[Leica] Live View Electronics (was maybe a dumb question on the M8)

[rsphotoimages at comcast.net (Bob Shaw)]

Heat is the Enemy of EveryChip...

At the Seattle-area Leica Akademie series (2 nights earlier this week), 
Ralph Haganauer gave a very thorough overview of the impact of heat on 
pixels, especially the smaller sensor types use in consumer-grade 
digicams.  There were excellent graphs showing the scale of noise 
generated as the internal temperature climbs.

He then compared sensor and pixel size between these latter cameras 
(including the PanaLeicas) to the DMR and M8 to demonstrate the 
benefits of the larger sensor and pixel size in those systems.

Two nights very well spent.  Ralph has been shooting M and R for a long 
time; it was  nice to listen to a "
company technical man" speak from a shooter's perspective.

Bob in Seattle




On Nov 11, 2006, at 3:08, Howard Cummer wrote:

Hello Frank,
A friend who works for Sony engineering told me that the live APS sized 
sensor in the Sony R1 (the first of its kind, I believe) was designed 
to run "cool" and thus able to maintain live view. The problem with 
most sensors, he told me, is that if they are on continuously they warm 
up and generate more noise the hotter they get. So, I think your 
contention about heat is correct, except, perhaps, for the sensors in 
the Sony R 1 and the Olympus 330E / Lumix 1/ Leica Digilux 3. Perhaps 
Epson will take another run at a digital M rangefinder camera and 
replace the finder with live view, although on reflection I suspect 
they had enough trouble with QC that they may not ever come back to 
designing and marketing M mount cameras. Perhaps Mr. Kobayashi will 
whip up something for Zeiss. As a constant user of an Olympus 330E with 
Leica R lenses (which I can actually accurately focus on the live view 
with 10X magnification!) I am sure there is a market for such a camera 
for M lenses, although not likely among most of the LUG members.
Cheers,
Howard (in HK)
On 11 Nov 2006, at 4:51 PM, lug-request@leica-users.org wrote:

> Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 07:54:10 +0000
> From: Frank Dernie <Frank.Dernie@btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: Maybe dumb question on M8
> To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
>
> As I understand it the large sensors as used in DSLRs and the M8 and
> Epson RD1 (which is a Cosina camera with Epson electronics) are one
> shot sensors, unlike the tiny sensors used in P&S cameras and
> camcorders which are live all the time. They are only active when the
> shutter is open. I have no idea why that is, perhaps to reduce heat???
> Anyway, given this fact it would be far from easy to have the LCD
> live like a P&S digicam as another little digicam sensor with
> attendant optics would not get the correct field of view and the
> mechanism to get it all out of the way of the optical path to the
> main sensor to take the shot would add noise, delay, cost and weight.
> I imagine if it were technically feasible such a feature would have
> been included, even if many would not care one way or another.
> Frank


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