[Leica] Digital Leica M

[ekowaleski at twmi.rr.com (Ed Kowaleski)]

The software that accompanies the RD-1 has a provision for the correction of
the effects of vignetting.  I assume Epson calculated that a 15mm lens would
vignette so much, a 21 this much, and a 24 that much, etc., and provided
image correcting software accordingly.  As far as I can see, it works quite
well.

Now, it seems suddenly, Leica says, "Oh, by the way, you might want to have
these bar codes put on the inner face of your M-lenses so you can capture
data that tells you which lens was used."  There is more than a  veiled
implication that this will also impact image quality because Leica's
statement said that these codes would "help optimize image quality".
Further, they stated that owners of lenses produced after July 1, would
"benefit from the image optimization" resulting from the retrofit
application of these bar codes.

So there appears to be more at stake that just adding metadata and there
seems to be a clear suggestion from Solms that one had better get the bar
codes put on pre July 1, 2006, lenses or live with some pretty expensive
junk.  It sounds as if they've invented a Leica M that in fact cannot use
older lenses without  some lack of image optimization. Or, is this their
solution to the Vignetting problem and rather than take the Epson route by
fixing the vignetting in software, they have seen this as a profit
improvement program? I would think that lots of lenses at 95 Euros each
results and a significant Euro flow

Please, someone tell me I've misread Leica's statement.

Ed Kowaleski