Digital M/Digital Rebel was Re: [Leica] Lost Faith in Leica

[s.jessurun95 at chello.nl (animal)]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug@leica-users.org>
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 9:56 PM
Subject: RE: Digital M/Digital Rebel was Re: [Leica] Lost Faith in Leica


> It's odd, though, Jonathan, that Cosina managed to pull the whole thing
> off in next to no time.
> 
> And it's also odd that people are in one breath telling us how no one
> expect to hang on to one of them silly digicams for more than about 15
> minutes before having it labled obsolete, and in the next breath they're
> telling us that Leica has to charge six arms and four legs for a digital
> M because, after all, it wouldn't be a Leica without that build quality.
> But if the damn thing's going to be obsolete in 15 minutes, and doesn't
> have to be capabable of going off to boarding school with little
> Skipper, Jr's little Skipper III, then why does it have to have that
> Leica build and price tag? Confused minds really do want to know. :-)
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org
> [mailto:lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
> Jonathan Borden
> Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 3:35 PM
> To: Leica Users Group
> Subject: Re: Digital M/Digital Rebel was Re: [Leica] Lost Faith in Leica
> 
> 
> Scott McLoughlin wrote: 
> 
> > Just because it might cost Leica $3K to make a digi
> > M body doesn't meant many buyers will be willing
> > to pay $5K for it - or whatever the numbers might
> > come out to.
> >
> > Right now, I don't think folks expect their digital
> > cameras to last them many, many decades. It's not
> > perceived as an "investment" in the same way.
> 
> Build quality is one thing and if Leica were interested in 'getting 
> something out the door' at a lower price point, they might subcontract 
> the production to a japanese or even chinese firm -- this has been done 
> before with Minolta etc. and witness the current crop of Leica digital
> P&S.
> 
> For the digital M I suspect there are other technical issues -- namely 
> the distance between the rear element and the sensor. With wide angle 
> lenses designed for rangefinders i.e. the M series, the angle that which
> 
> the light strikes the film at can be quite acute -- look at the SA 21 
> for a great example.
> 
> This doesn't work great with run of the mill digital sensors and so I 
> expect some real work with microlenses is being done -- but imagine 
> trying to design a sensor that will work well with anything from an SA 
> 21 to a 135 -- not an easy task. The reason this is so much easier for 
> SLRs is that the lens already has to clear the mirror and consequently 
> the wide angle lenses are designed differently.
> 
> Perhaps Epson has solved this problem. Perhaps it is not really a 
> problem. Perhaps the current R-D1 is a trial balloon for something 
> later. Perhaps Epson is going to use all the $$$ it makes on ink to buy 
> Leica and come out with a 20 mp R-D2. Who knows. We can speculate on 
> lots of things, but it is reasonable to speculate that the reason we 
> don't have a digital M *today* is that there are real engineering
> issues.
> 
> Jonathan
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