[Leica] transferring lens data to body + future of SLR vs RF

[rdcb37 at dodo.com.au (Rick Dykstra)]

Nice thinking Jean.

The Digilux 2 is something of an example of what you're pointing too.  
As soon as I looked through that I thought, 'Heavy, boxy, mirror 
flapping cameras with expensive pentaprisms will soon be a thing of the 
past.'

Perhaps there are some obvious advantages of having a mirror based 
focussing screen system in a camera?  Exchangeable finders like with 
Nikon's Fs?  Yeah, maybe.  The optical quality and real-time of current 
viewfinders.  Yeah, maybe.  But at one heck of a premium.  And the 
zooming manual focus of the Digilux 2 could be very easy to get used 
to.

So if the R10 is the non film capable digi body, perhaps the R11 will 
be the mirror-less body with an electronic viewfinder.  At least the 
marketing would be interesting.

"Grandpa, why does your old camera go 'clackity-clack'?"

Rick.

On 20/01/2005, at 1:34 PM, Jean Louchet wrote:

>
> I may be utterly wrong, but here is a couple of personal reflections on
> which I would like to get your feedback.
>
> First, assuming that digital continues its growth on the high-end photo
> market, what is the future of digital SLR bodies? Using a high 
> resolution
> LCD it is possible to make a "virtual" SLR where the mirror and screen 
> are
> suppressed and replaced with this LCD. Digitally zooming (on demand) 
> the
> centre of this LCD will provide an adequate substitute to the classical
> SLR (manual) focusing device (microprisms etc.). I am confident that
> engineers will soon be able to design a TTL autofocus system not 
> needing a
> focusing screen.
>
> Second, the only difference between a digital RF and a digital SLR will
> then be the presence or not, of an optical finder with a mechanical
> rangefinder. There will be 3 types of bodies:
>  -pure RF
>  -pure LCD ("virtual SLR")
>  -combined RF + (detachable?) LCD
>
> Third, once the oblique rays issue is solved, all bodies will have 
> access
> to non-retrofocus wide-angle lenses, which was formerly the privilege 
> of
> rangefinder cameras, thanks to the suppression of the mirror. This is 
> good
> news for M-mount weitwinkel owners.
>
> Four, all future cameras will look much more like present RFs than like
> present SLRs. It is not feasible to add an optical rangefinder to a
> NikonF6 or a Leica R9, but it will be easy to add a LCD to a digital M 
> and
> then to suppress the M's optical finder for budget (well, Leica budget)
> bodies.
>
> Five, concerning anti-shake bodies (as opposed to antishake lenses), 
> which
> are the existing camera systems where at all times the body knows the
> focal length AND the focusing distance? The Leica M system. A very tiny
> mod. of the lenses would allow the M bodies to know the focal length
> without ambiguity (e.g. 28 or 90?). If some hard work on an existing 
> SLR
> allowed to transmit focusing information to the body, then we would be
> halfway to turning a F6 into a RF! In other terms, the future is in RF 
> and
> not in SLR bodies. Does this explain the recent move of Nikon towards 
> RFs?
>
> Last reflection, the idea of an antishake body is excellent, as unlike 
> an
> antishake lens, it should require no inertia sensor or mobile 
> mechanical
> component: motion can be detected and processed on the image sensor 
> itself
> (probably not on an old-fashined CCD but it can be done on a CMOS 
> sensor
> which is fast enough and can integrate some computing power _behind 
> each_
> pixel sensor, that can be used to integrate light not always from the 
> same
> pixel, but from the adequate neighbouring pixels according to the
> direction and amplitude of motion detected).
>
> Any comments?
>
> Jean
>
> "I dreamt a lightweight digital RF that can use all my M glass and 
> becomes
> instantly a digital AF SLR on telephoto and macro use, Leica can make 
> it"
>
> -- 
>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>  Dr Jean Louchet       COMPLEX Project     INRIA Rocquencourt
>                        BP105   78153 Le Chesnay cedex, France
>  Jean.Louchet<at>inria.fr  http://fractales.inria.fr/~louchet
>  mobile: +33 6 7347 7707
>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>
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