Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/07/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Is this your opinion, or your employer's, jim_brick@agilent.com? ;-) Jim Brick wrote: > > At 06:23 PM 7/20/01 -0400, you wrote: > >on 7/20/01 5:55 PM, Jay Burleson at jayburleson@earthlink.net wrote: > > > > > 2002, however, will see an M Digital. All they are waiting for is a full > > > frame 35mm chip to use. > > Full frame 35mm and larger CCD sensors have been available for going on > four years now. I've had one since 1998. In 1998 we cut a hole in the back > of a Canon EOS 1n and stuffed it in. Then mounted all of the electronics on > boards outside the camera. What a giant kludge. And the digital pictures > from this 6 megapixel sensor had aliasing and other artifacts because of > the sharp Canon optics and the Nyquist limit. > > Film cameras and digital cameras are two completely different beasts. They > are not intermixable. But, you say, what about the Canon, Nikon, etc, SLR > digital cameras. The illusion is only skin deep. Crack one open and it is > stuffed to the gunwales with billions of transistors, resistors, > capacitors, circuit boards (yes, several) connected to each other with > ribbon cable and flex circuits. Not for the faint at heart. Ah, but how > about the Hasselblad backs hooked on to a conventional film camera. Well... > nice for $15,000 and up, plus lugging a computer around and an umbilical. > Besides, Hasselblads and the like are modular where the digital part can be > built into an attachment. The back. Open up a digital back and discover how > much electronics you get for $15,000. It looks like $50,000 worth. And the > really good backs are $50,000. > > An M camera is probably the worst camera to attempt to digitize. They could > make a digital M camera. But it wouldn't be anything like the M camera you > know now. They would probably call it a D camera. And the wonderful high > resolution Leica lenses that you love would be looking through a defocusing > filter (built into the camera over the sensor) because a 2500 Hz sensor > pixel frequency cannot collect data of ten times that frequency. Again, the > Nyquist limit. > > If you really want a digital M, buy a Silicon Film cartridge > (www.imagek.com) and have someone modify an M camera so it will fit. Then > use it for awhile. Then instead of throwing it away as a useless waste of > time and money, loan it to someone else who hasn't stopped to think it through. > > Want to buy a good, sharp, easy to use, digital camera? Get a Nikon CP995. > Or something like that. A digital M would be a marketing disaster as well > as a disaster to use. > > Jim