Gabriel M.A.
My Red Dot Glows For You
The cow ain't born yet and the milk's already spoiling? Goodness.
ChrisPlatt
Thread Killer
gabrielma said:
Not only that, but it hasn't gone on sale yet and already it's obsolete.
"Excelsior, you fathead!"
-Chris-
John Camp
Well-known
ywenz posted the following site on the "Now for something completely different" forum:
http://www.photo.net/photos/hpic
These are photos taken with a Fuji P&S. The M8 will be a better camera than the Fuji. Tell me it's going to be obsolete in 3 years.
JC
http://www.photo.net/photos/hpic
These are photos taken with a Fuji P&S. The M8 will be a better camera than the Fuji. Tell me it's going to be obsolete in 3 years.
JC
jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
jaapv said:
A few months ago I attended a studio workshop in which we shot with a Leaf Aptus 22 back (mounted, incidentally, on a very old Hasselblad.) I'd have to say when you're looking at fine details, transitions, shadows, etc., the differences between its results and those of even a top-tier DSLR are fairly horrifying. The Leaf back produces a huge, smooth dynamic range, you can see farther into the shadows, there's nothing I'd categorize as noise, and tiny textural tales are luridly sharp.
I don't shoot with a Canon 1DSii, but I do a lot of layout and retouching on work from a studio that uses them, so I've had a very critical look at its output. There doesn't seem to be anything "wrong" with its images... until you look at them side-by-side with the results from a big-league digital back.
Now as I've said before in another thread, I draw a distinction between image quality and picture quality, and there are a lot of good pictures you simply wouldn't be able to get with a bulky digital back on a hefty, slow-operating medium-format camera.
But in terms of current DSLRs having run out of room to improve in terms of technical image quality, it's clear that they haven't. (Ask any experienced user of a 35mm-based digital camera if he wouldn't like to have, say, two more stops of overexposure latitude and you'll get a rousing "Yes!")
sf
Mentor
jlw said:
I can't imagine what their plan will be for increasing pixel count. They are already making lenses tailored to specific sized sensors. Will they someday make lenses tailored to sensors that are larger than the 35mm frame? Or will they spend MORE money and create sensors with better technology?
I hope for the latter. They should be able to do a number of things from here. And I expect we will see a great deal more capability come out of the digital technology. I'd not be surprised to see digital sensors beat film for dynamic range and every other aspect of image quality within the next 2 years. 35mm, at least.
The most important thing for the Leica line of digital products, in my opinion, besides that they create a nice image, is that they rise above the shoddiness of manufacturing we see in general and the cold digitalness too.
I'm not a digital hater. I appreciate it. I think a full frame Leica would be a wise purchase - and I WILL buy that when it comes out. In the meantime, I may end up buying a D200 to shoot film documentaries and the like.
gabrielma said:
It can be seen that way, although my bringing up the issue of depreciation is not meant as a film/digital debate or as declaring something dead before it's born. If I were to buy an M8, depreciation would be a very important factor in my decision.
sf
Mentor
Right now, I am thinking about buying another DSLR . . . I said I wouldn't, but work may require that I do . . .and my main concern is depreciation since no one is paying for this but me. I have to consider whether depretiation on a DSLR will outweigh film costs with my current setup, or whatever. It gets hairy.
rvaubel
Well-known
Although the Megapixel War started to abate with the first crop of 6M DSLRs, the end is not near. For various technical reasons, the endgame for FF format will be about 30MP. For 1.5 crop about 16MP. That means that FF will supplant medium format for the pros and the fruitcase amatuers. The smaller format (1.3 and 1.5) will be fine for anyone with any sense (of which I am often in short supply).
Improvements in dynamic range and sensitivity trumps any increased MP resolution beyond 10MP or so. I can live with the 6MP of my R-D1 because of the rangefinder form factor and I get to use all those cool M and LTM lenses.
The M8 will be a definite improvement over the Epson and reaches a comfort zone I could stay with for a long time. As an aside, I plan to keep the R-D1 as a useful camera in its niche. Not exactly obsolete.
My point is that MP resolution past a certain point is both impossible and unnecessary for FF cameras. Nobody needs to do 50% crops to produce 20" X 30" prints on a regular basis.
Technical improvements have awhile to go, but will be concentrated in other areas than MP. Meanwhile I suspect that cameras of different technological sophistication can co-exist on the same playing field.
And hence, the M8 will hold its value better than DSLR's .
That was a long trip for a short answer.
Rex
Improvements in dynamic range and sensitivity trumps any increased MP resolution beyond 10MP or so. I can live with the 6MP of my R-D1 because of the rangefinder form factor and I get to use all those cool M and LTM lenses.
The M8 will be a definite improvement over the Epson and reaches a comfort zone I could stay with for a long time. As an aside, I plan to keep the R-D1 as a useful camera in its niche. Not exactly obsolete.
My point is that MP resolution past a certain point is both impossible and unnecessary for FF cameras. Nobody needs to do 50% crops to produce 20" X 30" prints on a regular basis.
Technical improvements have awhile to go, but will be concentrated in other areas than MP. Meanwhile I suspect that cameras of different technological sophistication can co-exist on the same playing field.
And hence, the M8 will hold its value better than DSLR's .
That was a long trip for a short answer.
Rex
humanized_form
Established
shutterflower said:
manufacturers can try to milk consumers dry with the minor upgrade cameras (i'm looking at you Canon 30D and Nikon D70S), but i really don't think this strategy will work for much longer. the technology is maturing and the upgrades are becoming more subtle. the new models are so similar to the previous models that the older cameras aren't really obsolete, at least not when it comes to image quality.
so while many of the gearheads will continue to upgrade and buy the latest and greatest, i doubt the average dslr owner will. what the average owner of a dslr already has, right now, is probably more camera than they will ever really need. similar to home computers, after a while upgrading is meaningless to the average user (not gamers, media producers etc). how much more computer do you really need?
i don't think the Digital M will become obsolete, at least when it comes to image quality, for a very long time.
edit: hmm. oops. reading this over i realized that i forgot to say that i think the M8 will hold it's value a lot better than the cropped sensor dslr cameras will.
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jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
Hear,hear! The main thing is that we are rapidly approaching a point where the limitations of our gear are not technological any more but biological. Given the average size of a living room wall and the resolving power of the human eye, there is a natural limit to the megapixels needed. It is not needed to increase the dynamic range of a sensor beyond Ansel Adams' ten zones as the eye will no see a better print when the number of zones is increased. 16 MP is enough resolution to create billboards and most high-end sensors will produce about ten stops of dynamic range, certainly with a little tweaking using raw. Then there is the problem of diminshing returns in lens design. The very best Leica lenses have risen to about the order of 20 lp/mm in resolution, which appears to be as close to the limit of optical possibilities as humanly feasable. That is in the same order as 10-15 Mp sensors, so there is no gain there as well. The only reasonable advances could be in noise reduction, but, well, acoustical engeneers have been working on that problem for fifty years now and it is doubtful that really significant gains are in the offing. So what can we expect? "" upgrades" like better AF, orintelligent camera's that analyse photo content and adjust the camera's accordingly without the brain of the photographer involved? GPS to pinpoint the spot where the camera was at the moment the shutter was pressed? I feel most "advances" from now on will be like that, so not what Leica or indeed RF photography is about.rvaubel said:
fitzihardwurshd
Spiteful little devil
jlw said:
Unfortunately all these points, which are decisive for the technical quality, are very, very seldom discussed when it comes to comparisons of film and chip.
The MP and resolution discussion leads nowhere, it just proves somebody we are victim of a marketing strategy .
The output of Leaf backs, which is years ahead from the DSLR stuff tells us what is possible already now and there is no reason to assume even this could not be improved. And this progress will concern of course the DSLR world too.
Tthe leaf back differs from a DSLR in a similar way (at the time still more significant probably) as 35mm always differed from MF. 35mm was a compromise.
And even the top end DSLRs are not more than an acceptable compromise in the technical sense, considering what enormous amount of money and time they save for some professional photogs they are already now a (almost) perfect solution.
Why should a pro worry about quality issues which do not exist at all for his clients ? I say "almost " because these 3 stops more latitude you mention is something also the pros miss badly.
Back on topic, NO digital camera can escape from this pressure of evolution,
Leitz is now out in the real world, it does not decide anymore independently about their own innovation speed.
fitzi
T_om
Well-known
shutterflower said:
I have people at weddings ask me 'how much did those cameras cost' (pointing at my 5D's).
I tell them the truth. They were free.
My film and lab bills for a year more than paid for them so they cost me nothing. When they wear out, or something better comes along, I'll dump them in the nearest trash can and get the better camera.
It will also be free.
Cameras are tools, not religious icons.
Tom
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
May I offer my trash-can?? I''l send it over by Fedex.T_om said:
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DaveSee
shallow depth of field
At the moment, the M8 has no value because it isn' t available, regardless of price. What does have value, for me, are the LTM and M lenses I use with my CV and Leica cameras. If the M8 brings with it continued value to my lenses, after film becomes too difficult to attain, then, regardless of megapixels--or is that "mebipixels" ?--the M8 could have value. As for the collector-types, I've seen old Pulsar and TI digital watches from the early 1980's priced as high as some "jewelled" timepieces, so this M8 might also keep value as a fetish tooboarini2003 said:
As Bill has said, there' s a lot of "digital imaging" yet to be discovered. If Leica can, with this M8, can free the person from the medium enough to "focus" on the image (instead of the histograms, MP, "noise" and "crop-factor"), THEN they will return their brand to image making. What I absoultely adore about my Leica camera is the confidence it manifests as a "Don' t worry about the film, it's OK. Just make pictures!" tool. I'm not sure how that translates to digital media, what the digital analog would be... but a diminished chimping behavior might result...
rgds,
Dave
Mark Norton
Well-known
I don't think we'll get it but it would be good if the screen on the M8 were foldaway like on the R-D1, Leica's contribution to anti-chimping...
Ben Z
Mentor
Mark Norton said:
Naaah, just cover it with black tape
rvaubel
Well-known
1 wish the screen would hinge so you could look straight down, like a TLR. Good for inobstrusive street photography. Also good for overhead and around corners. But then it would have to be live view, which will take a sensor revolution that is not around the corner.
Rex
Rex
DaveSee
shallow depth of field
Tom, with resepct to your post, work, skill and profession you have removed yourself from the original poster's context of "the beholder". However, in so doing, you have not addressed his claim/comment with respect to(wrt) the implied value of the tool as an object.T_om said:
OK, so you may amoritize the true value in cost v. return. That is, in a sense(essence?) value. However, there are those who may yet ask if the means by which one attains a valued result is also intrinsic/a part of this value.
By your admission, you are removed of the means, easily discarded.
But, would you purchase an M8 with this same attitude? That's what was asked.
You have presented an interesting perspective, oft cited: itś not how, but how many/much.
I have many images, however mundane/valueless to others, produced with my RF gear that speak as much about the tool as the tool's user which, throwing away the tool ,would be simply a waste of future images... if I wasn't looking
So, if you were not able to discard a tool, what might that be? Why? Oh, silly me, you already answered that! It doesn't matter.
rgds,
davidc
Mark Norton
Well-known
I suppose if you are stuck on the treadmill of wedding photography, the notion that using a digital camera can reduce your costs and increase your profits is attractive.
Doing so doesn't make your cameras free - it just changes your cost structure - and to claim otherwise to goggled-eyed on-lookers is just a smart arse comment. Even when the savings exceed the cost of the camera, the camera still has a value as the working tool he is banging on about and I doubt our friend with the dangly eye-glasses - astute businessman that he obviously is - would actually dump them in the trash. More likely, he'll sell on ebay and impose a surcharge for paypal.
Doing so doesn't make your cameras free - it just changes your cost structure - and to claim otherwise to goggled-eyed on-lookers is just a smart arse comment. Even when the savings exceed the cost of the camera, the camera still has a value as the working tool he is banging on about and I doubt our friend with the dangly eye-glasses - astute businessman that he obviously is - would actually dump them in the trash. More likely, he'll sell on ebay and impose a surcharge for paypal.
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Kevin
Rainbow Bridge
bmattock said:
I completely agree.
Now I also suspect that the M8 will be very successful among the new rich, ie the millions of millionaires around the globe who already seem to spend a fortune on wares that are used only once (ie. expensive clothes and shoes).
If the M8 is surpassed by a M9 they will have the very first ones. The high price is a reason for them to buy the thing in the first place.