Tuesday, April 1, 2014

SENSATIONAL AUTOFOCUS LEICA M-AF



April 1-2014


Leica M-AF with 50mm f/1.4 Summilux-M

This morning we received the sensational message that Leica will be introducing an autofocus version of the venerable Leica M, the Leica M-AF, and the amazing fact is that the camera will offer autofocus with any lens that can mounted on the camera.  No special autofocus lenses are necessary.  This was achieved by having the autofocus mechanism being part of the camera body rather than the lenses.  In simple terms, to focus, the lens mount moves back and forth within the camera body.  All that is necessary is to set the lenses to infinity.  This allows any lens to be focused from infinity to a certain minimum focusing distance, depending on the focal length.  This offers the additional advantage of achieving an autofocus close-up range by setting the lens to a closer than infinity focusing distance.  Here the camera will maintain autofocus, but at a closer range.

Leica M-AF without lens

Leica M-AF with 50mm f/1.4 Summilux-M at closest focusing distance

In order to assure proper alignment even with longer and heavier lenses, Leica decided to build the focusing movement in the same manner as the focusing helix in most manual focus lenses.  The threads of this mount assure proper alignment much better than any other method, like a sliding mount, for instance.  The internal ring section that moves the lens mount back and forth is geared and turned by a small but powerful motor.  This means that the actual speed of the focus movement is a bit slower than conventional autofocus systems, but that is a small price to pay for having the advantage that all lenses that can be attached to the camera, even those from other manufacturers, offer autofocus.

This approach does no longer allow for the rangefinder mechanism to work and it was necessary to remove the rangefinder. This allowed some of the electronics to be housed in top of the camera in the space taken up by the rangefinder in the other Leica M cameras.  For this reason, the viewfinder has remained basically unchanged, but the second rangefinder window in front of the camera has been removed. 

Close up of the focusing movement at closest focusing distance
The indent in the camera body for the lens release is clearly visible


This brings up the issue of the M-AF designation of the camera.  The M has always been short for Messucher, the German word for rangefinder.  But just like Leica doing away with the alpha numerical labeling of their cameras, no M10, just M, I guess we have to get used to the fact that Leica M now is the designation for all of their cameras of this particular body style.  This has been achieved in an almost perfect manner.  The new Leica M-AF is outwardly almost indistinguishable from the standard Leica M, Leica M Monochrom and Leica M-E as well as most of their predecessors.

Besides the missing small rangefinder window, the standard lens release knob had to be moved to be part of the focusing mount.  To accommodate it throughout the entire focusing range, a small indent in the camera housing will allow the lens mount to recede into the camera body when focused at infinity.

Leica M-AF with lens adapter R and 70-180mm f/2.8 Elmarit-R at closest focusding distance

Probably the most obvious difference in the appearance of the camera are two small buttons in front of the camera.  Pressing either one of them will disengage the autofocus system and allow motorized manual focusing by pressing the top button to have the focus mount move toward infinity and the bottom one for focusing closer.  This is done best with the auxiliary electronic viewfinder, the Visoflex Electronic.  Of course it is also possible to use the standard, manual focusing with the standard focusing mount of the lenses.  While this might sound as a duplication of manual focusing, we now have the possibility to focus manually with lenses that have no manual focusing possibility.


No estimates as to actual deliveries of the camera have been released at this time.



23 comments:

  1. Dammit, you got me all excited. What you presented makes a lot of sense an looks doable.

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  2. Why would Leica do away with the fantastic rangefinder?

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    1. They would only with this particular model, but please, take a look at the date of this article.

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  3. will this be the most expensive piece of Leica equipment ever?

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  4. Not even close. By eliminating the rangefinder, the price of this camera is about the same as the Leica M. The most expensive Leica, by far, is the Leica S.

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  5. Shouldn't you have the readers a warning that this isn't real?

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    1. I did. I clearly marked the article as being published on April 1-2014.

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  6. April fools aside, this seems to be a very elegant solution to offer autofocus in a Leica M body without the necessity of a special line of autofocus lenses. Are there any arguments against it?

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    1. One would be the actual focusing mount. In the manner I described, it would require a relatively powerful motor to activate the focusing movement. This might lead to noticeably increased power consumption. But the main problem, as I see it, is the focusing range with longer lenses. With the exception of internal focusing, long lenses require a relatively long movement to be able to focus from infinity to a reasonably close distance. The focusing movement of this camera wouldn't be anywhere near enough to assure that. On the other hand, there would be no problem with wide angle, normal and short telephoto lenses. I just had a thought to partially compensate for that. Equip the camera with focus verification. As it is, long lenses would still need to be focused manually by focusing the lens. Focus verification would be quite helpful in those instances. Even though this is just an April fools joke, I think the basic system does make sense.

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    2. Leica should build this camera.

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  7. How do you come up with this stuff? I remember last year's Leica SM and now this. didn't you write about Leica building cars at one point also?

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    1. Well, a good imagination and a lot of Photoshop. Yes, I did write about the Leicar, the Leicar M with manual transmission and the Leicar A with automatic. I am now wondering what I might come up with next year.

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    2. LOL Leica M and Laica A is great. Was that on April 1, 2012?

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  8. Yes it was. Just type in Leicar in the search bar on top.

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  9. As long as we are dreaming, wouldn't it make more sense to move the sensor to gain autoficus. That would eliminate making the lens mount heavy duty enough for long lenses.

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    1. No. It would increase the thickness of the camera body substantially. If you look at any Leica M camera, the body thickness accommodates the lenses at infinity. For anything closer, the sensor would have to move further back, subsequently requiring a noticeable increase in thickness of the camera. By the way, this was done years ago in one of the Contax SLR cameras. It worked, but the camera was rather unhandy because of the increase in body thickness. If I recall correctly, that added almost an inch to the camera.

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  10. Would it be possible to add an optical element inside the camera to allow for autofocus?

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    1. Possibly, but that would alter the focal length of the lens in use. More importantly, it would introduce an optical system that the lens was not designed for. It would inevitably lead to a deterioration of the image quality, however small it might be. This reminds me if the reaction of one of Leica's lens designers when I asked him about filters. He gave me a stern look and said, "if we had intended for Leica lenses to have a flat piece of glass in front, we would have designed them that way." I very much doubt that anyone at Leica would be willing to go beyond a flat piece of glass.

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  11. Leica users don't need autofocus. They want the rangefinder.

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  12. Considering the comments here, I think you are solidly in a minority. Besides, for those who prefer rangefinder focusing, there are the Leica M, the Leica ME and the Leica M Monochrom. However, it is a myopic approach to changes in the marketplace that almost brought Leica to its knees a few years back. Then the thinking was that digital photography was not desired by Leica owners. As it turned out, the switch to digital photography is what ultimately saved Leica. Offering an M Leica with autofocus would certainly expand the market for that camera and its lenses.

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    1. Why is it that some Leica owners can't see that their ultra conservative demands ultimately work against the well being of the company?

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    2. Luckily this kind of thinking does not prevail at Leica Camera AG any longer.

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