You know, Leica's owner, Dr. Kaufmann, pointed to a new digital reflex system using a 35mm "or bigger" sensor.

I am thinking on a sensor with a size in between the 35mm format and the 645 format, maybe a bit smaller than 36x48mm. The Hasselblad and Mamiya systems are 645 systems, even if they use cropped sensors. The advantage of a smaller MF system is obvious: smaller bodies and lenses, and lenses with higher speed (think on f/2 or even more). The price can be placed also in between.

The presentation will be at the Photokina, but I suppose at this moment many distributors know the basic specifications (and price) of the new system.

What do you think about this (hypothetic for now) new system? Would you be interested in it?

Probably not as Leica has put out nothing but sub-par cameras of late.

I think Leica has promised much and delivered little. But I guess we'll see soon enough.

I do not know that. I have read Kaufmann talking of a sensor bigger than those of the R digital back or M8, which are about 18x27mm. Can you point to anywhere that Kaufmann talks about bigger than 35mm format, and thus losing backward compatibility with many or all exiting Leica R lenses?

Well, Kaufmann pointed to bigger than 35mm format in a meeting:

http://www.freelists.org/archives/leicaref...7/msg00101.html

http://www.freelists.org/archives/leicaref...7/msg00146.html

Kaufmann is careful in not mentioing the R system anymore... he speaks of "reflex":

http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotography...e-of-leica.html

.

A Leica MF system is almost definitely on the horizon, but specifics will have to wait for an official announcement.

Apparently there are still many details to be resolved, so don't believe much of what you read, other than the fact that something is cooking.

Michael

I hope it will not be "too late, too little"...

All players are moving fast...

I'm hoping that whatever it is they announce, it will take my R glass. Maybe there will be a R10 and a MF camera or is that too much to ask?

Define "fast"

super exciting, are you breaking your own rule on speculation there Michael? Hard to resist this one though isn't it.

Kaufmann mentions an R&D staff of 90, very surprising, maybe that figure includes Jenoptik collaboration?
Also makes me wonder how many employees at F&H and Sinar by comparison.

Fanning the flames: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/...html#post555744

Edit: Added Leica User Forum link

Speculating? I don't think so.
Michael must know somthing we still don't know. As usual.

Eduardo

I don't know of any sub-par cameras they have put out lately? At least any more so than any other manufacturer. I have an M8 which has been a superb camera for almost 2 years. It did have to go back to the factory for a recall but the compensation I was given made it worth while. I also have a dlux3 which for a pocket camera is great. I haven't heard that Canon is going to do anything for me for either my 1DMKIII or 1DSMKIII for the supposed focus problems. Have you got a Leica to base this on or are you one of the many who just "knows" there are problems.

Leica has no other choice than this new MF system.

Current 35mm reflex systems are very versatile. You must to offer many lenses, from extreme wide-angles to superteles, macro, tilt and shift lenses, portrait lenses, zooms... etc... The costs of manufacture and distribution of such a system are very high. You need a large stock of all your lenses and accesories all over the world, in the hands of many retailers. On the other hand, Leica cannot compete against Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc in terms of image quality on the same format. They cannot. The digital photography is determined by the lens, but also by the sensor, the processor, the software... Leica cannot be competitive in terms of price either, due to economies of scale. So, how can they survive in the 35mm market in the long term? It is impossible.

They need new customers, and a different product. A few lenses for specific (professional) tasks (landscape and studio work), a small camera (much smaller than 645 and 6x6 based systems) with great image quality (better than 35mm at low ISOs). This product will be competitive against 35mm (for particular types of work, due to image quality), and competitive against 645 format (much smaller body and lenses, less expensive).

I don't know if this strategy will be a success, but it is the only product concept with some possibility of success in the long term for Leica.

I don't know about the compatibility of actual R lenses, but the mount-to-sensor distance of medium format cameras is much larger than that of 35mm cameras. The R system is 47mm, and medium format is around double of that number. If Leica does without the mirror box (like the micro 4/3 system), they could keep the register of the R system untouched.

All MF systems are based on 645 (Hasselblad, Mamiya) or even 6x6 format (Rollei/Sinar). Hassel will go full 645 next year. Meanwhile, they have 36x48mm. The same goes for Mamiya/Phase One, but they hit first: full 645 sensors, for 645 lenses. This equipment is really big.

The Mamiya ZD was a good try, but it is a 645 camera with a cropped sensor (even then, it was similar in body size to a 1Ds Canon). The new Leica will be even smaller. A good example (and unique) of "optimized for smaller than 645" is the Hasselblad HCD 28mm. From this only case it is difficult to get an idea of what can be done for something like 36x48, or a bit smaller format.

The cost of the new Leica MF system cannot be the same of Hasselblad or Mamiya's, or Leica will have problems.

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=26607

Thank you bcooter. Very interesting.

I read "full frame 645", but it is a wish of current owners of 645 equipment... I suppose...

you are welcome Nemo

We're already suffering from the ridiculous prices of REAL MF digital equipment.

Think of what a larger-than 35mm sensor Leica system would cost. The price would be inflated just because of the freaking LEICA name alone. Reminds me of another brand... cough, Sinar, cough. (To Thierry, it's just a joke. )

Would it really be worth it over a used Leaf Aptus 75, Sinar Emotion, or P45, especially with prices dropping on these "older" backs, because of the new products coming out?

Think of how cheap a Mamiya and some used lenses cost compared to Leica R glass. Ugh. Yes, I do have some Leica glass that I use on Canon, and I don't think they're that special to be honest. Been there, done that, so don't try to convince me that Leica is the holy grail.

The most important thing would be the sensor. What's so special about it? Who makes it? AA filter? No AA filter? We'll have to find out.

I want to get what I pay for. The quality is not 'up to par' for the price paid and hasn't been for several years now.

Leica people are so touchy.

I do not own a digital Leica.

The Leica is good man. It aint' a 1ds3, or a p anything, but it's good and worth the money.

It's the only 35 without a aa filter.

http://www.russellrutherford.com/final_leica.jpg

http://www.russellrutherford.com/1T/image/paris2bhv3449.jpg

JR

New Leica MF for photogrammetry:

http://www.leica-geosystems.com/corporate/...f/lgs_70929.htm

I think it's a terribly unfair to state that the MF prices are ridiculous. Of course 30.000 euros or even dollars is a lot of money but this is money invested into ones company and career. And who says you have to buy top of the line.

All the digital MF systems are highly specialized professional tools and cost money to make and design. If one factors in the cost involved with film then the digital back prices are quite reasonable for professional photographer even in small markets like Finland where the photography day rates are less what a digital tech makes in New York. Besides it's just amazing what kind of images they deliver.

My 2 cents

God, dare I ask James, how do you like the 1ds 3 compared to the 1ds 2?

I bought one 1ds3 and tested it, sold the 1ds2s and will buy another 1ds3.

Everything from the 1ds2 that was ploblematic has been addressed on the 3.



JR

Cool, how about image quality, any change?

I do have an M8 and have had zero problems. I know all the R fans are looking for something new and better in the pipeline. Personally, I would like to see a larger sensor that uses M glass. Or perhaps uses both M and R glass? Wouldn't that be great?

Higher iso is slightly better, file depth is slightly better, file size is much better, tethering is much better, lcd much better, menus 1 million times better, focus is better, more solid feel etc.

You can set in camera parameters even black and white. The black and white function is very cool.

Tethering, even usb is much improved. The Canon software is somewhat disjointed, but will do about everything that any software does, it just takes a new learning curve.

the preview time is fast. I saw reports where everybody said it was about 7 seconds for a raw file to preview but I see it in less than 1/2 of that in OSX.

The one standout is the viewfinder. For once manual focus is actually easy on this camera.

I put the 4:3 mask in and the viewfinder is still big.

File look is different than my phase backs, probably because of the AA filter. It starts out softer, though sharpens ok, though it's just different. Not bad different, just different.

It may be my imagination, but the camera seems just slightly smaller than the 1ds2 or slightly more compact. Other than the Leica, I'm not that wild about small cameras.

Given all of this it is the very well built camera and in a lot of ways reminds me of that robust feel of the contax, where it's solid and rattle free.

Regardless, if I could have a p back, especially the p21 that went to 800 iso clean, I would have gone that direction.

The Canons are interesting in that some people love them, some are the opposite, but nobody can dismiss how much of an impact they have on professional photography.

I wouldn't say it produces the best file in the world, (that's very subjective), but it is a very versitile camera.

JR

Are Leica-geosystems and Leica camera part of the same corporation?

Steve

Sounds nice. I wish I didn't prefer the look of the P21 files to the canons as it would make my life a lot more pleasant as they are lovely things.

If you use Boot Camp on a Mac and install Windows XP, Canon Software and MacDrive 7, tethering RAW files screams in speed, and image files go into a folder on the Mac side. This because USB in Windows is so much faster at the moment.
I resisted, being a Mac guy, but it's not hard to install, and easy to run.

No, they aren't.

Leitz Corporation was separated in three different companies years ago: Leica Microsystems (actual owner of the brand "Leica"); Leica Geosystems; and Leica Camera.

Leica Geosystems belongs to a big multinational company.

Leica Microsystems is in Wetzlar, the original town of the Leitz company. Leica Camera is in Solms, at just 7 kilometers from Wetzlar. There are plans for building a gigant industrial park in Wetzlar for Leica Camera and other associated companies, so Leica Camera and Leica Microsystems will be again in the same town (although they are different companies).

I will wait till Photokina 2008 to see how accurate the web-forum sources are, but I suppose there is a market there worth pursuing: a system based around a format between 36x24 and 56x42, including lenses lens mount, viewfinders and metering systems all designed for that format could
- offer an alternative in the huge price gap between 36x24 and anything close to full 56x42
- work better than 44x33 or 48x36 backs used with lenses and lens mounts designed for 56x42 or 56x56
- avoid head-on competition with the strengths of Canon and Nikon.

Maybe an SLR-style body (a smaller Pentax 67) with a 44x33mm Kodak sensor with the new 6 micron cell size and micro-lenses for better low light performance. That would have 7333x5500 pixels (40MP), enough for most MF users in this forum it seems. Or maybe start out using the current 31MP 44x33 Kodak sensor with microlenses; that could be cheaper as an older, "amortized" product and still meet the often stated 30MP requirement.


There would I suppose course be a futile debate as to whether this is Full Frame in a new format, less than Full Frame by comparison to 645 systems, or more than Full Frame by comparison to 35mm systems. But it would be hard to call it a "crop format system" while calling 36x24 systems Full Frame!

I didn't know these existed. Canon-branded or third party? Or DIY?

I have not used these, but I think this is what James was referring to:

For the 5D: Canon Crop Focus Screens

For the 1D: Canon Crop Focus Screens

For the 1Ds: Canon Crop Focus Screens

I've just seen it: Leica hooked up with Yashica, bringing the contax back to life. All those nice and fast lenses ( a new 100 1.8 will be available next week) and they will also have leaf shutter lenses (a 50, a 80, a 100 and a 150) ready for delivery at the kina. I like their two new backs as well, the little one with 22mp and a 48x36 chip and the big full frame 645 one with 35 mp, nice as they go to 1600 and 800 asa, quite clean with very little, filmgrain like noise. Believe it or not, they just ripped out IPod touch screens and build them into their backs, awesome, just like Mr. Russel suggested! They easily connect via fw400 to your mac (sorry, macs only) and you can either shoot dng with a little tool to lightroom or aperture, or just use capture one as they also teamed up with phase again. You can either transfer both the raw and the jpg via cable when tethered or just transfer jpgs or raws and write the other one to the cf card. You can even use icc profiles in your back to apply your look to the jpgs and previews of the raws. When shoting to card only, you better say cards, as the back has two cf slots, nikon style. Of course the backs have changeable mounts, so no problem hookin em up to your rz, hasselblad 500 (for the v series and the rz, the adapter also can be rotated), h1 and h2, mamiya 645 and even bronica and rolleis but leica also decided not to support closed systems, what a pitty for all h3 and afi/hy6 users...
just when that leica guy wanted to tell me about the low price, i woke up...


cheers,
martin


ps: sorry no wireless jpgs yet, as leica is quite a green company they don't want to be part of microwaving the world.

edit- sorry, forgot how to read....

I agree with you, and I also think it will be a new format similar to 36x48 (maybe a bit smaller). Smaller bodies, faster lenses... Hasselblad and Mamiya are hooked to 645 format, for which their systems are designed (including lenses), and the Hy6 to the 6x6 format. Smaller sensors are cropped sensors.

Leica has an opportunity to offer something different. The price is the key variable.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=28828904

....Last week, a Pro photographer friend told me of a medium format Leica camera he'd been shown - one bearing a striking similarity to the discontinued Contax 645. Could it be that Leica are going into Medium Format? And if so, might they resurrect the Contax 645?.....

Would be GREAT if if were to happen....

Stranger things have happened, more power to leica if they pull it off.

Not quite, James. I did some of my own testing too. The static focus wasn't as good as it should be - RG agrees with me. Skin tone issues of the 1Ds2 have been addressed but not quite fixed.

On the other hand, the 1Ds3 is spectacularly lighter than the 2, color is better, batteries last forever, and the finder is heavenly.

Edmund

Edmund and James,


As an owner of a 1DSMKII I am interested in the differences and whether they are worth it. At first sight, the image quality does't seem to be much better really, but image quality being pretty similar, I am interested in the tethering, weight and other things that would really warrant buying the MKIII.

What do you mean by the viewfinder being better, is the image on the viewfinder more magnified, brighter, or what? Are we taking about minute differences or substantial differences that make you want to upgrade?

I am happy with the 1DSMKII image quality, I like all, apart from the stupid and flimsy firewire port and the unreliable auto focus, that I no longer use anyway, I finder manual focus faster and practically fail proof, a better viewfinder would be a bonus, so could you explain please.

Edward

the mk3 is way better than the mk2. the file is larger, but the biggest difference for me is that it handles highlights a lot better. i shoot a lot of shots with blown out BGs, and the mk2 was always a headache. my p25 was heaps better at pulling detail and having good graduations , the mk3 seem to do just as good of a job. its not just me, my retouchers lave been very impressed.

i have an h1 and the mk3, and the viewfinder is pretty much the same size when you look through.

paul

The viewfinder is a MAJOR upgrade, in my opinion. Enough to warrant buying this model.

Edmund

Agreed -- the viewfinder is much larger and brighter than the II, and is about the same size as the viewfinder of my H2 with the mask for the P30. Very impressive.

Thank you guys. It looks like I'm going to have to go take a look at the MKIII.

It's sounds like it's the number of little details that have been improved that makes it an altogether nicer camera to work with.

I may wait for Photokina though, just in case...

I am believing :
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=28902798

Edit: corrected link

believing in ?

Yes brighter, yes more magnified.

But that's not all.

It's crisper, the viewfinder image is more detailed (try it through an angle finder with x1.25 and you'll see the difference immediately), and there's virtually no distortion. I used to regard the viewfinder image of a Hasselblad V system with an Acu-matte screen as the gold standard for SLR viewfinders, but the 1Ds MkIII gives it a run for its money.

So is it perfect?

Not quite. The eye relief for spectacle wearers is good but not great, you still have to spend a moment precisely positioning your eye to see all four corners, the viewfinder data IMO isn't quite as clearly displayed as by Nikon, and the dioptre control isn't as good as it could be in terms of range of dioptres and ease of adjustment.

I agree with this. I have my 1ds3 diopter set all the way to one side, to the extreme. I shoot with glasses on. I always wonder, "could it even get sharper/better if it had a greater range of settings?"

I just finished a long five-day job with two 1ds3 bodies, and they were bulletproof. Tethered; untethered; sunlight; long exposures; ASA 100-1600; it just keeps rocking along with pretty much anything you ask of it.

The slickest thing is the "My Settings" menu, where you can register up to five or six of your most-used settings, like FORMAT, and WB, and where/how it writes to card, or whatever you use, and you can just go to that menu to find and use your most-used items, insteading of searching searching searching thru the millions of menu to find the FORMAT command for each and every card. It's a very well thought out camera.

Would I love an external viewing device, or a larger LCD? Absolutely, I'd pay a lot of money for that.

One other irritating thing is the way it does the LCD and the tagging when you have a custom 4x5 focusing screen installed. You install the screen, and then you go into the Menu and tell it that you have the 4x5 screen installed. After that, on the LCD it shows you a tiny blue keyline that indicates the 4x5 crop, instead of just blacking out the image area outside the 4x5 area. If I've got 4x5 installed, I don't even want to SEE what I'm cropping out -- all that does is add doubt and confusion to the equation. As a result, I took black duct tape and covered the ends of the horizontal frame that were getting cropped, but then, the duct tape now covers the text in the Menus, which make the menus unreadable. This should be addressed in the new camera hopefully.

I agree with most of this. I also have the 4x5 screen and the viewfinder is large enough to still make the viewing area useable, even generous, which it wasn't in the mark II.

Actually it's somewhat amazing considering how small the ground glass is (or is that ground plastic?).

The blue line thing doesn't bother me to much, though I also would love it to black out the image on the lcd.

If there is one semi annoying thing about the Canons, compared to my contax is the way the image looks in the viewfinder doesn't match how it looks in the final capture.

If your shooting fairly wide open, the viewfinder image will give the impression that your pulling much more focus depth than you will see on the file. You get use to it and start working by the numbers, though it's not exact.

I'll open up to like 1.8 and think well that's kind of pretty because it has a medium amount of depth of field, but then when you look at the lcd there is a lot of falloff and depending on what your after it can be even nicer or a problem.

Where as with the Contax what you see in regards to focus falloff is pretty much what you get, though the prism on the Contax gives a much smaller view than the 3.

The 3 does seem like a better built camera than the 2, almost like it's carved from on piece of metal, though that could also be just because it's newer than my 2's.

This week I start on an intense project so I'll see how well everything works,.

On the external viewing device, I'm surprised Canon doesn't offer one. They do have an Epson like viewer where you download cards, but if they just took that one step further and made it wi-fi or even tethered usb it would really be worth the price, almost any price.


JR