Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/09

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Subject: [Leica] RE: R equipment and its future
From: Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>
Date: Sat, 09 Dec 2000 10:03:23 -0800

At 01:04 PM 12/9/00 +0100, Pascal wrote:

>Whatever people are saying, Leica has *not* (yet) made a firm commitment 
>as to a digital future for the R.
>
>That is not to say there might never be a digital body compatible with 
>the R lensmount. But you are taking a chance here.
>
>Pascal
>NO ARCHIVE

Correct Pascal. As most of you know, I'm in the digital camera design
business. The Japanese camera makers have spent Billions of dollars
(Quadrillions of Yen) on digital technology. It would be silly for a
company like Leica, heavily steeped in conventional film camera and lens
design, to undertake a digital camera design. These Japanese companies
cannot equal the Solms lens designers. Solms cannot equal the Japanese
digital camera designers. And the current crop of Leica lenses are not
suitable for consumer digital camera use as their MTF is way too good. They
would need a frequency cutoff filter (internally) to limit the MTF to match
approximately 80% of the digital sensor's frequency. So a new line of Leica
digital lenses would need to be produced. Like Schneider's digital lenses
are different than their film lenses. See Schneider's white paper, on their
web site, as to why this is true.

Jim

Replies: Reply from Mark Rabiner <mark@rabiner.cncoffice.com> (Re: [Leica] RE: R equipment and its future)