Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/30

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Subject: [Leica] RE: Digital M??
From: Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 17:25:23 -0700

At 01:32 PM 4/30/2002 +0100, Beddoe, Neil wrote:

>There's theoretically nothing to stop a savvy manufacturer building a gizmo
>that allowed you to replace the back flap of an M6/7(or any other SLR) with
>a digital unit in place of the pressure plate.


What you have said above is pretty much out of the reach of today's 
technology. For the past five years I have been immersed in the designing 
and building of a next generation digital camera for a major manufacturer. 
I have disassembled many of the current state of the art digital cameras. I 
have on my desk, our camera all spread out. Five PC boards and flex cable 
(between boards) up the gazoo.  Digital cameras and film cameras are two 
completely different animals.

The innards of a digital camera is jam packed with electronics. It takes 
many megabytes of memory to simply take a single digital exposure. Then the 
image has to be transferred out to media of some sort. How is this going to 
be fitted into a trap door on the back of an M camera? It cannot.

For the exact same reason that this failed:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0109/01091702siliconfilmvaporizes.asp

When Silicon Film first announced what they were doing, I predicted that it 
would never see the light of day. It didn't. It couldn't. Bad idea. And in 
their very own words:

"It was simply never attractive and always crippled by storage, battery, 
environment and sensor size limitations has now turned into vaporized-ware."

After you read about it, push the "PREV" button on the screen, then think 
of how much electronics is jammed into those Panasonic/Leica cameras. Tons 
more than would ever fit into the little back on a little M6.

Silicon Film could have been made to fit into a Leica M camera. This would 
have allowed one to make an exposure on to silicon. But at best, it would 
have been a toy. Digital cameras operate under a completely different 
premise than film cameras. A digital back for an M camera, even if it could 
be made, would not be an attractive accessory. Just ask the Silicon Film 
people...

Jim

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Replies: Reply from alex olstein <alexolstein@comcast.net> (Re: [Leica] RE: Digital M??)
Reply from Jim Brick <jim@brick.org> ([Leica] Re: Digital M??)
Reply from "Joseph Codispoti" <joecodi@clearsightusa.com> ([Leica] Digital M??)