalent of if IBM producing their first PC? Will we see other,
manufacturers, (say, Pentax/Samsung, or Rollie. Or maybe even
Concorde, Sigma, or even mainland Chinese manufacturers) adopt that
'standard' in order to pick up some free legitamacy and/or 'mind
share'?

Click to expand...

No, but we will see them adopting an innovation much more important than the format, that will relegate four-thirds (tm) to a historical footnote.

Glen Barrington said:

I mean the phrase, "it's got the SAME 10 meg chip in that Leica
does!" is going to carry some serious weight with the great
unwashed public. And since they are never going to do anything but
snapshots anyway, they'l never know the difference. And if a GOOD
manufacturer like Pentax or Rollie or Cosina builds a camera around
it, who knows, the phrase may actually mean something.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

Click to expand...

I'll give them to you in the next post...

--
The Pistons led the NBA, and lost in the playoffs.
The Red Wings led the NHL, and lost in the playoffs.

It's up to the Tigers now...
Leading the league, and going all the way!

Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

It seems many people in this forum who expected Leica - as perhaps the most hard-headed traditionalist camera company - to raise the FF flag high.

But why? I somehow sense a contradiction here.

From the company that has made the historic down-leap from medium and large films to 35mm, wouldn't you expect a similar move with digital sensors: go down in size for the best viable compromise. Actually others have done that already instead of Leica: the APS or maybe the 4/3.

Leica was deservedly "the 35mm camera" for about half a century or more in the 20th century. But nothing similar will happen with digital. There are just too many competitors for that.

Glen Barrington said:

I expected APS or 4/3's. Instead, it appears to be a NEW format
produced by Kodak especially for Leica. In effect, Leica said
niether 4/3s or APS is good enough!

Click to expand...

Of course four-thirds (tm) isn't good enough.

Four-thirds is a screw-up on a grand scale. Olympus correctly identified a problem: "existing film SLR wide angle lenses don't work well with existing sensors, because of problems with the angle at which light strikes the sensor".

Well, if sensors and lenses aren't compatible, there are two obvious solutions: fix the lenses or fix the sensors.

So Oly decided to fix the lens. The big problem was that they not only decided to fix it, they applied a policy of massive overkill. They designed a system spec for what they call "near telecentric" lenses, where the chief light rays had to be at most 8 degrees from perpendicular to the sensor. At the same time, the 1.5x crop Nikon and 1.6x crop Canon were proving to the world that this wasn't necessary, that 15 degrees from perpendicular was just fine. On the 1.5x crop Nikon cameras, all the existing wides ranged from 8 to 15 degrees from perpendicular. It's a bit of a problem on 1.3x crop Canons, and much more of a problem on full frame Canons and Kodaks, but for 1.5x or 1.6x crop cameras, existing lenses do pretty well.

By specifying 8 degrees, Olympus ended up with huge wide angle lenses. A wide angle lens is basically a "normal" lens, with a "wide converter" in front of it. The "normal" has a focal length chosen to provide the required telecentricity. The wide converter is a reverse Galilean telescope, bulging heavy negative elements that have convex front surfaces and concave rear surfaces carved deeply into them, followed by positive elements (susally two, to reduce chromatic aberration). It is then designed to bring the lens up to the required focal length. The 8 degree requirement meant that the focal length of the normal was about 80mm (43.3mm/2/2/tan(8 deg)). That meant that even a 35mm lens (a short telephoto on four-thirds) had to be built as a wide angle, a 2.29x wide converter in front of an 80mm normal. It's hard to that with a single stage (3 elements) and is more typically done with two stages (6 elements). The end result is that the huge, complex wide converter front ends on the telecentric Oly lenses typically make them as large as their "equivalent" focal length lenses for full frame.

The end result, four-thirds simply cannot deliver on the promise of smaller lenses.

background on telecentric lenses....
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=19659215
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=18937977

Glen Barrington said:

Up till now, I've been somewhat sanguine about the future of 4/3s,
I like my Oly and I don't really care what the rest of the world
buys. And for the most part, that's gonna hold true, I think. At
least for me, though I admit, I'll think pretty hard before I buy
any new attachments for the Oly. Let's just say, I'm in no rush to
switch as long as my Oly keeps performing the way I want.

BUT I think this leica announcement might throw a new economic
factor into the format 'wars'. Could this be the photographic
equivalent of if IBM producing their first PC?

Click to expand...

Definitely. Kodak gave Leica the offset microlens sensor I've been advocating for years. It's the first fairly small camera with a fairly large sensor (1.33x) to use fairly small lenses (Leica rangefinder primes).

Put that together with a compact full frame body and a few compact primes, and you've really got something. I remember the days when I could go out with a very compact Nikon FM2 with a 50mm f1.8 around my neck, a 24mm 2.8 in one pocket, a 105mm f2.5 in another.

There's no way to match that with current DSLRs. The closest you can get is a compact Pentax 1.5x crop with that new 70mm f2.5 on the front page of dpReview today to replace the 105mm f2.8, their pancake 43mm is a bit long for a "normal", and you're really stuck on the wide.

A compact full frame SLR with a sensor that "likes" the existing 28mm f2.8 would let me use the original lenses. That would be good, but expensive for quite some time. A compact 1.33x crop SLR with Leica's wide friendly sensor would cheaper, and the lenses are there, 20mm f2.8 wide, 35mm f1.4 or 2.0 normal, 85mm f1.8 tele.

Glen Barrington said:

Will we see other,
manufacturers, (say, Pentax/Samsung, or Rollie. Or maybe even
Concorde, Sigma, or even mainland Chinese manufacturers) adopt that
'standard' in order to pick up some free legitamacy and/or 'mind
share'?

Click to expand...

Probably.

Glen Barrington said:

I mean the phrase, "it's got the SAME 10 meg chip in that Leica
does!" is going to carry some serious weight with the great
unwashed public. And since they are never going to do anything but
snapshots anyway, they'l never know the difference. And if a GOOD
manufacturer like Pentax or Rollie or Cosina builds a camera around
it, who knows, the phrase may actually mean something.

Click to expand...

I don't think so. The days are long past when "like a Leica" meant anything. These days, what sells is being like Nikon or Canon.

Glen Barrington said:

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

Never trust a man who spells the word 'cheese' with a 'z'

Click to expand...

zheese?

--
The Pistons led the NBA, and lost in the playoffs.
The Red Wings led the NHL, and lost in the playoffs.

It's up to the Tigers now...
Leading the league, and going all the way!

Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

Emil Varadi said:

From the company that has made the historic down-leap from medium
and large films to 35mm, wouldn't you expect a similar move with
digital sensors: go down in size for the best viable compromise.

Click to expand...

That was then, this is now. They were a startup with no user base, so they could go nuts. They now have folks with $3k wide angle lenses who won't be happy if these are now not quite so wide. 1.37x is about s far as Leica can go.

Emil Varadi said:

Actually others have done that already instead of Leica: the APS
or maybe the 4/3.

Click to expand...

APS seems to have hit that happy medium of small enough to be inexpensive but large enough for quality. 4/3 is simply smaller, for little perceivable advantage in price or size.

Emil Varadi said:

Leica was deservedly "the 35mm camera" for about half a century or
more in the 20th century. But nothing similar will happen with
digital. There are just too many competitors for that.

Click to expand...

Leica hasn't been a major competitor in even the 35mm market for almost 50 years. Leica is to cameras as Morgan is to sports cars.

--
Seen in a fortune cookie:
Fear is the darkroom where negatives are developed

Karl Jacobs said:

It may, however, influence the sensor tech of Canon and Nikon. If
Nikon were to take the D2xs sensor up to 1.3, what would that look
like?...

Click to expand...

Incompatible with DX lenses yet not big enough to take advantage of Nikon's existing wide angle lenses. Oh, and not enough bigger than their existing 1.5x crop sensors to make a serious difference in noise levels.

Increasing sensor size by less than a full stop (i.e. a factor of 1.4x in diagonal or 2x in area) isn't enough to make a big difference. And if you look, existing sensor sizes follow a roughly one-stop scale. MF digital (48x36mm) is one stop larger than 35mm format (36x24mm), which is about one stop bigger than APS-C sized ( 24x16mm in Nikon's DX format), which is about one stop bigger than 4/3 (18x13.5mm). 1.3x crop is an oddball size that doesn't really fit in and will probably be phased out when 135 format sensors come down a bit further in price.
--

As with all creative work, the craft must be adequate for the demands of expression. I am disturbed when I find craft relegated to inferior consideration; I believe that the euphoric involvement with subject or self is not sufficient to justify the making and display of photographic images. --Ansel Adams

so wondering if it's ass bad ass it was then...

I change to Canon from Kodak and here fast made rasons why...

http://seos.tv/kodak/

Glen Barrington said:

In effect, Leica said neither 4/3s or APS is good enough!

Click to expand...

Leica said today that 4/3 both is and is not good enough, depending on your purpose.

Leica suggests that 4/3 and APS-C (1.5x or 1.6x crops) are not good enough to get good value out of existing Leica M rangefinder lenses designed for 35mm format: the smaller crop factor 1.33 (3/4 size) is better for that purpose.

But Leica also says that 4/3 is good enough for a new digital SLR format with new lenses, by having introduced a 4/3 format Digilux 3 SLR to go with the Leica/Panasonic 4/3 format 14-50/2.8-3.5 OIS lens.

Glen Barrington said:

Up till now, I've been somewhat sanguine about the future of 4/3s,

Click to expand...

and yet Leica's introducing its first 4/3 body today changed your mind?