Event "Leica -Das Wesentliche" Berlin, May 10th/11th 2012 - Intro of a B/W -Leica ?

[veraikon]

A self promoting person posted in the LUF a facsimile of his invitation to this event: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-...ml#post2008434

Personally I find the German text more interesting than the English version (Leica - the essential).
In my eyes it suggests a basically M. Perhaps the rumour about a pure B/W M (without display) is not wrong .
Remember the Kodak 760M !

[jarski]

B&W-only M rumor seems more persistent than these usually are. saw also some comments about Magnum using their influence on Leica to make such a camera... hmmm.

still, even if true, hope its not ONLY thing Leica is about to announce. real successor of M9 would be nice.

[jippiejee]

I'm sure this will be just the teaser for the real M10 to be announced at Photokina 2012. The M10/bw, with some 60 megapixel resolution of course, since dropping the Bayer color filter will probably deliver that. To make it even more hardcore, dropping the whole lcd screen and the buttons that come with that seems locigal then. May 10th will be that hardcore party I think, Photokina the mainstream M10-regular follow-up.

[veraikon]

Originally Posted by jarski

still, even if true, hope its not ONLY thing Leica is about to announce. real successor of M9 would be nice.

No they announced "eine ganze Reihe von Produktpremieren" [a row of new products]. Imho a row is at least 3 items.

[horosu]

I sincerely hope you have a point there

A B&W only "hardcore" digital M would be very appealing for me

Originally Posted by jippiejee

I'm sure this will be just the teaser for the real M10 to be announced at Photokina 2012. The M10/bw, with some 60 megapixel resolution of course, since dropping the Bayer color filter will probably deliver that. To make it even more hardcore, dropping the whole lcd screen and the buttons that come with that seems locigal then. May 10th will be that hardcore party I think, Photokina the mainstream M10-regular follow-up.

[sevo]

Originally Posted by jippiejee

I'm sure this will be just the teaser for the real M10 to be announced at Photokina 2012.

Most likely, yes.

Originally Posted by jippiejee

The M10/bw, with some 60 megapixel resolution of course, since dropping the Bayer color filter will probably deliver that.

Nope, the x*y resolution does not change when omitting the Bayer filter - or rather, all makers give the pixel resolution when using Bayer filters, rather than the smaller luminescence respectively chroma resolutions after interpolation. And FWIW I am not aware of a production 60MP 24x36 sensor that is up to camera specs - Leica might even have a hard time sourcing a up-to-date 25-30MP one, as they aren't in the Sony camp (which has the fastest sensors with high pixel count).

Leica will primarily have to address the low light issues of the M9 - a rangefinder camera is first of all justified by being the better low light tool, but the M8/M9 are way behind the latest and greatest in SLRs when it comes to that. If they can do that while still upping resolution a bit, the thing might turn out to have 20 or 24MP, but it is rather unlikely that they'll add significantly more. Even more so if they should really do a black and white press photographer edition - that one could even turn out to have less pixels than a M9, if that is necessary to reach some amazing speed record. Speed is everything, and resolution is very low on the priority list of press photographers (see the recent press models of Nikon and Canon).

[sojournerphoto]

Steve Huff has his invite up on his blog.

Not sure how much more resolution is needed in what is essentially a hand held camera.

Removing the Bayer array would allow better luminance resolution than the CFA version, but they'd still need to source the sensor.

Removing the lcd from a digital camera is plain silly - as oft discussed, you need it for judging exposure

[noimmunity]

Originally Posted by sojournerphoto

Removing the lcd from a digital camera is plain silly

the thing that is gonna be really silly is the price

[jsrockit]

Originally Posted by sojournerphoto

Removing the lcd from a digital camera is plain silly - as oft discussed, you need it for judging exposure

While I love LCDs, why would you need it to judge exposure? It's handy, I agree, but we used slide film without an LCD for many years.

[jsrockit]

Ricoh and Leica?

http://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/leic...collaboration/

[BobYIL]

Originally Posted by sevo

Nope, the x*y resolution does not change when omitting the Bayer filter - or rather, all makers give the pixel resolution when using Bayer filters, rather than the smaller luminescence respectively chroma resolutions after interpolation.

True.. There is no KAF-series sensor, for example, exhibiting different resolution for monochromatic version.

Originally Posted by sevo

Leica will primarily have to address the low light issues of the M9 - a rangefinder camera is first of all justified by being the better low light tool, but the M8/M9 are way behind the latest and greatest in SLRs when it comes to that. If they can do that while still upping resolution a bit, the thing might turn out to have 20 or 24MP, but it is rather unlikely that they'll add significantly more. Even more so if they should really do a black and white press photographer edition - that one could even turn out to have less pixels than a M9, if that is necessary to reach some amazing speed record. Speed is everything, and resolution is very low on the priority list of press photographers (see the recent press models of Nikon and Canon).

To employ the same CCD-sensor designed for monochromatic light can result up to 10-times more sensitivity (in lux though, the DR remains the same!) and we will see how many dBs this would mean for the SNR; there should be a substantial reason for Solms to introduce a monochromatic camera (if it's true..)

[hlockwood]

Originally Posted by veraikon

A self promoting person posted in the LUF a facsimile of his invitation to this event: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-...ml#post2008434

Personally I find the German text more interesting than the English version (Leica - the essential).
In my eyes it suggests a basically M. Perhaps the rumour about a pure B/W M (without display) is not wrong .
Remember the Kodak 760M !

Keep the display, but how about a firmware mod that incorporates something like SilverEfex, thus allowing B&W film emulation without PP conversion from color to B&W. Would that make any sense?

Harry

[sevo]

Originally Posted by hlockwood

Keep the display, but how about a firmware mod that incorporates something like SilverEfex, thus allowing B&W film emulation without PP conversion from color to B&W. Would that make any sense?

Postprocessing remains postprocessing regardless whether done in- or outside the camera. So no, the only thing that would buy you would be a black and white preview display - but there would be easier and less CPU heavy ways to achieve that.

[hlockwood]

Originally Posted by sevo

Postprocessing remains postprocessing regardless whether done in- or outside the camera. So no, the only thing that would buy you would be a black and white preview display - but there would be easier and less CPU heavy ways to achieve that.

No, I wasn't suggesting post processing in camera. I should have been more explicit. In Efex, I surmise that the film's density-exposure curve for a particular film is applied to the image after, of course, the image exists, as produced by the linear detector (sensor). What I was trying to suggest is to alter the sensor response (gain curve) to match a particular film response before the image is created. This would eliminate at least one step in PP. But the real benefit (correct me if I'm wrong) would be to preserve the integrity of the subsequent histogram. That is, no tones would be lost, as would occur by imposing the curve in PP.

One could argue that, with a 14-bit file, the loss of tones (levels) in the histogram would not be discernible in the final print. And that may be true - most of the time.

It seems to me that having a menu selection of, say, Tri-X, to alter the gain curve is a lot more realistic than to expect, or even to hope for, Leica to market a B&W-only camera. And, btw, what would the gain curve of this gedanken B&W-only camera be? Linear? Well then, what would be the advantage over the current M9?

Not every photographer (such as this amateur) is a B&W-only shooter (and printer). The mostly-color cohort would certainly ignore such a B&W-only camera. That would be marketing suicide for Leica because of the popularity of producing color images.

I should add my "credentials" here. Until 2 months ago, I was a B&W film-only (M7) shooter; then I bought the beautiful M9-P (and SilverEfexPro!). So, I'm a total newbie in the digital world.

Harry

[sepiareverb]

I'd have no interest in a B&W only camera. Screenless? Sure if it added battery life. But I've got my bodies set to never turn the screen on unless I do it.