Leica Announces an $8700 Black and White Camera

[bin1127]

[citation][nom]ghostsoldier[/nom]Wildly inaccurate. This person knows nothing about photography. Ignore this.[/citation]


When you calibrate sharpness on a TV you always slide the colour setting to 0 so it becomes black and white. The edges or blurriness is enhanced because of less interference from seeing in colour and allows you to adjust better sharpness. So the eyes will perceive something in black and white differently vs in colour.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]ghostsoldier[/nom]Even if it is 100% better, it still won't be as good as many cameras out there that cost much less. Leicas don't really have very good image quality, they are purely a status symbol for people who want to pretend they know photography. Check out this link to compare Leica's $9000 flagship M9 to the $900 Pentax K-01. You'll notice the Pentax is superior in almost every category, and has more features. The DX0Mark image quality score for the Pentax is more than 10% higher than the Leica, for a camera that costs 10% as much.http/snapsort.com/compare/Leica_M9-vs-Pentax+K-01[/citation]

wow... thats pathetic, i mean really really pathetic.

i have a question if you know. i heard a while back, that pentax wanst as good in the digital realm as they were in the film... that they were mostly just a name now... is that true?

 

[ghostsoldier]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i have to agree with you, not on the camers company, but on the rather have D800... well really i would rather have the 5000$ version they make but i cant remember its name... there is a certain point where more quality is really just lost... there are very few cases that call for a 10k+ camera, even in the professional realm. and at some point, no one will see higher quality.[/citation]

Are you referring to the D4? The image quality of the D800 is about 10% better and generally it's the better camera for most purposes, the D4 is more expensive because it's specialized for low light photography with insanely high ISO.

There is not really a certain point where quality is lost, remember a big advantage of high resolution cameras is that you can crop from a larger image to create a different composition and still have enough detail to make a big print.

Leica cameras are not any better than the products offered by Canon, Nikon, Pentax, or the others. They just cost a lot more.

The DX0Mark image quality score for the Leica M9, their top of the line mirrorless DSLR, is 69. That is a middle of the pack score at best, barely beating some $500 cameras from other brands. Every other DSLR manufacturer offers better image quality for a fraction of that price.

For comparison, here are some image quality scores from other brands. I should point out that I am only comparing mirrorless DSLRs (like the M9), so this is an apples-to-apples comparison.

Sony NEX-7 -- 81, SLT-a77 -- 78, NEX-5N -- 77, NEX C3 -- 73,
Pentax K-01 -- 79
Leica M9 -- 69
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 - 64
Samsung NX11 -- 63

While the M9 is better than some of them, you'll notice it is nowhere near the best, yet it is by far the most expensive, at 10 times the average price of the others listed.

 

[ghostsoldier]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]wow... thats pathetic, i mean really really pathetic. i have a question if you know. i heard a while back, that pentax wanst as good in the digital realm as they were in the film... that they were mostly just a name now... is that true?[/citation]

I don't know who told you that. Pentax makes the best digital cameras in their class, the APS-C format. In fact their APS-Cs can roundly kick the asses of all but the latest full frame cameras. Compare the Pentax K-5 to the Canon 5dMII or the Nikon D700 or the Sony a900. The Pentax beats all of them in image quality at around half the price.

 

[fatality1515]

@MajinCry My first post wasn't arrogant at all, just stating a fact that what this company offers for the price that it is charging is a joke. My second post is the response to the arrogant noob.

To all who think Leica is a "professional" camera, think about this for a second.. Did you ever see any Leicas at sporting events, fashion shows, in photojournalism, weddings, or even street photography?? No professional in his right mind would use a camera that requires disassembling to get to the memory card, shoots at 2 FPS, has no auto focus, no image stabilizer, no weather seal, no spot metering etc... Best place to find this camera is in Monaco, on a yacht, looking pretty.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]ghostsoldier[/nom]I don't know who told you that. Pentax makes the best digital cameras in their class, the APS-C format. In fact their APS-Cs can roundly kick the asses of all but the latest full frame cameras. Compare the Pentax K-5 to the Canon 5dMII or the Nikon D700 or the Sony a900. The Pentax beats all of them in image quality at around half the price.[/citation]

i heard that a while back, cant remember how long ago though... good to know though.

 

[richboyliang]

the photoshop is worth than this piece of junk camera imo

 

[WyomingKnott]

[citation][nom]frozonic[/nom]100% is the same as well... the same .... 100% of 50 is still 50, so if this camera can provide 100% sharper images than a color camera then it means it can provide the same sharpness[/citation]
[citation][nom]bejabbers[/nom]100% sharper means twice as sharp.[/citation]

bejabbers is absolutely right. That's the short explanation. But frozonic has captured an interesting phenomenon that started in advertising and has corrupted grade-school math and common usage.

Advertisers get away with describing 24 ounces as "150% more than 18 ounces!" I had a discussion with my daughter's math teacher years ago. A map showed territory A being three times the size of territory B. The correct answer to "How much bigger than B is A?" was 300%. The teacher admitted that 200% was technically correct, but this is what they were supposed to teach and what would be on standardized exams.

So I taught my daughter that there were two answers: the one for class and the test, and the right one.

I believe that the New York Times avoids this problem by never using "x% larger/smaller than," but only "x times as large as" or "x% the size of."

My favorite example would be a product that costs "400% less per gallon." The way I do math, that means that they have to pay me three times the going rate to take the product.

 

[WyomingKnott]

Arrgh. I made an arithmetic mistake above! Try 24 ounces as "150% more than 16 ounces!"

not 18.