Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/03/11

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Subject: RE: Re: [Leica] epson digital RF report pages
From: grduprey@rockwellcollins.com
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 13:44:59 -0600

Richard

Don't get me wrong, This is a great little camera.  And indeed it is what
drove Leica to announce the upcoming digital M I'm sure.

However, I'd bet that none of the Cosina users are going to complain about
the changes in depth and height to the camera or the price increase like
Leica users do.  Remember the uproar over the 2.5 mm increase in height
from the M6 to the M6TTL?  'It totally destroys the esthetics and handling
of the camera"  This has got to be the most ludicrous complaint I have ever
heard.  I would have never known there was an increase if someone had not
told me.  And who cares?  Oh that's right there is the problem of the
change to the shutter dial size and direction.  Heck, that is why I finally
bought my M.

Gene



                                                                                                                                             
                      "Richard F. Man"                                                                                                       
                      <richard-lists@imagecraft.co        To:       leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us, leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us     
                      m>                                  cc:                                                                                
                      Sent by:                            Subject:  RE: Re: [Leica] epson digital RF report pages                            
                      owner-leica-users@mejac.palo                                                                                           
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                      03/11/2004 11:14 AM                                                                                                    
                      Please respond to                                                                                                      
                      leica-users                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                             





At 09:25 AM 3/11/2004 -0600, grduprey@rockwellcollins.com wrote:

>What I find amazing is the 1.53x  lens factor.  None of you out there who
>were just a few weeks ago saying if Leica comes out with a M Digital with
>less than a 1x lens factor it would be Totally unacceptable, are not
>complaining one bit about Epson/Cosina doing it.  Not One Complaint.  The
>only comment so far on this is I can live with it.  Interesting...  If
>Leica had done this very same thing right now, you would be screaming and
>calling for a revolt and overthrow of the company.

So if a single person complained before, the who LUG bears the sins? If you

are going to look for hypocrisy or whatever, remember that as short as a
week before PMA, Leica's position is that a Digital M cannot be done.
Obviously they got the wind about this. They claimed angle of lights etc.
etc. and look what Epson/Cosina did - looks like they possibly are just
using a plain old APS sized Sony sensor. No new microlens, no new sensor.
Nada.

A similar "outrage" is happening in the OM group - for years Olympus said
the same thing about angle of light striking the sensor and designed the
E-1 from the ground up. They are now begrudgingly (in some markets) giving
out the adapters to use the OM Zuiko lens with big fat warnings that the
images may not be optimal. Well, they may not be optimal, but they sure
look pretty darn good from the pictures people are posting.

There are real innovations or at least cleverness with this puppy. They
didn't increase the size too much. The battery goes where the film canister

used to go. This must have driven their decisions to use the wind lever to
cock the shutter, and to allow "flipping" out the LCD screen. These save
battery power. With the film rewind lever, it appears to be some sort of
jog dial control thing. Bingo, no need to add a jog dial thing on the back,

like other cameras. The tour de force must be the ultra retro analog 3-in-1

display. Looks like it displays the amount of shots left in some sort of
logrithmic'ish scale, some sort of exposure/white balance thing, and may be

some sort of indicator for the filter being used? All at a glance.

The best part is that to be competitive, Leica must now look seriously at a

full frame solution, otherwise, by the time it comes out in 2 years, the
Epson R2-D2, or RD-3, or whatever, might have full frame by then.


// richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, please
use richard@imagecraft.com)

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