"Cartier-Bresson once famously said that his Leica "became the extension of [his] eye, prowling the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to 'trap life'-to preserve life in the act of living." That's a little harder to accomplish with Leica's new camera. Today, Leica is launching the M EV1. It's the first M camera with a digital viewfinder, meaning the M's most distinct asset-its beautiful optical viewfinder-is no more."
"For the last seven decades, the soul of the Leica M has been its optical rangefinder viewfinder. For those not obsessed with cameras, this is a beautiful, entirely mechanical system of mirrors and prisms. When you look through it, you see the world directly, as if through a window, but with a ghostly "double image" in the center. To focus, you turn a ring on the lens, and this second image moves. When it perfectly overlaps with the main image, your subject is in focus."
"This system, first pioneered by Leica, made the M camera the tool that defined 20th-century photojournalism. Its compact, quiet, and discreet nature allowed photographers like Robert Capa to get closer to their subjects than ever before, capturing history as it unfolded without intrusion. The M was more than a camera; it was a philosophy of seeing, demanding a manual, deliberate approach that became synonymous with the craft of photography itself."
Henri Cartier-Bresson viewed his Leica as an extension of his eye that enabled him to 'trap life' by prowling the streets. Leica has introduced the M EV1, the first M camera to use a digital electronic viewfinder, removing the traditional optical rangefinder. The optical rangefinder is a mechanical mirrors-and-prisms system that produces a ghostly double image used for precise, lag-free manual focusing. The Leica M's compact, quiet, and discreet design enabled closer, unobtrusive photojournalism and fostered a manual, deliberate philosophy of seeing. Replacing the optical viewfinder with an artificial display alters that direct, unfiltered visual connection.
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