The Online Photographer

By "A."

I can't believe they pulled this off.

I was struck by a comment on TOP on Saturday: "Why all the fuss about a brand with such a miniscule market share?" Well, Sir, because in all the chatter about leaks and rumors and NDAs and prices, it's easy to lose sight of what an amazing feat the most storied brand in photography has accomplished: Leica has created the world's most compact full-frame digital system camera.

Many young/digital photographers may not be familiar with just how small M cameras and lenses are, which is why I created these two camera size comparison illustrations. They're made from pictures found on the web, but are strictly to scale. Anyone who's been clamoring for "the largest possible sensor in the smallest possible body" can't ignore the relative sizes of the three cameras in Comparison 1, at least in light of the relative sensor sizes (shown in blue and green on the left).

Comparison 1 shows three compact "versatile lensmount" cameras. The one with the built-in eye-level optical viewfinder is in the middle. Click on the image to see it larger.

Left to right: 4/3 sensor (green) and 24x36mm sensor (blue), shown at the same scale as the cameras; Panasonic GF1 (20/1.7 lens); Leica M9 (50/1.4 lens in bottom photo, 35/1.4 in top photo); Olympus E-P1 (14–42 zoom).

It may not be quite as universal a mount as Micro 4/3, but the M-mount still allows photographers to use a huge range of old and new lenses. One can switch from 60-year-old screwmounts (a digital James Ravilious "glow," anyone?) to great modern lenses like the semi-pancake (1.2" long) Nokton 40/1.4 that costs less than the new Panasonic 20/1.7. My own favorite is the 35/1.2 aspherical Nokton, a gem for under $900.

Granted, all of those lenses will also fit on 4/3 cameras (which can also accommodate many other lenses). But on a 24x36mm Leica body—film or digital, we can say now—all of that great glass out there works at its "traditional" field of view rather than with a 2x multiplier as with 4/3. That $1200 Nokton 50/1.1(!) doesn't limit you to a 100mm field of view.

Comparison 2 shows the three smallest 24x36mm-sensor digital cameras on the market today. (Note especially the bottom row. All three cameras are shown from the right side, the side from which you grip them. All three have optical viewfinders, but consider the size penalty for the ones in the SLRs. You can click on the image to see it larger.)

Left to right: Canon 5DII (50/1.4 lens); Leica M9 (50/1.4 lens in top photo, 35/1.4 in bottom photo); Nikon D700 (50/1.4 lens).

(Photographers who argue endlessly about the "radical differences" between the D700 and the 5DII should ponder that photo, because those SLRs look like two peas in a pod compared to the M9.)

As always, it's striking how petite the Leica and other M-mount ƒ/1.4 lenses are. Below is a size comparison between the Canon EF 35mm ƒ/1.4 and the Voigtländer Nokton 35mm ƒ/1.4; the size difference is almost comical when one considers that both cover a 24x36mm frame.

(Images to scale. The Canon ($1,350) is 3.1" diameter x 3.4" long; the Nokton ($560) is 2.2" diameter x 1.1" long. Weight: Canon, 1.28 lbs. / 580 g; Voigtländer, 7 oz. / 200 g.)

Too expensive?
Yes, the M9 is unquestionably expensive (you could buy five or ten of the 4/3 models or three or four of the SLRs, etc., etc.), but Leica is indeed a small company with a "minuscule market share." That underlines Leica's accomplishment rather than negates it. By showing just how compact a full-frame camera can be, it's hard not to think the M9 will serve for years to come as a benchmark in "large sensor/small camera" discussions.

And, once the Japanese digest what Leica has accomplished, might another company or two develop a cheaper 24x36mm-sensored "camera for many lenses" along the lines of what Christopher Lane wrote about re Micro 4/3 the other day?

Photographers can hope; time will tell.
-

"A." is a friend of the site "prominent in another field," as they say, who prefers to remain unidentified. My thanks to A., as always. —Ed.

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POSTED 7:57 p.m. Saturday

UPDATED 12.25 a.m. Sunday

(Photo: Leica Rumors)

The Leica M9 has leaked early, due to a PDF of the new M System brochure making its wildfire way around the web.

The news: the M9 will have an 18-megapixel, full-frame CCD sensor. More explicity—quoting from the brochure—the image area is 23.9 x 35.8 millimeters and image size is 5212 x 3472 pixels. It will come in "steel grey paint or black paint." The camera comes with its own copy of Adobe Lightroom equipped to handle the camera's 16-bit DNG raw files.

Like the M8, the M9's sensor has microlenses progressively more offset towards the corners to cope with the angle of impingement of the image-forming light. Leica says, "In the case of the M9, it wasn't a matter of modifying the lenses to match the image sensor, but rather the other way around."

X1 still sketchy
The details on the X1 are more shadowy at the moment. According to the latest scuttlebutt, it's not a Micro 4/3 camera but resembles one—it's allegedly a compact, ~12-megapixel APS-C camera with a fixed "pancake" style 24mm ƒ/2.8 lens (approximately 35mm-e, give or take). Best take this info with a grain of salt, though, and wait till the 9th for the true scoop. (Apple Computer has a big rollout scheduled for the same day, as you've probably heard. It won't overshadow the Leica news here at the sprawling TOP World HQ compound, naturally.)

This is a real picture of it, though, from page 83 the brochure:

If you click on the image you should be able to read the text. Note: "One of the very best Leica lenses." Hmm. Interesting.

I wonder if anyone notices the similarity of the long, slender camera in the picture to that of the little IIIf below, next to Steve's comment? The text says it's reminiscent of the M cameras, but it seems more reminiscent of the screwmount cameras to me. Interesting!

Stay tuned....

Oly and Sony
More rumors: 

Sony Japan is no longer listing the A700 on its website. The coming replacement, thought to be called the A800 and similar in appearance to the A700, will, some believe, have a 15-MP CMOS sensor, an ISO range of 100–12,800, 6.5 fps, and integrated Wi-Fi.

According to the website of the French magazine Chasseur d'Images, Olympus will roll out the E-P2 before Christmas...this Christmas. It will be a higher-spec'd "pro" model of the Micro 4/3 concept, with an optical viewfinder. Rumor only, so please don't put my feet to the fire if this doesn't come true.

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Featured Comment by sjones: "Currently using a Leica IIIf, and I hope to pick up an M2 within a year. After that, well, that should do it for the rest of my life. Still, entertaining to follow the evolution of photographic gear. Steve, Tokyo." [Photo from LeitzMuseum.org —Ed. Links by me, too.]

"My latest book project involves one year of photographing in Chugach State Park, Alaska," begins Carl Battreall, in his nice new field review of the Pentax K-7 over at Nature Photographers Online Magazine. "I will be hiking, skiing and climbing throughout the park. I will be carrying all my equipment and the poor camera will suffer dearly: rain, ice, snow, sub-minus temperatures and my legendary ability to kill cameras. Pentax may ultimately regret claiming the K-7 as being a super durable 'pro' camera. Many a 'pro' camera has not returned from my adventures."

He shortly proves he's serious by relating the following startling trial by, er, rainfall: "Pentax claims the camera is weather proof, so I let it sit out in the rain while I sat in my tent reading the manual, two hours later the rain stopped...."

READ ON at Nature Photographers to see what happened to the poor rained-drenched K-7. For those who want to follow Carl's travels and the camera's travails, he will be posting updates about his trip on his blog.

(P.S. To answer the question that this will probably bring up, yes, TOP will be reviewing the K-7.)

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Featured Comment by Adam Maas: "The Olympus E-1 and E-3 are splashproof when matched with HG or SHG series lenses from Olympus.

"The K10D/K20D are splash resistant. The K-7 is not sealed as well as the K10D/K20D. [Ed. Note: I've asked Pentax's tech guru whether this is true. I'll post his response as an 'Update' below this comment when I hear back. Probably won't be until Tuesday the 8th.  —Mike.] Pentax's DA* and DA WR lenses are sealed.

"Weather sealing and build-level are two different things. The K10D and K20D are better sealed than the K-7, but the K-7 has significantly better build quality.

"The single-digit Nikon's and 1 series Canons are pretty much the best built cameras on the market, although the E-3 does approach their build level. However both Canon and Nikon have settled for a lower level of environmental seals than Oly has or Pentax did with the K10D/K20D. They're still very well sealed cameras when matched with sealed lenses, but I wouldn't use a shower to clean them or take them where I could get hit with a wave or similar, while the E-1 and E-3 would have no issues there, and the K10D/K20D would most likely be okay as well."

UPDATE (Tuesday 9/8): I heard from John Carlson, Senior Manager of Product Marketing and Consumer Support at Pentax USA, who says, "The K-7 is just as waterproof as the previous models. In fact, it may even be more so. They changed materials slightly to accommodate the 'cold proofing.' The seals in the K-7 use a material that does not expand and contract with large temperature swings, therefore assuring a better seal overall."

Featured Comment from Most Pentax Glass is NOT Weathersealed: "The two Pentax lenses he's using are not weather sealed. Thus his K-7 is not weathersealed with either choice. Only DA* lenses: 16–50mm ƒ/2.8, 50–135mm ƒ/2.8, 200mm ƒ/2.8, 300mm ƒ/4, and 55mm ƒ/1.4 are weathersealed. Every other Pentax lens ever made in the past or presently made is a recipe for weather related failures with K-7, and is maybe the cause of his focusing problems? On paper K-7 is compelling. I assume his camera will die long before the year is up due to wrong lens choices.

"Pentax should do more to educate potential buyers that very few of their lenses are weathersealed, well, just five lenses total. I've read of a lot of classic old Pentax lenses getting 'drenched' thesedays. I no longer buy used Pentax glass online, and only locally buy it after thorough inspection by shinning a flashlight beam thru the used Pentax lens.

"I'd say he's ruined his two Limited lenses already. Maybe water damage inside the two lenses is causing the focusing issue he's already having with K-7? Hopefully he's got equipment insurance to cover his losses."

Well now, this is interesting.

I sound like a broken record (pop, tick, hiss), but...

Almost four years ago now—three years and ten months, more precisely—on The Luminous Landscape, I wrote an article called "'DMD': The Digital Camera I’d Like to Own." "DMD" stood for "decisive moment digital," my rather ham-handed attempt to coin a name for what I thought was needed. (I'm not great with names.)

The motivation for it was a lot older than that. Basically, for years I had practiced as a documentary/art photographer* shooting 35mm black-and-white film with SLRs. Intermittently, I had looked for a pocket camera that would give me results similar to what I got from an SLR. The idea was simply that I wanted to be able to show prints of pictures taken with the two cameras side-by-side, without viewers being able to tell the difference.

I never did quite find my pocket camera. The Olympus XA was a companion for a while, but the pictures had too much vignetting; the prints didn't stand up to my SLR prints. Ditto the Contax T2, which I reviewed in Camera & Darkroom magazine, although it came closer.

Well, four years ago now, I got to thinking the same way about digital. What we needed, I thought, was a "digicam" style camera—those handy, eminently portable point-and-shoots—but that yielded picture quality indistinguishable from that of a DSLR.

So, just two days ago, I got to see an Olympus E-P1 for the first time, and then, this morning, the eagerly awaited Panasonic counterpart, the Lumix GF1, was announced. ("Fauxtokina" continues. Heh.)

The DMD, it seems, is a reality.

Before I go any further, the GF1 has a viewfinder, for those of you for whom this was the biggest issue about the E-P1: a clip-on EVF, sold separately. The head swivels upwards, too, which should be useful for macro work. (There is a new Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm (90mm-e) ƒ/2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. lens for the Micro 4/3 system, too. "MEGA O.I.S." means image stabilized.)

With the 20mm lens, you can also use a clip-on optical finder for 40mm lenses like the one from Voigtländer. The aspect ratio is a bit different, but you'd get used to that.

Panasonic's published sample picture from the new Leica 45mm Macro-Elmarit lens

I must say I very much liked the E-P1, slowish autofocus and all—it seems to be one of those designs that overcomes its own shortcomings and manages to make a pleasing whole. The odd collapsing zoom lens (the only lens for it Mike Crivello's had) is light and nicely balanced in the hand, and although the AF is on the slow side, the camera pre-focuses nicely and is responsive when shot that way, with a lovely shutter feel and sound. I just looked at the camera in the store, so I can't speak to usage issues or things like the visibility of the viewing screen in broad daylight. But overall I felt the camera was attractive and appealing. It certainly is beautiful, in a way that most digital camera designers have simply given up on.

To that fine start, the similarly-sized GF1 adds some useful distinctions. It does not have body-integral IS, but the AF is expected to be as fast as that of the GH1, which is quite good. It adds video. Although not deliberately precious like the E-P1, it's quite handsome in its own right. There's that EVF available. It has a tiny pop-up flash, which will come in handy if you take insurance snapshots, and there are doubtless some other features I have no interest in. It's a little lighter and a little slimmer than the E-P1 (Panasonic somewhat goofily calls it an "Artistic Flat Design" at the Lumix website.) The GF1 will come in colors—black, metallic red,  silver and white. (Colors are popular in the Japanese home market.)

For more on what the camera looks like, Panasonic has posted a 360° view.

For more on its relative size, dpreview has posted a size comparison.

Prices
Of course, these cameras are going to be best suited to complement full-sized 4/3rds systems of one sort or another.

But both the E-P1 and the new GF1 are pretty expensive cameras—both $900 with their respective normal prime lenses. (The Olympus adds an optical viewfinder, no small expense when sold separately from most makers. Panasonic's EVF will cost extra.) Obviously, $900 is more than the cost of many good entry-level DSLRs, so these are certainly not cheap-out options for anyone wishing to avoid the expense of a "real" camera.

I have little doubt that either Micro 4/3 camera will be satisfying from a "cool gadget" standpoint, offering object appeal and pride of ownership. What I'm not so certain about is how either the E-P1 or GF1 would serve as somebody's only camera, for those who don't have multiples of $900 in their camera budgets. It seems to me that for $900, a camera should be good enough to serve as an only camera, for the buyer who wants to use it that way, rather than a convertible sports car to keep in the garage on weekdays and drive on the weekends, if you will. Only broader and longer-breathed data samples are going to tell us whether they'll serve in that sense.

Lenses
Probably the most appealing thing to me about the Panasonic are its lenses. For years, I did everything with a 35mm and am 85mm on a 35mm SLR, in a ratio of maybe 80/20, respectively, and one of the necessities for me in a camera system is a small, light, portable fast wide-normal lens in the 35mm–42mm focal-length equivalent range. I'm hidebound that way. Most photographers are similarly picky, only with different requirements—their own, whatever those might be. 

The Oly's 17mm ƒ/2.8 "pancake" for the E-P1 does indeed appeal, but a ~1.3 stop faster 20mm ƒ/1.7 (pictured on the camera in the top two illustrations) appeals even more. Add to that the Leica 90mm-e—it looks hulking here, but it's only two and a half inches long and weighs only 8 oz. (225 g)—that you can use for head-and-shoulders portraits and closeup purposes, and you've got a fine, versatile pair.

Red GF1 with the Leica 90mm-e Macro mounted. Photo from dc.watch.impress.co.jp.

On the Panasonic lens roadmap for 2010 are a 100–300mm ƒ/4–5.6 O.I.S., 8mm ƒ/3.5 fisheye, and 14mm ƒ/2.8 prime WA. That sets out a roadmap in my mind, too—if it were me, I'd get the camera with the 20mm first, then add the Macro-Elmarit, and then add the 14mm WA when it arrives next year. Perfect.

Of course there are zooms available too, for those who insist. And don't forget the adapters that allow you to use standard 4/3 lenses, as well as Leica M-mount lenses.

All in all a particularly tasty introduction today, from Panasonic. I have a GF1 on the way as soon as they ship, a temporary loan from a kind reader, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it.

*What this means is that I'd spend most of my days wandering around town shooting whatever I felt like. It's the life.

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Featured Comment by Juze: "WANT! WAAAAAANT!

"What I want even more is an EP-2 with AF that's as fast as Panny's and that in-body IS. And then that delicious pancake becomes a stabilized ƒ/1.7. Oooh, delicious.

"But a GF1 with the pancake is fine as well. (Hear that, Santa?)"

Featured Comment by Catherine: "Uh oh, guys, don't get your boxers in too much of a twist just yet...it looks like Panasonic is marketing the GF1 to us CHICKS!

"Excuse me...I mean, us "spirited women."

"Yay for us! Go, female team!

"Oh no! Along comes the DMD at last, and it's meant to be a CHICK-CAM?! Better keep looking at those manly-beast cameras that Canon and Nikon keep pumping out, for now, just to be on the safe side.

"You have to love marketing. I wanted one before I even knew I was supposed to!"

Mike replies: I must be in good touch with my anima—I usually like cameras the Japanese target at females. I loved the Contax Aria, a decade ago, and that was intended to be Contax's "lady camera." (I even included a paragraph about that in my review of the Aria in Photo Techniques.)

To considerable fanfare among Canonophiles, the world's leading cameramaker today announced its bid to regain the APS-C throne it ceded when it didn't try hard enough with the 50D. It has tried hard enough this time and then some. The new 7D is Canon's top-of-the-line reduced-sensor-size body. It features a nearly 18-MP CMOS sensor with cutting-edge technology, 8 fps, the now mandatory video capabilities expanded and improved versus its competitors, and an improved 100% viewfinder that matches the one in the Nikon D300 for magnification. The new body also features improved weather sealing and a nifty feature using technologies that have been close to Canon's heart for years: you can configure the viewfinder image overlays electronically.

It will ship at the end of this month with an announced list price of $1,699 in the U.S. and £42,365.29 in the U.K.*, and is already available for preorder at B&H Photo, both as body-only and as a kit with a bargain-priced 28–135mm ƒ/3.5–5.6 IS USM lens. Amazon had the 7D listed this morning but has taken it down again, possibly because it got inundated with more pre-orders that it felt it could fulfill from its first shipment. Thus the formidable popularity of Canon.

The 7D follows Canon's usual policy and does not have body-integral image stabilization. (If you care about that, Tamron has introduced a new image-stabilized version of its popular 17–50mm ƒ/2.8 lens, called—deep breath, get ready—the "Tamron SP AF 17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di II VC LD Aspherical [IF]." (Whew.) The crucial bit to watch for if you'll be buying is the "VC," which means vibration control.)

For more info...well, Google "Canon 7D" and prepare to get lost; it's all over the web. No, actually I'll recommend Rob Galbraith's excellent analytical preview page, and Gizmodo's hands-on preview complete with sample videos and 22 sample images in multiple sizes.

As an aside, I was amused to note that 1001 Noisy Cameras has dubbed the current run-up to the IFA trade show in Germany "Fauxtokina." Made me laugh.

Nearly killing the monkey
The 7D continues Canon's historic ineptitude with camera names. It is logically a 60D, but presumably Canon doesn't want it to be confused with the 50D, which was considered a rote upgrade by the faithful and which sank beneath the waves without leaving much of an oil slick behind to mark the spot. So they've a) conflated the new name with the name of their moderately-sized pro-am full-frame body, even though the 7D isn't full-frame, and b) pillaged the alphanumeric appellation of yet another defunct Konica-Minolta.

Want to buy a 7D for $200? I have one I'll sell you. Hint: it's not the 7D you want. I hope to live long enough for people to know new Canon SLRs are digital without them being labeled with a "D." How long has it been now since a new film SLR came out?

Newly-created features and components
Fortunately for photographers, however, Canon knows how to make superlative cameras. The 7D looks to be 100% business, from its well-refined, no-nonsense shape and control set to its completely overhauled AF to its take-no-prisoners new sensor. Apart from the few physical changes noted in the first paragraph above, most of the significant changes from the 50D appear to be under the skin. To quote Rob: "The Canon EOS 7D contains more newly-created features and components than any Canon model since the EOS-1D Mark III in 2007. It sports a new image sensor, new AF system, new metering system, new electronic level, new viewfinder display technology, new wireless TTL controller functionality and new configuration and customization options not found in any Canon camera previously." Just reading about the formidable new sensor will take you a while (even if, like me, you only understand half of it).

Now here's a question for you, though: if you didn't have a camera or lenses already nor a spot of brand loyalty either way, and you had the money in your pocket, which would you choose: a $1700 7D or a $2000 A850?

*Ooh, I think I made a typo.

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