Future Perfect
bybr /span style="font-weight: bold;"Jonathan Eastland/spanbr /br /Photokina 2008 is almost upon us once more and there is much talk in the wings of how silly some manufacturers who have invested heavily in recent times into the production of special glass for the smaller APS-C type sensors are beginning to look now that a href="http://nikoncameras.ajaxnetphoto.com/"Nikon/a is ramping up its full frame programme.br /br /It hardly seems likely a company like Nikon is about to dump its DX line and focus all attention on FX. Enthusiasts and many pros are more than satisfied with the image quality the smaller sensor delivers and many also prefer the slightly less bulky hardware designs of the DX systems. With new models for this format being introduced now (D90), the speculative scenario seems way off track.br /br /What I find more curious is the recent announcement from a href="http://olympus.ajaxnetphoto.com/"Olympus/a and a href="http://lumixcameras.ajaxnetphoto.com/"Panasonic/a concerning their micro-four thirds system aimed, it seems, squarely at capturing a segment of the market that does not want to be encumbered by hardware that will not fit into a handbag. The companies involved are going down this road because they can and no doubt the tactic will, in the short to medium term, jack up additional and much needed sales.br /br /In the past, I have been sorely tempted on occasion by the innovative design of Panasonic's L1 camera (aka Leica Digilux 3) and although in the several tests I made of both models the 25mm f/1.4 Leica designed lens used produced very good image results, I have not so far been convinced of 4/3rds format ability to better what I can get out of a battered Nikon D1X when the image is scaled up to A3+. And with a D2X, D300 and now D3 or D700 there's no argument.br /br /Indeed, in just about every large scale magazine page repro I have seen from the 4/3rds format, including those from an Olympus E3, the images look soft. Exhibition prints larger than this made from similar sources appear to suffer the same degradation; prints I have inspected made for promotions on Olympus trade fair and exhibition stands lack the micro detail punch one looks for.br /br /For run-of-the-mill, day-to-day newsprint, magazine or book repro quality for a wide range of subjects, how an image looks on the page for a lot of photographers is not an issue and even less so for the majority of readers. But for some shooters it is and always has been. For them, quality repro is the name of the game.br /br /Thus, within the camera manufacturing arena, a lot of soul searching is going on. Some icy cold, heart tugging decisions are being made which will eventually redraw the roadmap depicting just who is at the top of a very skinny tree and who those are hidden in the undergrowth.br /br /For the masses of Dslr users, Nikon and a href="http://canoncameras.ajaxnetphoto.com/canonEOS/"Canon/a will continue their skirmishing for pole position. Pentax is a rising star, but it will become bogged down again soon unless it launches a full frame sensor Dslr. Sony wants to be a player and a full frame model is an imminent expectation from their stable. Perhaps, with the addition of high performance glass from a href="http://zeisscameras.ajaxnetphoto.com/"Zeiss/a, Sony will carve a niche for itself but it will never be much of a threat to the players at the top of the tree. They face the same public relations problem Minolta endured for years. Great kit, but not a lot of pro users.br /br /For the rest, Photokina 2008 may mark the beginning of the end for some companies who until now, have enjoyed a certain success built on small format analogue reputations.br /br /Foremost among them is a href="http://leicacameras.ajaxnetphoto.com/"Leica/a who, apart from profits made on the back of bijou digital products of late, have been fighting for survival in a world now dominated by digital imagery. Currently, the only hi-end product the company has in this line is rangefinder based and while there is probably a large enough market out there to keep production and sales of it on tick-over short term, I cannot for the life of me see how it will keep the company afloat in the more difficult times coming. Apart from anything else, the M8 needs a serious make-over to bring its Jpeg image specs up to scratch.br /br /Just recently, working on the streets of the City of Birmingham with Tiananmen tank-man photographer Jeff Widener, I was reminded of just how quiet the shutter of an M7 is. I know that it is quiet, but when working with that camera or any other analogue Leica-M, the level of quietness is not as apparent as when someone else is using one only a few feet away. You simply cannot hear the shutter above the kerfuffle of ordinary street noise on a slow day! The M8, on the other hand, according to my Mac sound recordings, is little different from a Nikon without mirror slap and it's definately noisier than the old motor driven Konica Hexar. A modification to the shutter noise levels which also reduces the fastest shutter time of the M8 has been available for a few months, but the minuscule difference this makes in practice has to be questioned for the price charged. The camera needs a serious revamp and an M8.2 isn't it.br /br /For quite a lot of users of the M8, I have the impression the current unavailability of large to very large maximum aperture lenses of focal lengths appropriate for in-your-face reportage is another issue. Leica have the know-how to resolve this problem, which might, with the same stroke, were exotic wide angle focal length objectives to be offered, also help solve some of the image noise issues of the M8 by enabling coal-hole events to be documented without the need to crank up ISO settings. Bearing in mind the past 50+ year history of f/0.95 lenses and their cost in relative terms, don't expect anything of this nature from Solms, should it come, to be cheap.br /br /Satisfying a handful of digital rangefinder shooters is one thing. The next thing is, if you're a company that wants to stay in the limelight of quality precision miniature mechanical and optical engineering, what to do with the stuff that made the company in the first place; the analogue cameras which still offer discerning users a dream-like photography experience unobtainable with anything else?br /br /The Leica MP and the M7, according to insiders in Solms, are steady sellers. There is still - if internet auction sites were the only places one could go to obtain statistics - a healthy market for the sale of film and, perhaps more importantly, an incrementally expanding market for used rangefinder cameras. Thus, it may be safe to say in spite of the writing on the wall, the MP and the M7 will continue to be produced at Solms or in Wetzlar, but their off-the-shelf retail price is bound to see a hefty jump in the coming months. That said, I do have a dark niggling suspicion that once current stock of these serial products has vanished from dealer shelves, buying a new one may only be possible to special order.br /br /This still leaves Leica pretty much where it is; sidelined in a corner of the market place. What people who love them want to know is, where is the digital R camera? Some do, but most don't want to use their wonderful R type lenses on a 4/3rds dlsr camera made in the Far East. They want the real thing and preferably with a full frame sensor.br /br /Leica have kept about as quiet as any company could be on this issue. There are still no significant rumours, but a conversation I had with both the CEO of Jenoptik and executives at Sinar last year provoked some heavy discussion about where Leica might go with this topic.br /br /Looking at the picture objectively, it's obvious to me the market for small and miniature format Dslrs - i.e. 4/3rds, APS-C type and Full Frame - is pretty well sewn up. There is enough variety of hardware out there to satisfy the needs of the majority of users who have little or no need to pursue bill board sized reproduction (and if they did want to, can easily do so with the current crop of tools.). Bringing in a new full frame Dslr doesn't, in my opinion, add much advantage to the existing basket of goodies or, perhaps more importantly for Leica, enable the company to stay healthy. Yes, they would get a few thousand sales, but Leica's market is finite in this area. Leica glass matched to a sensor capable of producing higher image quality; not just a little bit better than already obtainable from a D3 or an EOS 1D but closer to a href="http://hasselblad.ajaxnetphoto.com"Hasselblad/a or Sinar, is probably their only way forward.br /br /Leica are no strangers to the production of glass for larger than 35mm formats. Company history is littered with examples of weird and wonderfully exotic pieces made for surveillance and medical use mounted on cameras most of us have never seen or heard of (Leitz KE28A 6X6). Match this opto mechanical expertise to the kind of electronic technology capable of being produced by a company like Jenoptik and you have the potential to produce something special for a small but elite market place.br /br /What photographers with major advertising clients want is the kind of digital image quality which only very high capital investment can currently purchase. There are enough of these shooters and enough clients with burgeoning advertising budgets to warrant a manufacturer of specialised tools to think carefully before hastily endeavouring to follow the crowd. Leica tried that (with the Digital Modul-R) and it didn't work. They almost certainly will not adopt the Panasonic L10 4/3rds dslr and sell it with an adapter to pacify R type lens owners. I think it is more likely Leica will come to Photokina 2008 with a new digital reflex camera.br /br /Why do I think this? It would make economic sense for a company of Leica's size and expertise in a field where competition to sell digital variations of the traditionally based 35mm sized product is cut-throat to the extent of becoming a massacre. Leica's long silence on the subject of the future of its R-type reflex is another indicator they have been giving the whole subject deep thought though I am not convinced they are yet ready to dump the R line. From a business point of view it would make sense because even if the company is only able to satisfy a couple of thousand orders a year, they will initially be able to charge a premium for the product, its accessories and associated services, just as the competition in the medium format field is already doing.br /br /But it's unlikely I would put my money on such a tool. What I would like from Leica is a digital version of the MP or M7 and I don't mind if that comes with a small crop factor just so long as it doesn't have an electric shutter arming motor. I don't want a rangefinder camera to which I have to add a grip or some other thummy device which gets hooked in clothing and helicopter door frames. I just want the original M design - plain, quiet and simple.br /br /As having this wish fulfilled anytime soon seems so remote, I have looked closely at Sigma's DP1 compact with its full sized Foveon sensor and fixed 28mm f/4 lens. Suffice to say that of all the hi-end compacts currently available featuring a fixed wide angle or short zoom lens, the image quality obtained from the Sigma has them all beat by a wide margin. What the tool does not have is the ergonomic and functional layout of the Ricoh GR2 or GX200 or their comparatively rapid reacting auto-focus. And one other thing; I do much prefer the aesthetic of the 4:3 format ratio of the Ricoh to the near wide screen ratio of the Sigma.br /br /Nonetheless, it seems to me after several weeks of use at home and abroad, the DP1 has plenty to offer. Attempting to use the tool as one might a point and shoot will get you nowhere. One should take the more measured handling approach, learning its little AF foibles or trusting its manual focus system. If there is any kind of analogy at all, using the DP1 is like using an old film folder where object distance has to be guessed and set on the lens with some reference to depth of field and therefore, the setting of an appropriate f/stop, and then, to remember to wind on after each shot using a red frame number window. It isn't quite this mentally demanding, but it's close.br /br /Of the hundreds of frames made with this camera, probably 60% were technically excellent; the remainder faulted by my own haste to bag the frame and forgetting momentarily that the tool simply doesn't have the AF muscle of some other products. It is not a camera I would be using for grab shots at a wedding. There has been talk of Sigma producing a similar sized model with a longer lens but I don't see the point. The DP1 might benefit from an extra half stop maximum aperture but as it is, the 28mm glass turns in a result as good as most users could want, even in low light with the ISO notched up to 400. I've had no hesitation in scaling jpeg images up to full DPS with the resulting repro appearance being far better than any equivalent obtained with a GRD II. Another major benefit is that the Sigma lens is, for all practical purposes, virtually distortion free.br /br /As mentioned previously, smaller cameras with hi-end capability are the name of the game for several manufacturers. Olympus have been on this road for some years. I don't think the legacy of Maitani's Pen F system has ever really been buried and now Micro-Four Thirds is on the cards, there is an expectation abroad of some really exciting products to come. Will they be small enough to worry a href="http://ricohcameras.ajaxnetphoto.com/"Ricoh/a or Sigma? I don't know and it probably doesn't matter, but you'd have trouble fitting a Pen F in a shirt pocket.br /br /span style="font-size:85%;"span style="font-style: italic;"© Ajaxnetphoto.com 2008./spanbr /span style="font-style: italic;"To buy prints and see stunning rights protected photo images of our maritime world, art, travel, street, life and special photography collections.br //spanspan style="font-style: italic;"Visit/spanspan style="font-style: italic;" the AjaxNetPhoto a href="http://archive.ajaxnetphoto.com/"Picture Archive Gallery/a/span/spanbr /span style="font-size:85%;"br /span style="font-style: italic;"Visitors, users and viewers of the foregoing content may copy and re-use it in other internet content sites on condition the source of all material so used is acknowledged with the attachment of the following.br /a href="http://www.ajaxnetphoto.blogspot.com/"www.ajaxnetphoto.blogspot.com/a 2008.br /a href="http://www.ajaxnetphoto.com/"www.ajaxnetphoto.com/a 2008.br /This content may NOT be used in any media made available for commercial resale.br /The products and companies named in this website content are trademarks , registered trademarks or servicemarks of their respective owners or licensed user.br /br //span/spanspan style="font-size:85%;"span style="font-style: italic;"/span/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22300009-4608716971147605972?l=ajaxnetphoto.blogspot.com'//div
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#1. April 20th, 2009, at 11:00 AM.
What do think the digital camera will be in 5 more years ?