http://www.dpreview.com/news/0908/09083101leicavideo.asp

I saw this on dpreview. Live webcast of the release of a collection of next generation cameras.

I saw a dslr in the video.... it has me salivating!

It's the S2, along with what many are presuming will be the M9, given the auspicious date.

- N.

ps. yes, salivating is an appropriate response. As is the purchase of lottery tickets

the video actually shows the back of a yet unreleased leica m...very briefly....you can see the "iso" button on the back next to the screen....the m8 does not have one....there is also a "step" on the top left that the m8 does not have...
9/9/09 at 9am.....i don't think they will show the m8.3....

a FF m9 ruins my financial plans for the rest of the year.....

By being your entire financial plan for the year ?

We won't see the S2 at that event at all. Or not as main product. I guess more something like m9 + R10 or M9 + something smaller.

Perhaps a Leica GH-1? Micro 4/3s camera. They made a statement that there was no R10 but
there would be something that would allow you to use R lenses on it.

Well the also didn't really officially revoke the statement that a FF M9 is impossible.

Whatever the specs, how could a product announced on 9/9/9 not be an M9?

Cheers,
Bernard

Well I think we all more or less expect that a M9 "has to be" FF ^^, so if it should be a 1.1 crop or even worse 1.3 again, well we know how it is going to end.

Probably a B&W FF camera then...

Cheers,
Bernard

Wouldn't mind that at all as long it is FF ;-)

Going back to black (&W) would be the smartest thing to do.

Cheers,
Bernard

Wouldn't that be the suprice of the century, Canon going back to black and white with the 1DsMk4

M9 details are out, unless this PDF brochure is a very elaborate forgery:
http://litpixel.com/m9_brochure_english_RZ_low.1.pdf
And it is indeed 18MP in 36x24mm format using Kodak's previous generation 6.8 micron pixels, rather than 24MP with the new generation 6 micron pixels as I was guessing.
DNG, ISO 80-2500 and a 2.5" LCD are a few other highlights.

P.S. It is color, not B&W!

It uses several new technologies developed by Kodak for Leica's S2. If the DMR is any indication, I'd expect the M9's 18MP CCD with no AA filter will be about equivalent to a 27MP CMOS with AA filter.

In this post
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....st&p=308894
I summarize everything I can find in Leica's own statements about new technology, none of which is newer than the M8 as far as I can tell and some of which goes back at least to the Kodak sensor of the Olympus E-1. The absence of an AA filter could be worthwhile for those who rarely encounter moiré and/or are willing to handle it with post-processing when necessary.

See my response in the other thread.

no AA filter and 6.8 micron pixels? then there's one word for it:

MOIRE

I could repeat it, but man, are you going to be reading a lot about that in the near future....

i guess just as much moire as with a P30 or P45....both of which have no AA and 6.8 pixel size....i am glad i don't have the p65 which has even smaller pixels....

Agreed on the other 6.8 micron no AA MF sensors, but smaller pixels reduce the problem of moiré,
- partly by moving the fineness of the patterns that produce moiré to a smaller scale, at which there is less contrast delivered by the lens ("the lens as AA filter")
- partly because the moiré is on a finer scale in a print of any given size, and so less visible.


A question: for those of us who are not into photographing fabrics with fine, high contrast patterns, how often in moiré likely to be encountered?


P. S. Thanks Michael: while I was writing, you posted with an answer to my question!

Actually, the higher the resolution the less moire, since it takes extremely fine repeating patterns to match up with the sensor grid cells.

I've been shooting with cameras that don't have AA filters for years, M8, P25, P45, P65, and except for a few times with fabrics have never seen moire.

I'm not saying that it's not there, it's just not the bugaboo that it once was with sensors in the sub 11MP range.

I'll take the clarity of an AA free camera against the haze of an AA filter any time.

As for the M9 (what M9?), all I can say is come back in a day or so and we can talk about it and moire some more.

Michael

i was being sarcastic....

i did run into moire problems with the P20 and with the kodak 14n both of which had size 9?pixels.......the P30 had almost no moire whatsoever.....as did the m8.....

out of all the problems i can see the m9 having, moire is the least of my worries....


looking forward to michaels review of the "what m9"....

I can't answer for others but I see it occasionally in fine feather detail using the Leica DMR. It usually cleans up well with software. The worst I have seen it is with birds in the genus Callipepla, otherwise known as quail. Both California Quail and Gambel's Quail apparently have chest and back feather patterns that trigger moiré gone wild. However the AA filter doesn't help because I've seen moiré gone wild in photos of these species made with cameras that have an AA filter.



Same for me.

That hurts a bit more; I do like photographing birds. But the software solution sounds good to me.

its much more than just fabrics - anyone who shoots on the city streets will find distant brickwork, air conditioning grills, car parts, mens suits, etc, giving them moire, if the lens is good enough.

Michael - I've had all those backs too, and was surprised to to find Moire reappearing strongly with the P65+, though it was indeed supposed to diminish from the previous generation. It might be that I swapped platforms to the Phase One camera, and shoot with the Digital 80mm (apparently their finest lens) which is pretty stunning at f5.6 to F8, but gives Moire in clothing of most every other candid city street shot in sunlight. Is that Leica territory ? - hell yes!

so unless you are just shooting nature, or your Leica's lens doesn't have the resolving power of Mamiya MF then Moire is going to be an issue.

I think there is a difference between need and want.

For still photography, all I really need is the 1ds 3's or 5d2's, they have pretty much covered all the territory, from medium format to 35mm, for my work and a lot of others.

I guess the same could be said for the Nikon D3/D3x.

They're fast, bulletproof, accurate, huge lens lines and the only drawback is they're quite large, though since I'm not a street photography guy, the size is not an issue either way.

I know, I know there will be 45 people that will say the aa filter smears the detail, or loses the 3d'ness of the look (I've never really understood what the 3dness was) but what the heck, everyone's entitled to their opinion.

Yesterday we did a series of lighting tests for a client we have worked with for 6 years and previously shot medium format and nobody looks at the files from the 1ds3 and says, uh, I think we're missing something, they just look at the light, the expression . . . the final image.

I also know that I'll have about a 1 in a million chance of getting moire, have no problem making jpegs, actually the camera makes jpegs, the battery will last forever, tethering to eos utility is stupid easy, unplugging and shooting to cards and using the camera lcd, even easier. With the Canons and Nikons you never really think about the camera, you just think about what your shooting. You light, you shoot, you go home. Any assistant that knows how to twitter can now run the computer, so having dedicated techs, watching focus, highlights, or batching jpegs until 3 am are kind of a think of the past.

In other words with still cameras I'm covered.

Now want is a different matter. I kind of want a Leica m9 and but when I think about where to place my resources and start thinking of what I will get as far as "new" imagery from the Leica, or any new still camera, I'm not too sure, especially since a new RED is probably around the corner that has the potential to change everything.

I think in still photography digital cameras the thrill is gone. We're now at a point where 20 to 40 megapixels just doesn't resonate with clients, or with me. 4:3 vs 2:3 formats doesn't either, because everybody crops to some kind of wierd proportion anyway, especially for the web, so I look at the Leica, think it's cute, somewhat of a throwback to traditional days, but I know in my heart it doesn't change anything that I do for commerce and for commerce the demands are about 1,000 times greater today than they were two years ago.

The assistants we're talking yesterday and two years ago it would have been about the next medium format back, or even this Leica, but since they are working assistants, they were talking now about small video dollys, matte boxes, the RED . . . in other words new things they have seen or worked with in Rental studios everywhere and not one of them even knew that there is a Leica coming out.

So, I wish Leica well, I think they'll sell a lot of m9's and probably a lot more lenses, but at the end of the day when I look at what I do for a living I don't see where any still camera will make much of difference.

I guess I gotta keep telling myself that as much fun a new camera can be, it's not about the camera, it's about the photograph, or now many multiple photographs.

BC